We just recently heard of a story that we’ve never encountered before. That is, Goodreads deleting one-star ratings of a mysterious GR Giveaway carpet bomber. If you read the emails we received below, you will see for yourself (we blacked out any identifying information):
This is another sign that Goodreads is headed in a much better, more author-friendly direction. Hopefully, this sort of thing will continue.
In a previous post, we mentioned Wattpad and described it to our readers as:
A “type and publish as you go” website for authors
Well, now we would like to add a bit more to our documentation of Wattpad in order to warn our readers and also warn potential or existing Wattpad members. For the most part, it’s a site that is fairly bully-free, at least among its members. The same cannot be said of its management, however. Just recently, we were tipped off to a story of injustice on the site, an injustice that happened to a very popular author (we will call him G) who was trying to help another author after she was harshly bullied. We will give you screenshots and proof as to what happened, and describe how it relates to our post on notorious bully, Linda Hilton, and the recent carpet bombs on her books.
First, we will start with Rants ‘n Stuff published by a friend of G who wanted to vent his frustrations about the incident (we’ve blacked any identifying information):
We also found another person who chimed in in a comment thread discussing the topic:
(Note: “hates” refers to a book of essays G was writing.)
Although the author of the article, Rants ‘n Stuff, will not name this member of hq who lied, we have no reservations in doing so. His name is Nick Uskoski and he is a member of the Wattpad Support Team:
He sounds very professional, doesn’t he?
Think again. We have screenshots that reveal his true colors. Here, he is mocking G, the author he banned:
In these screenshots, he calls G a troll and a tool:
In this next one, he continues to make derogatory comments about him:
We also have evidence that Nick doesn’t even follow Wattpad protocol:
So, how did this all get started? What was Nick’s excuse for banning G?
Well, the answer goes back to the post we did on Linda Hilton. G read Linda’s comment saying she supported down-rating authors’ books as a form of “punishment”:
Then, he shared this with his friends and followers on Wattpad, telling them that he did not agree, but specifically stating that he did not wish any harm to be brought down on her for saying it. He also shared with his WP friends the story of another author who was just recently bullied by Linda and her ilk from BookLikes. As a result, Linda’s books were suddenly carpet-bombed to oblivion and the bullied author received over 100 5-star ratings on her books. The devastation done to Linda’s books was out of G’s control, but he was nonetheless blamed for it.
Now, how does this get back to Nick? In order to retaliate against G, Linda contacted Wattpad, i.e. Nick, and made up a story that G had sent her death threats, which was a complete lie. She even admits to making up a story in this screenshot below:
Then, Nick, already having a grudge against G, decided to ban him permanently from Wattpad with NO warning or explanation. And that’s how it all happened. An abusive WP admin gets a hold of a lie coming from one of Goodreads’ and BookLikes’ notorious bullies and decides to ban an innocent person with no warning.
Pretty shitty, isn’t it?
That’s not all. To add insult to injury, G’s friends started a discussion thread on the topic, asking what happened to him. They were told to remain silent by WP management and their thread was closed:
So, this is why we are warning our readers about Wattpad. We realize that many authors love the site and rightfully so, just be careful of corrupt WP mods and managers. Apparently, there are some bad apples among them.
We were just recently tipped off to this Facebook post by an author who was bullied on Amazon to a degree that we haven’t yet seen. Down-rating a book to “punish” an author, calling the author a b**** or other derogatory names, or even making efforts to destroy their career are bad enough, but this is just unacceptable (we’ve blacked out certain parts to protect author identity):
Reviews such as these need to be flagged and reported to Amazon right away. This kind of author bullying should never be tolerated.
This just in. Another bully was banned from Goodreads.
Each time we hear of a bully being banned, we will report it to let our readers know that GR is slowly getting safer. It hasn’t yet met our standards for author-friendliness, but it’s getting closer.
For those of you who know Anne Rice, she’s been a beacon of hope and a heroine in the fight against online bullying, in particular, the online bullying of authors. Just recently she posted a of her intention to publish a pamphlet describing her experience with the online bullies she encountered while posting in the Amazon fora. Of course, we all know who these bullies are. We’ve been warning people about them for three years now. What’s great about this pamphlet is that it will continue to spread the word about the dangers of certain online hangouts for authors. After all, to protect them, education (and thus prevention) is the key. Below is a screenshot of her post.
We encourage all authors, Amazon customers, or anyone else who has been bullied online to share your stories with her. You can contact her through her or email .
Thank you, Anne, for giving authors this opportunity!
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