We’ve been meaning to write about Jenn Fall’s article on the difference bullying and critiquing. In general, her assessement is very fair and well-balanced and we agree with her view on what constitutes bullying and what is generally an acceptable way of reviewing books. Jenn has stated very eloquently in her post what we’ve been saying for a long time. There was, however, a section of her post that we wanted to address:
We understand Jenn’s request and want to thank her for the recommendation. We will be placing a paragraph on our BBG page that explains the criteria that must be met in order for a person to earn a spot on our lists. And there is a criteria. We don’t just randomly place people there and we didn’t create it for the same reason the bullies create the BBA lists or why HuffPo created their 14 Badly Behaving Authors list. As we said in that post:
This is exactly the kind of behavior we would expect from the GR bullies and Amazon trolls. And when we show our readers (with screenshots and links) the bullies’ despicable behavior toward others, particularly authors, and when we put them on lists, we’re not doing it for the same reason in mind as the author of this HuffPo article. We’re not saying, “Look everyone! Look at what these people are doing! Don’t you hate them? Don’t you want to go out and attack them?”
When we do what we do, we are WARNING our readers about the danger of bullies out there in the cyber world. When we show our readers what the bullies do, it’s to show them what could happen to them if they cross the wrong people. And we list the bullies on our site so our readers will know who to STAY AWAY FROM so they can avoid the same pitfalls that other people have fallen into when they were attacked. We ALWAYS tell our readers to STAY AWAY and to NOT ENGAGE.
Jenn, if you are reading this, we want to let you know that we did not create our lists (BBG and Amazon Fora Trolls) to chastise the bullies or try to get them to change their behavior (although it would be nice) because we already know that that would be a complete waste of time. They would never listen. They believe it is their right to be as nasty as they want to others. They believe that “freedom of speech” gives them the right to stalk, libel, threaten, etc. Basically, to behave anyway they want. We think you can clearly see that from some of the commenters on your blog post who tried to pressure you into changing it and who are ALL listed on our site… and also whom you had to scold into behaving properly (no surprise there):
You see, there is a reason that these people are listed on our site. Every single one of them has earned a spot on our blog either by participating in an organized attack on an author (or another reader/reviewer), by leaving a bully review, and/or by leaving derogatory shelving against the author on an author’s book. If the people who are leaving these comments on your post tell you they’re innocent, they are either lying or they don’t remember. It is very easy for them to join a mob attack and then return to their lives, forgetting about what they did. But guess who doesn’t forget? The victim doesn’t forget. And guess what doesn’t lie? Screenshots don’t lie.
Just to give you an example of the kind of people who commented on your post, John Green and his friends stalked an author’s personal identifiable information (an author they blamed for our site) and published it (her address and phone number) on their blog. Shortly after that, this author received a nasty phone call and was threatened in her own home. She felt so threatened, she had to go to the police and ask her neighbors to watch her house at night. Not only that, these people spread rumors around about her that aren’t true. They libeled her to deliberately damage her reputation and ruin her career, just as they did to Melissa Douthit, MT Dismuke, and countless other authors. They think it is their right to do this.
In fact, some of them take it to the next level and wear it as a badge of honor, proud of being internet terrorists, like the Holy Terror (a GR LIBRARIAN) who jokes here with her friend, Lyn the Heartless, about being too sick to terrorize authors on GR and ruin their careers:
Here is another bully who is singing a song about cyber-stalking people as if it’s all a big game:
The bullies have one purpose when they are on the attack — destroy an author’s career. For example, you will see them , celebrating an author’s setback. We’ve seen them celebrate when authors have had enough of the bullying on GR and have left. We’ve also seen them in on how to bash an author in their reviews without getting their reviews hidden.
These people do these things and cop these attitudes because they think it makes them “badass” or in other words, they think it makes them look cool. But it doesn’t make them look cool. It just makes them look like foolish, little children. Foolish children who stomp their feet and whine when they can’t get their way, just as Jane Litte does here to Nathan Bransford. Even their reviews (the ones that aren’t bully reviews) are still mean-spirited and offensive as Nathan points out. Although technically not considered bully reviews because they focus on the book, they are still poisoning the relationship between authors and reviewers on GR, contributing to the bad blood and bitter hatred between them.
And contrary to what many of bullies say, GR is NOT just for readers, as Otis says :
“We’re in the media business today. We’re in the business of helping authors and publishers market their books to readers. And that’s where we make our money. We sell book launch packages to authors and publishers and really help accelerate, build that early buzz that a book needs to succeed when it launches and accelerate that growth through ads on the site.”
So, in conclusion, we hope this gives you a good idea of why we create our lists and why we update them and keep them published all the time. Our lists are NOT for the sake of the bullies. Our lists are for the sake of those who are not bullies. They are there to warn and protect them. Period.
