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:
Linda Hilton 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 Sinclair Humiliates a Reviewer
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 Kennedy 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:
http://blog.reallygoodstuff.com/ya-books-with-buzz-summer-2011-by-mimi-guethe/
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 Guethe, in the url of the 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 Carufel 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.
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 Horn 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 this screenshot that he sent to Carroll Bryant, telling him that it was a comment left on the announcement thread by a GR employee. Carroll, believing Rick was telling the truth, proceeded to publish a post about Kara Erickson getting 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.
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It’s sad to know that Rick is banned, but his behavior is out of control for sure. We can’t have two sides losing it. Let the trolls do that.
I knew Rick was going to get his ass handed back to him when he threatened you guys.
Funny, almost every time I read a comment from him I couldn’t help but get a really odd impression that he was trying to impress/scare someone. I was just never sure who that someone was.
Rick is clearly a very troubled man. I’d say it’s best to leave him alone. There’s no point in kicking a man when he’s so obviously down unless you’re Angela Horn.
We’ve already taken that approach with him and trust me, he is never down. A lot of people have tried to reason with Rick, but he doesn’t listen and he constantly pretends to be the victim. He’s not the victim. He is becoming one of the bullies. He lashes out at anyone who disagrees with him and tries to bully them into agreeing with him. Much like the bullies do to others. No, he’s not down.
I meant he’s probably not a genuine threat. He’s clearly several sandwiches short of a picnic, but if you look back and see at all the threats he’s made of mommy getting carted off for cyberterrorism and such, how many of them have come true?He’s just a troubled internet crazy.
Not a threat. You’re right, but he does pretend to be a victim while at the same time using the same tactics as the bullies. We just want people to know that they should take what he tells them with a grain of salt.
Yeah, Rick makes the average indie author look bad.
The article I thought was pretty even handed though. It’s a small group of dinks on both sides making a fuss. While the people here don’t act like jerks, and STGRB has been very vocal about not fighting fire with fire, there are indie authors that don’t understand common decency. See Rick for an example.
And Angela Horn, the female version of Rick. Two of kind, those two.
This actually proves our point about the article. This isn’t a conflict between authors and reviewers. It’s a conflict between bullies and their victims. Once you start resorting to criminal and unethical activity like they do, you become one of the bullies.
The Salon writer should pay attention to how many authors are AFRAID to come forward. That says a lot right there about a very real danger for them. That the bullies ARE doing damage, and the authors are fully aware of it. The authors know what will happen if they come forward…
…unless you’ve already been attacked. At that point, you might as well come forward because no apology you ever give will lighten the continued attacks.
Good point, Booklover. I was very disappointed with the article. I thought she made a very good case for something that is not really happening (bickering between small groups of authors and readers). It makes for a good story, but it’s not actually true.
The reality is the bullies on Goodreads have been organized in packs, and rapaciously and without mercy tear into authors with intent to destroy. This has been going on for years, and several authors have had their careers destroyed. But the Goodreads policy change was not actually about THAT. At least I don’t think it was.
I highly suspect that the horrible and completely unprovoked troll attack on Nathan Bransford was the straw that broke the camel’s back. The Industry, with all of its power, had started to take notice of Goodreads. Authors were refusing to put their books up, and agents were supporting them. Porter Anderson wrote an analysis of the bullying. But when Mr. Bransford, who is a former agent (and is clearly beloved in the Publishing Industry), put up a diplomatic post that drew trolls by the dozen, I think the Industry got behind him. Those trolls made made death threats in the comments, sent hostile tweets, immediately one-starred his book, and made horrible shelves about him, all in response to a blog post.
It was so obviously an unwarranted attack, so clearly undeserved that it was impossible to defend. And it was a terrible move on the part of the trolls. It sounded their death knoll. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that within weeks Goodreads had a new policy.
I’m really surprised Laura didn’t happen on this. I really hope that the authors STGRB is referring to her will help her see the bigger picture. This is not a small catfight. It is a situation that was completely out of control. There may have been a few authors targeting readers, but it was absolutely nothing compared to the organized and relentless gangs that would descend on writers, completely unprovoked and undeservedly.
This was not two groups haggling over the future of reviews. It was an opening for organized cyber-bullying that was absolutely terrifying.
That is a great point, Clarity. I remember when Bransford wrote that and all the flak he got from the GR crowd. Personally I’d always been on the fence about who started what because I wasn’t around for the beginning. After watching how they tore into one of the widely regarded nice guys in the publishing industry, things became clear.
I always try to stay out of personal squabbles and have had a really good experience on GRs. The ones who attacked Bransford proved they’re bullies, and possibly psychotic, though.
And the bully attacks against Nathan on GR are still up there. Those one-star ratings with vicious comments are the best example of the bully GR mentality there is.
You’re right, Clarity. It’s not a coincidence that within a couple weeks of the attack on Nathan, GR changed its policy. The bullies dug their own grave when they did that to him.
Have you guys seen Rick’s new post? Wow!
Yes, and he’s lying again. He never got that information from us. We never published anything like that on our blog. As for the screenshot, ask Carroll what happened. Carroll said he sent it to him.
I think Rick is so used to lying, he doesn’t know when to stop. Also, he seems to forget that it was the STGRB treasury that helped him with his DMCA takedown. That money has been mostly funded by us and has always been used to help other people. Johnny, Stitch, Tink, Peter and I used to put money in regularly. Not anymore, though, since we will be retiring STGRB after our Carpet Bombers Series, but to claim that we have been doing all of this for money is ludicrous. It’s really insulting after all the work we’ve put into this blog to help people. I have to agree with Johnny. We let people know what happened with Rick so they will know not to take anything he says too seriously. Unfortunately, he’s very good at getting people to believe that he’s a victim.
I knew the shit would fly after they attacked Nathan. He’s got way too many high level contacts in the publishing world for GRs not to take notice of the way they treated him.
Hey I just realized that if Laura Miller wants names, JudyAnn McCole, and especially Melody, would be perfect candidates. JudyAnn has already gone public, and Melody is a perfect example of the bullies targeting the wrong person based on false assumptions and then calling in the cavalry to trample her. And she’s a reader, not an author.
Uhm. Sorry Mr. Delusional. I go by an alias because of what I do for a living. I don’t want some sex-crazed nutjob finding out where I live OR the physical address of where I work to come here and attack me. I have enough problems just talking to some of our customers on the phone, let alone have them actually hunt me down.
You see the irony in his post? This is someone who was banned from our blog for using the alias of Mary Shelly and lying to our blog readers. Not only that, he calls the bullies criminals when he engages in the same criminal behavior that they do.
It cracks me up.
I never really trusted Rick. But didn’t think it was my place to say anything. I’ve always trusted Carroll completely, and everyone else here. But Rick made me wonder.
In hindsight, I wish one of us had had your radar. I usually pride myself at spotting bad seeds, but it was Peter who said that Rick rubbed him the wrong way. For the most part, we trusted him until he started talking about hackers. That’s when we realized he was just like the bullies.
I don’t know if you’ve seen it yet, but Jane Litte has a post up that’s out of character even for her this time. She’s now making claims…not alleging…that STGRB is luring reviewers into contests in order to dox them. Mabye I got that wrong. I’m not sure. But you might want to check that out.
Better yet, she could contact me if she liked.