Before we get to our first carpet bomber, we wanted to share this with you. Our blog readers have been contacting Amazon about what is currently happening on GR and Amazon is responding:
For all those who are worried about the carpet bombs on your books, you will be happy to know that Amazon is investigating as Anony-mad says here:
Another fact we want to share with you is that the GR bullies are well aware that what they’re doing is called vandalism. They’re deliberately corrupting the GR database, as Karma Bites (aka ETA:soon) says here:
This is why we started our Carpet Bombers Series. As we said in that post:
Why are we starting the Carpet Bombers Series? Because we want to show our readers the evidence we’ve found that proves that there is a substantial amount of invalid data (i.e. fake reviews/ratings) within the GR database, a database that Otis Chandler built in order to sell and make money. The GR team is currently advertising this database as a legitimate “critical mass of book reviews” through their API without putting a disclaimer on the API that states exactly what Otis says .
Otis Chandler knows very well that there is invalid data in the GR database and yet allows this data to pass through the API to MILLIONS OF USERS ACROSS THE WORLD, thus deceiving the public who will believe that these ratings/reviews were done in good faith. This is DECEPTION and is a violation of the FTC’s rules and regulations. Otis states that he doesn’t know how to prevent fake data in the database, but we all know there is one very easy solution. DELETE THESE USERS! Goodreads needs to start deleting the users who are leaving these obviously false ratings/reviews.
Now, our first carpet bomber is one of the nastier bullies who is also a member of Jane Litte’s Dear Author crowd. In archived posts (that we haven’t yet reposted from our old site), we showed our readers how Linda HIlton paraded around Amazon under the sock-puppet named Tansy Gold, and with the DA trolls, terrorized authors she accused of writing 5-star reviews on their books. At the same time, she was also writing 5-star reviews on her own books (under Tansy Gold), which we screen-grabbed and sent to Amazon in a report. Afterward, those reviews were immediately removed. Linda doesn’t just attack authors, either. You can read about her harassing another GR reviewer in Linda Hilton Harasses Reviewer.
If you take a look on , you will see that she associates with the some of the worst of the worst of the GR trolls:
And if you take a look at , you will see OVER 500 CARPET BOMBS she made in FOUR DAYS! We took screenshots of all of them when we screen-grabbed her shelves from the 24th to the 27th of September. Of the screenshots we took, there were simply too many to post, so we will only include the following (the rest are in our archives):
« Booklikes CEO May Have Answer to Troll Problem Dawid Piaskowski Says Trolls Will Get “Troll” Status on Booklikes »
One of the trolls, a Turkish carpet-bomber by the moniker, “Meltem,” must have gotten the “shape up or ship out message” from GR. I see now that 86 1-star rated books now have no ratings; but Meltem has instead moved these books (many by the likes of Anne Rice, Hugh Howey, etc.) to a new personal list she labels, “Blacklist.” It appears that Meltem got the message. She, however, warrants very close scrutiny. Do report further misbehavior here and to GR.
Interesting. Very, very interesting. She was on my list.
She’s on our BBG list. She’s been there for a while.
Let me get this straight.
Linda Hilton is part of the Dear Author crowd.
Linda Hilton used a sock named Tansy Gold to 5* all her books.
Linda Hilton stalked, harassed, and 1* books of authors who she deemed to be a BBA.
Linda Hilton carpet bombs 100′s of books with fake 1* ratings.
Time for Linda Hilton to grow up and learn what the word accountability means. Since the shoe does fit, I would bet money that Linda Hilton also uses a sock on Goodreads. I’m also curious as to why she is allowed to be part of the BBA Group and harass authors if she, being an author herself, has broken their golden rules. In the end, they are just a group of internet terrorists.
They have created a new list called “Offensive Authors”, and have placed Holy teachings/books on that list!!! The Quran, Bible, Mormon books! That is too far! No ones religious beliefs should be attacked! Goodreads please can this outrage! I’m truly disgusted now!
Thanks again for all the data and for your vigilance!
That’s good news about Amazon and Meltem (comment above).
500 one star reviews in 4 days. It’s really shocking to scroll down and look at those screens. It’s very revealing of who she is. Someone who will hurt and damage other people without thought just because she is upset about something.
First of all, who has time for this and more importantly, what kind of satisfaction does she get out of it? What a fool this person is. Crazy, crazy crazy-pants.
What should we do if notice the carpet bombings happening? Just email GR explaining it and send them the link of the user? Or should we use screen shots as well to send them? Any feedback would be helpful…
Thanks!
Take screenshots and send them to both Amazon and GR. The emails for Nader and Jeff Bezos are above.
And please let us know the names of the bombers so we can keep track of anyone new arriving on the scene. I have a list of 30+ individuals already on the watch list.
Thanks. I will do that. So far the two people that I have encountered are on the carpet bombers list here. In2books and a sock named Amanda. I have reported them…Hopefully it helps
Linda Hilton just went through all the books by someone named Betty Webb, giving them all one star. Is it just part of the continuing one-star-everyone-and-everything or does she have it in for this woman for some reason?
Kinda hard to tell when she also one-starred every book out there by L. Frank Baum.
It’s fascinating to me to see how the meaning of a one-star rating has evolved, thanks to this Moral Majority of the online book world. Originally it meant “This book sucks.” But then we were told that it might mean “The book might or might not suck, but the author does,” but then it could mean “I don’t know if the book sucks or not, but I’m not interested in reading it.” Now it just means “I’m enraged at something else that has absolutely nothing to do with the book, like maybe the policies of the website that has an entry on this book, but I’m going to take my anger out on this book, and screw anybody who has a problem with it.” But, you know, authors have no business looking at this stuff, because it’s intended for the readers — or something.
LMAO! Good point, Karig!
It looks like Betty Webb and the 1000 other one stars are gone.
Wonder if we’ll be getting a blog post explaining that.
This chick is also just an epi-bitch. Normally, I don’t believe in calling people names, but in this case she deserves it. She tore me a new one when I tried to share my story on the official Goodreads thread about the changes, and explain why it’s necessary from the author’s point of view.
Unfortunately, at that stage I was still Anony-sad, so I didn’t think to screenshot the conversation.
At this point, Linda is taunting about how she has 1-starred 1,000 books in one day:
I don’t know how to screenshot – copy/pasted from the Goodreads thread about the announcement. A litlle reluctant to do this, since I suspect she thrives on attention and was hoping someone would pick it up. But still:
—————
message 4744: by Linda (new)
1 hour, 14 min ago
Linda Hilton (Linda_AHS66_Hilton) | 147 comments ’s –
I stated that I 1-starred 1,000 books yesterday and I’m still here. Goodreads hasn’t banned me for doing that. That means it’s within the same Terms of Service you’re praising Kara and the rest of the GR staff for upholding.
I was not “trolling.” In fact, you have no idea what I was doing or why. I may have been 1-starring books that I thought were poorly written or that I had no interest in reading. Why is that disgraceful? Isn’t that what we’re supposed to do? Or at least isn’t that what we’re allowed to do under the Terms of Service?
You leapt to an assumption, Jenna’s, based on preconceptions. You don’t know what books I one-starred or why, but you automatically think I did something wrong
That is just too cute by half. We DO know what books she one-starred — (duh!) — and just from the comment (“I 1-starred 1,000 books yesterday and I’m still here”), it’s a pretty safe guess that she did this just because she’s an entitled little princess who reacts to being told “no” by getting into a snit and doing something vindictive and childish and absurd.
(And again, why does Goodreads allow people to rate books one-star as a way of saying merely “I’m not interested” when such ratings do nothing but make books look worse than they really are? How does this help readers? Most books aren’t going to be interesting to more than a small percentage of all readers, so if one-star means “I’m not interested,” then nearly every book on the planet is going to be a one-star book (including such intimidating classics as War and Peace and The Brothers Karamazov and In Search of Lost Time), in which case there’s no longer a distinction between decent books and badly written ones. How is this helpful to people who aren’t looking for books and people to trash?)
I agree that this “1-star means I’m not interested” makes zero sense, particularly when it brings down an author’s score. Just plain dumb.
With GR finally serious about cleaning the site up just after Amazon’s takeover, I’ll wager the new team there would be receptive to well-thought-out suggestions for reform. Perhaps members of this site could put together a list of suggested changes that could then be submitted to Bezos and Nader.
She has now posted a completely nonsensical explanation for why she one starred 1000 books:
I would really appreciate it if anybody could explain it to me.
I’m not sure I can explain it — she won’t even say what she’s accused of. But you gotta love how she begins by exonerating herself in this highfalutin’ fashion –
– and ends with this attempt at moral extortion:
Attagirl, princess. You just keep on puffing your chest out and asserting your moral superiority, girlfriend. Because people who call you out for perpetrating destructive acts of mischief that make life harder for other people are just creepy stalkers, you know.
Sheesh.
She’s trying to make a lame excuse for the douchebag move she committed the other day. We know she’s full of shit because of her comment to Jenna: https://stopthegrbullies.com/2013/09/30/carpet-bomber-3-amanda/
She says, “I 1-starred almost 1,000 books yesterday. I’m still here.” She deserves to get called out.