If you are ever the victim of a bully attack, don’t:
1. Panic
2. Respond
3. Engage with them
4. Retaliate by writing revenge reviews (if the bullies are authors, many of them are)
If you are ever the victim of a bully attack, do:
1. Ignore them
2. Document everything
3. Take screenshots
4. Flag their comments
5. Let GR or Amazon know
6. Block them
7. Report them to the proper authorities
8. Speak out about it in private with a support group
Stalking and harassing someone and/or sabotaging their careers online is a criminal offense and should be reported to the appropriate authorities. Here are a few links that may help in the fight against cyber crime.
Cyber Investigation Services
FBI
DOJ
http://www.justice.gov/criminal/cybercrime/
Report Cyber Stalkers
http://www.ic3.gov/default.aspx
http://www.fightcyberstalking.org/
http://quitstalkingme.com/report-a-cyberstalker/
Helpful links:
http://www.cyberguards.com/CyberStalking.html
Internet Defamation:
http://www.callawyer.com/clstory.cfm?eid=928446&wteid=928446_Remedies_for_Web_Defamation
For more information on cyber-bullying, cyber-stalking and cyber-harassment, please read:
You don’t talk about distinguishing between a bad review and a malicious attack. I’ve heard some authors asking Amazon to remove any negative review they get, which is inappropriate. As much as we hate it, reviewers who don’t like our books are entitled to say so. I would hate to see the lines blurred so much that anyone who is negative is classed as a bully.
Yeah, we do talk about that distinction in many places on our blog. Did you miss it?
Gkparker, maybe you should actually read the blog before posting stupid comments. Go here:
https://stopthegrbullies.com/2013/03/18/more-bully-lies/
Then scroll down a little. See where it says:
There is a HUGE difference between a bully review and a negative review (otherwise known as bad reviews, or critical or unfavorable reviews). A negative review focuses on the book and addresses the issues the reader has with the BOOK. A bully review usually uses profane language and always focuses on the AUTHOR. See the difference? Bully reviews are usually written as personal attacks on the author in order to deliberately cause damage to said author and his/her career.
Did you see that? Uh huh, yeah, thought not. There are a million places on the site where STGRB makes this distinction. Next time, do some research. Don’t post ignorant comments and waste STGRB’s time. They have enough to do already.
We also talk about it here, in our Learn More pages:
https://stopthegrbullies.com/learn-more/what-is-a-gr-bully/
It describes what a GR bully is and lists the behaviors that make them bullies. It also says:
“We do not consider honest, critical reviews of books to be bullying. However, we do consider attacks on authors and other GR members to be bullying. We also consider attacking an author’s book for revenge and/or rating and reviewing an author’s book without reading it first to be bullying behavior as well.”
As Anony Wan Kenobi said, please read our site before making such claims.
Hi…wish I had found this site before I did everything you *aren’t* supposed to do… I have a question, though. Where it says “Let GR or Amazon know” I’m not sure how to contact anyone on GR. With Amazon, I’m aware of the nearly invisible “contact us” link at the very bottom of the Amazon book page, but with GR I’ve yet to find a way to contact anyone with any gravitas.
Please feel free to clip the following if it doesn’t add to this discussion:
I fear what led me into my current situation was that I could not find anyone to discuss the matter with on GR, and went to a group called [redacted] which is where the Librarians’ group said to go if you had suggestions to improve Goodreads. I commented on someone’s thread under [redacted] after deleting my original post wherein I asked a question about a one-star review irregularity. I had received a one-star review on a book that has been pretty consistently four stars. After several days, she hadn’t written a review so I invited her to email me and tell me what she didn’t like about the book. After several more days, when she didn’t respond, I let her know my feelings about receiving one-star without the courtesy of an explanation and I speculated as to the reasons. She removed my questions to her, said she hadn’t had time to post a review, then reposted her one-star and I received a popup warning me against commenting on her reviews!) I was curious as to how this popup occurred; if she had put it there, if a librarian had, or what. [redacted] That was my question to the group, which was pretty much ignored as the folks decided to attack my questioning receiving a one-star review, instead. I’d also parted with the idea that reviews under 3 should be required to leave a text review and that got a lot of derision and snark. I believed the thread to be for suggestions on improving GR, not a cliquey cult of attackers. Even though I’ve been on GR for a couple years I rarely visit it as it seems childish, so I’m still not clear where to go with my questions.
Oh honey, you did pretty much the worst thing you can do. I’m so sorry. It’s probably too late to stop your impending attack now, but I can at least answer your questions.
1. The popup is automatic, and appears on any negative reviews. If you didn’t see it the first time, it’s possible that your browser may have blocked it. The popup is always there.
2. She did it because she’s a troll, most likely. That’s exactly what they do. They leave random 1 stars, then if the author makes the mistake of asking about it, then they label that author as “badly behaved” and set about destroying them.
3. Contacting GR is pretty much a waste of time, but you can contact them here:
Be warned, they’ll probably just ignore you. Good luck.
Or contact Patrick Brown at . Of course, you’ll probably have the same luck with him.