Okay, it’s been a long, busy week and the GR trolls are, as usual, up to no good.
First, we received this message from Laura Miller of the Salon:
We weren’t surprised by this. Most authors are still too afraid to speak out publicly on this subject for fear of the backlash from the trolls, but fortunately for Laura, we know many courageous, kick-ass authors who are not only not afraid, but who also stand firm on justice and civility in the cyber world. Unfortunately, by the time these authors contacted her, Laura had already published her first article on the subject, Goodreads, Where Readers and Authors Battle It Out in an Online “Lord of the Flies”:
Now, all we had to do was read the title to know that the article was going to be heavily one-sided and littered with misinformation.
First, the title assumes that what is happening on Goodreads is an author vs. reviewer war. This couldn’t be farther from the truth. As we have said countless times on our blog, this is a bullies vs. everyone else war. And it has NEVER been about negative reviews, either. It is about the bullies’ outrageous behavior against not just authors, but also other readers and reviewers. If you don’t believe this, please read:
The Attack on Lizzy Lessard
Linda Harasses Reviewer
The Amazon Fora Trolls Harass a Reviewer
If you want to see the mother of all attacks by two of our bIggest offenders (the owners of Cuddlebuggery) on GR reviewers and authors, you should read up on a story about how they humiliated a reviewer who was trying to make friends on GR and then blamed the author of the book being discussed, smearing her good name all over the blogosphere, only to be proven wrong later on:
Stephanie Humiliates a Reviewer
Melody’s Story
And when they found out that they had been wrong, what did they do? Conveniently, they wanted out of the drama that THEY had started in the first place and also refused to apologize:
Kat Wants Out of the Drama
The second mistake Laura makes is that she believes the trolls when they accuse other people of doxxing.
Okay… *sigh* The trolls don’t seem to understand what doxxing is. They seem to believe that publishing public information on a blog is doxxing. This couldn’t be more wrong. Doxxing is obtaining someone’s private information by either illegal or unscrupulous means and publishing that for the public to see (something we have NEVER done). To explain further, we will give you two examples. The first is an example of a reviewer (one of our biggest offenders) who claimed she was doxxed by an author, but who actually doxxed herself, and the second is an example of real doxxing.
The biggest offender who doxxed herself was Wendy Darling. An author, who was defending Kiera Cass after the vicious attack Wendy Darling launched against her (for full story see this post), published information she found in an article published by Wendy herself.
When Wendy discovered this, she edited the post to remove all the information she wrote about herself, like her real name (notice Wendy’s real name, Mimi G., in the url of this post?) among others things, and then she turned around and launched another vicious attack, this time on the author defending Kiera Cass. So, this is a perfect example of an author being accused of doxxing when all she did was re-publish information she found in an article online.
The second example is a case of real doxxing (that we also mention below) and was done by Rick (the convicted criminal and cyber stalker) who solicited the help of hackers to obtain the private information of a certain number of trolls on the Amazon fora:
He then published this information on his blog:
THIS is doxxing.
You got that, Wendy? Seeking people’s private information through unethical means and publishing it is doxxing. Re-publishing information that has already been published online (by you) is not.
Now, as for what Rick did, we want to make it clear that we DO NOT support it. We’ve seen the GR bullies on numerous occasions hack or attempt to hack into people’s email, Facebook, and hosting accounts in the past. One author just recently told us a story of her entire computer being hacked and her books tampered with. She first noticed it when her email began acting up. She then reported it. Her ISP is currently investigating. The point is that hacking into someone’s private account is criminal activity and is something the bullies have no qualms doing. When you resort to their behavior yourself, you become one of them. That’s pretty much how we feel about it.
Edit: We just received this screenshot of Rick denying that he ever hired hackers, even after he wrote it on his own blog:
Anyhow, getting back to the article… the third mistake Laura made was this:
First of all, the BBA Whisperer is not an anonymous blog. It is run by an independent author named Angela who was BANNED from Goodreads for her behavior toward other GR members, both authors and readers. On the other hand, we here at STGRB are not authors and our accounts on GR have not been touched. They are still there. And yet Laura refers to Angela’s blog as the reviewer faction and ours as the author faction. The irony is almost comical.
Almost.
Now, there are several other mistakes that Laura made in her article, but to cover each one here would make our post unreadably long. Fortunately, the authors we have put in contact with Laura are setting her straight and teaching her about what is really going on regarding the bullies and their online behavior. If there are any other authors reading this, who would like to join in, please contact us and we can put you in touch with Laura as well.
Okay… moving on…
Another item that has been brought to our attention is that apparently, we’ve been accused of trolling others, in particular, one person who was banned from our blog for — wait for it — trolling us. Now, for those who don’t know what trolling is, here is the definition:
In Internet slang, a troll (/ˈtroʊl/, /ˈtrɒl/) is a person who sows discord on the Internet by starting arguments or upsetting people, by posting inflammatory, extraneous, or off-topic messages in an online community (such as a forum, chat room, or blog), either accidentally or with the deliberate intent of provoking readers into an emotional response or of otherwise disrupting normal on-topic discussion.
In other words, trolling is going to someone else’s blog, site, or forum, thus entering their space, and picking a fight with the community that frequents that space. That is what trolling is and it’s something we have never done. We (meaning we who run STGRB and who shall not be named) have never gone into other people’s space and trolled them. Sure, we post information on our blog about the bullies’ behavior and our opinion of it, but that’s not trolling.
BUT! We have seen the GR bullies, the AFT, and certain other people who’ve been banned from our blog do it frequently. And when we say frequently, we mean FREQUENTLY. They’ve done it us, Nathan Bransford, Jenn Falls, Mercy Pilkington, et cetera, et cetera. The list goes on.
Now, because of our alleged “trolling” (you know, the allegations laid against us by the person who was banned from our blog for real trolling), we are apparently being sued (good luck, Rick!) And he’s also claiming that we lied.
Hmm… *scratches chin* Okay… let’s go over some facts, with a few screenshots to boot.
Now, since the trolls who stalk our blog seem to be immensely entertained by Rick’s shenanigans, for their reading enjoyment, we’ll give them a breakdown of what happened.
In a private Facebook group, Rick announced he was publishing an Amazon post to solicit hackers to hack into certain AFT members’ Amazon accounts to obtain their private information. Athena counseled Rick against doing this, but instead of listening, he insisted that she (and STGRB) had done nothing to stop the trolls and that her blog was worthless and that he was going to take action and finally get something done (by golly!).
When Athena mentioned to Rick that he hadn’t really been around long enough to see how bad the trolls’ behavior was last year, that’s when he suddenly claimed that he had been consistently harassed by the Amazon trolls for nine years and that they had originally attacked him on the fora in 2004, an event that he had NEVER previously mentioned.
Hmm… strange, that.
Here’s the screenshot of him making the claim:
When it was pointed out to him that the Amazon fora didn’t exist back in 2004, but actually , he changed his story, claiming that 2004 was a typo:
Ahhh, but he must have forgotten this in the Examiner (published this year) where he states that he has been “personally stalked for nine years by the trolls in the Amazon Forums”:
Okay, let’s do the math, shall we? 2013 minus nine years. That’s… that’s… wow! 2004!
So… basically he lied AGAIN to cover up his first lie.
But wait! Wait! He didn’t really mean to write nine years. No! No, that was another typo! He really meant to put seven years and… uh, no, wait! Actually, strike that. It was the Examiner! They misquoted him! Yeah, that’s a better story. He really said seven years and they wrote nine. Yeah… yeah… that’s it! So it really was 2006, even though the Amazon trolls didn’t exist on the fora back then. But hey, that’s a minor detail. No one will notice that, right?
*eye roll*
Another lie Rick told was that he had done all the research on GR’s fraudulent API, even though in all his rantings prior to our post, Goodreads Review Fraud, he NEVER once mentioned it. We have witnesses who can testify to this, as I stated previously in this comment:
After we published our post on GR Review Fraud, Rick claimed that it was all his idea and research. The credits at the bottom of this article were only added after the fact, when Athena and Gail Briggs forced Rick to give MT credit for MT’s claim. Originally, Rick tried to take all the credit himself of which he has none:
But… Rick wasn’t banned from STGRB for any of this. So, you’re probably wondering why he was banned. Because he used one of his socks to post a lie on our blog in an attempt to undermine our blog readers’ confidence in their ability to not only comment on our blog, but to also flag inappropriate content on GR. As Mary Shelly, he claimed that he/she had been deleted from Goodreads for posting a comment on STGRB.
Uh, right.
Mary Shelly was deleted from Goodreads because the GR mods knew “she” was Rick, who had been previously banned from GR for his behavior. It wasn’t too hard for GR to figure it out. It’s pretty easy to spot Rick’s socks. Whenever you see the words “stalker troll”, that’s him, such as in this comment he left on GR pretending to be a staff member saying that Kara Erickson was fired:
*shakes head*
Nice try, Rick. And for the record, nobody has trolled you. But if you really feel like people are trolling you, today’s your lucky day! Because we’re gonna give you a free can of troll spray and all your worries will be over.
Sorry, we couldn’t help it. We had to post that. 😀
But in all seriousness, we’re not really sure what goes through Rick’s head or why he tries to spread misinformation around. All we know is that you can’t really trust anything he says. So it’s best to take it with a grain of salt and move on.
Now, to end our post on a positive note, whoever did this, thank you! This is hilarious and we really needed the comedy relief. Two thumbs up!
For those who don’t know what this is referencing, see our post, Why Do Bullies Bully, and scroll down. You’ll see a familiar face. 😀
