Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ

For anyone else who is slow like me and missed the news, GR is now part of Amazon. Here's the official announcement (and commentary thereon). http://www.goodreads.com/blog/show/41...?

Crap. There goes the neighbourhood.

Because they're in the business of selling books. Not genuine discussions & critiques on literature. This is a site set up for readers. Amazon is a company set up for authors. BIG difference.

I don't know what you have in mind when you talk about "trolling" BTW either. But Amazon have a crap record when it comes to censorship of both books & reader reviews.

My own, already initiated, move away from Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ, towards LibraryThing has increased its momentum.

Up until today, when friends and Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ' commentators remarked upon my "dual citizenship" with LibraryThing, one of the inevitable criticisms that would always surface was that LibraryThing was "too influenced" by Amazon.com.

It is a fact that one of the older-term, minority investors at LibraryThing is a very small bookseller (AbeBooks) that has been more-recently purchased by Amazon. But that small bookseller is neither the majority nor the controlling investor at LibraryThing. One of the most important "owners" of LibraryThing is its own members who contribute very small membership fees.

However, today Amazon.com announced its

...........of Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ.

Henceforth, Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ will be wholly owned by Amazon.

So, there is sufficient motivation for my migration towards LibraryThing to significantly increase its momentum.

In the very recent past, I've already copied the far greater majority of my reviews over to LibraryThing. Now that "copy" will become "move". I will be moving my entire database over to LibraryThing.

It is also likely that my own, writing will be renovated to include review space. My own database does not belong to Amazon nor to Otis.

For Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ to have a "marketing component" to its existence is understandable. But for it to morph completely into a shill for a bookseller that I avoid anyway is contrary to my interests in participation.

Copied from my Profile Page.

What they said. GR is about readers discussing books with other readers, Amazon is about selling books. If they behave typically with GR, the readers become commodities to be be marketed to book sellers (and, no, I'm not in denial that there is quite a bit of marketing going on already).

A lot of people who commented in the above link were excited that their reviews would be linked to both sites. If you look at Amazon's terms of service, any reviews or comments on their site can be used however and wherever they want, along with the name of the person attached to the reviews. I'm not planning to write free marketing copy for Amazon. Sadly, many people would probably be thrilled to see their reviews used that way.

Whitney wrote: "What they said. GR is about readers discussing books with other readers, Amazon is about selling books. If they behave typically with GR, the readers become commodities to be be marketed to book se..."

I don't have to worry about that. My reviews are always turned down by Amazon. Apparently the words I use aren't family-friendly enough. Fuckers.

Ruby wrote: "I don't have to worry about that. My reviews are always turned down by Amazon. Apparently the words I use aren't family-friendly enough. Fuckers..."

Nope, you just have to worry about your reviews being taken down when they start enforcing the same BS on Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ.

Whitney wrote: "Nope, you just have to worry about your reviews being taken down when they start enforcing the same BS on Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ. ..."

Exactly.

Just saw the email GR sent librarians too. The fact that they're saying "Don't worry", so much is a bad sign. That usually means there's something to worry about. If they're going to be using Amazon data for the book entries, I hope that doesn't mean it has to be sold on Amazon to be listed here, or something similar.

Mosca wrote: "For Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ to have a "marketing component" to its existence is understandable. But for it to morph completely into a shill for a bookseller that I avoid anyway is contrary to my interests in participation...."

This is my concern too, Mosca. I started this group because I was finding that other discussion groups I had been participating in were becoming far too commercial. There were fewer genuine discussions about books, and more giveaways, promotions, review exchanges for members' books etc. The few discussions that I saw going on were either of the "I loved your book. It was really good. Didn't everyone else love this book?" variety or the "I have a very serious question - should I use the red cover or the blue cover for my book?" variety.

This is why I discourage self-promotion and most forms of marketing in Chaos Reading. There are already far too many writers on GR who believe that the site's main purpose is marketing their books. I'm not in favour of anything that blurs that line even further.

You are running a site that is both admirable and anarchic--with the good implication, as in Emma Goldberg :)

I wonder how such groups will fare under Amazon's benevolent protection?

Maybe the name here should be changed to
"Favorite Disney Films"

Ruby wrote: "Just saw the email GR sent librarians too. The fact that they're saying "Don't worry", so much is a bad sign. That usually means there's something to worry about..."

Amazing how the rhetoric is always the same. I've worked for smaller companies that were sold to large corporations. The initial message is always "don't worry, we love this company the way it is, that's why we bought it! We won't be making any fundamental changes, just using our larger resources to make some improvements." What this invariably means is that in a year they will be closing down the plant and outsourcing 90% of the jobs to China. The luckier workers will get to stick around an extra month and train their replacements. At least in those cases, no one was under any illusions that it was anything except a profit making venture. At GR, the owners are making a VERY tidy profit, much of it due to people improving the site for free, thinking it was a labor of love.

Sadly, there are plenty of people who are happy for the corporate change, who will be glad to have all their books linked to Amazon, to have their reviews used to sell books, and to be inundated with targeted marketing. Us cranks looking for a 'purer' experience really don't matter to them.

This lends credence to those of us who are not at all delighted by this Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ sell-off to Amazon.com.

Mosca wrote: "This Article on Salon lends credence to those of us who are not at all delighted by this Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ sell-off to Amazon.com." The writer of this article is right in saying that any data you have anywhere on the internet is already in an unknown number of data bases being sold to marketing, My problem with this deal is it is just one more step in the elimination of hard copy books and bookstores, I like my e-reader but its beginning to look like I may be contributing to the demise of hard copy books. If that is the case, the Kindle is gone.

Karen wrote: "Mosca wrote: "This Article on Salon lends credence to those of us who are not at all delighted by this Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ sell-off to Amazon.com." The writer of this article is right in saying that any da..."

I tend to think, as soon as you post something online the data is there for anyone who wants it anyway. My concern is that anyone Amazon doesn't like - be they reader, writer, whoever - and anything they don't want - candid opinion, or free speech - will be pushed out.

I hadn't looked at it from the perspective of making us complicit in the demise of the hard copy book. That's a disturbing thought..

Mosca wrote: "You are running a site that is both admirable and anarchic--with the good implication, as in Emma Goldberg :)
I wonder how such groups will fare under Amazon's benevolent protection?
Maybe the name here should be changed to
"Favorite Disney Films" ..."

Hehehe. I'm tempted to change the Group name to "Amazon Are Fucktards" just to see what happens..

I just popped over to the GR App facebook page & had a look at their announcement (which was extremely creepy in a dystopian kind of way - come and hear more "Good News" about our "new family") and trawled some of the comments. It's fairly easy to spot the comments from writers, isn't it?
"I just love Amazon. Their service is so quick and friendly!"
"IMO Amazon is the place for everything books!"- That's an actual comment, BTW.

"I'm tempted to change the Group name to "Amazon Are Fucktards"

I can certainly feel your intent.

Yes.

But I've been accused, in my life, of being a survivor.

And it seems to me that edgy Groups and threads, such as the Readers of Chaos need to survive , first and foremost.

And survival precedes thriving.

But a group that is not actively helping to promote the purchase of books (on Amazon or not) may soon be at risk; and need not draw attention to itself with obvious tags begging removal.

I grew up in the Deep South of the US in the 1950s. And there were many groups of educated, dedicated African Americans working to promote their own survival, growth, identity, and political power.

Most all of these groups gave themselves intentionally innocuous names to draw attention away from themselves. And they survived----and won.

Mosca wrote: "But it seems to me that edgy Groups and threads, such as the Readers of Chaos need to survive first and foremost.
And survival precedes thriving...."

It was intended to be a joke, Mosca. Just clearly not that well executed! :)

I understood that Ruby. And, with respect, my reply was meant as supportive.

I've also, in my life, been accused of being overly pedantic.

Guilty as charged. ;)

I also assume any information on the internet is there far anyone to find. My problem with the Amazon agreement is that it explicitly states they can use whatever you write for whatever purposes they want.

My main concern with the Amazon buy-out is more philosophical than a concern about censorship, although I think those concerns are legitimate. Right now, GR is a site where readers talk to other readers (with an annoying dose of marketing thrown in, but at least that tends to be on a fairly basic level). With Amazon, everyone on this site becomes a commodity for Amazon's marketing efforts, much like participants on Facebook. I'm already reluctant to write anymore reviews, and I hate that every book rating becomes grist for Amazon's marketing machine.

Mark wrote: "Anyone else get a "Because you loved..." / "Order Your Copy Today" email from Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ yet? Looks like the process is complete, Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ is now a marketing tool."

No - I haven't seen anything like that. I got an invite for an author Q&A the other day, but you can unsubscribe from those if you like. Have you checked your notification settings?

I got one of those emails, but the funny thing is, I haven't read the book it said I loved, but I have read the book it recommended to me based on my love of the book I haven't read. Strange...

That's weird.

I'm finding that half the posts in the group are now showing up in my notifications as "new" - pretty much everything since March 23. Weird.

Ruby wrote: "That's weird.

I'm finding that half the posts in the group are now showing up in my notifications as "new" - pretty much everything since March 23. Weird."

I'm having the same issue. Old posts showing as "new" and some new posts not showing as notifications.

Maybe it has something to do with the outage? This is the first time in about 8 hours I've been able to reach goodreads. Doubt it was world-wide obviously but I don't think us Washingtonians were the only ones.

It was initially a limited and then a complete outage, according to isitdownrightnow.com.

I've had random things showing up as 'new' as well. Probably some glitch due to new Amazon data mining software :-)

I think the "new" tag goes wonky when posts are deleted -- I know some people are deleting their accounts in response to the amazon takeover, and if a bunch of comments disappear from a thread it can throw the count off and cause the "new" tag to appear (or not appear when it should). I saw a discussion of that bug/issue in another group, not sure if it's the case here as well.

Riona wrote: "I think the "new" tag goes wonky when posts are deleted -- I know some people are deleting their accounts in response to the amazon takeover, and if a bunch of comments disappear from a thread it c..."

Ah, interesting. Ruby, do you have any way of checking this?

The "What are you reading right now?" thread keeps showing up as new, over and over and over.

Whitney wrote: "Ah, interesting. Ruby, do you have any way of checking this? ..."
Sadly, no. I did delete one comment from another thread though, and I don't believe that caused any comment count issue like the one Riona was talking about.

I'm going to choose to believe it's an outage issue, and nothing I actually have to do anything about. Like rejoining the GR Feedback Group for instance.

Warning. Overly-Long Rambly Post Ahead..

So it's been a while since I logged into eReaderIQ, which is the site I use to track when books I'm after come out cheaply on Kindle. I've been wishing there was a way to import my GR to-read shelf to the site, so that I can grab a bargain and rein in my TBR at the same time. Just had a look & I see that you can now import your Amazon Wishlist to eReaderIQ. And I'm sure it won't be long before you can import your GR TBR to your Amazon wishlist, thanks to our new benevolent leaders. Sadly, I am still excited by this.

Which reminds me of a story I read a while back in the Brave New Worlds anthology. I read it as a pretty standard dystopian tale set in the near future, where your internet implant customises everything you see, based on your browser history. To the extent that you only see what your browser shows you, and you have no way of accessing the world unfiltered.

At the time, I thought it was a bit patronising and heavy-handed. Then I realised, I'm already in that world. I started thinking about Google plus, and how I've chosen quick and convenient searches over privacy. I keep coming back to that story every time I link an account.

This week, I got a bunch of new gadgets. I got to experience a browser with no preferences, and was SO irritated by the stupid results that were being returned. Again, I remembered that I had chosen convenience over privacy. But you know what? I'm still choosing to do it. I can't help myself. What does it say when even people who know they're being manipulated choose to opt in anyway?

Anyway. Just had to get that concern/celebration/self-conflict off my chest.

The short story I was talking about was The Perfect Match by Ken Liu, by the way. It's available free online here:

Ruby wrote: "Warning. Overly-Long Rambly Post Ahead..

So it's been a while since I logged into eReaderIQ, which is the site I use to track when books I'm after come out cheaply on Kindle. I've been wishing the..."

I have the same conflict. And it's not just the privacy issue. Every time I click on a rating for Netflix, GR, et. al., or fill out one of those 'short surveys', it irks me that I'm basically doing free work for those for-profit companies. But the convenience of those tailored recommendations calls out. And we also lose a lot of discovered experience by sussing so many things out on the internet ahead of time.

The Ken Liu story was a tad heavy-handed, but I think it accurately portrayed the relationship between people and internet companies. We are their commodities more than we are their customers, and it's our own damn fault.

ooh! I'm always up for another Ken Liu story.

I'm not that concerned. I've been net-stalked, and still use my real name online in many places. I know I'm mostly relying on security-through-obscurity: anybody who really wants to find out about me probably can, but except here on GR my 'net presence is fairly small, and I only ever fill out surveys for feedback on "customer support" (they're almost always negative).

This attitude is why I haven't been involved in this particular thread—I'm just not that scared of Amazon. No matter if they change GR's terms of service they can never own anything I've already posted here. Sure, they can steal my reviews—but Google's been doing that for years (they only post about 5 lines and call it "fair use" but most of my reviews are shorter than that).

I don't believe Amazon wants to eliminate the physical book—or they wouldn't have CreateSpace. Still, I also can't say the general demise of physical books scares me. Technology changes. I don't know that anybody today misses scrolls�.

I just finished The Perfect Match. I agree it was a bit heavy-handed. Centillion is a pun. When Google registered their name, it was supposed to be Googol, but somebody screwed up (Don't ask me how I knew that—I just heard it last week, and I already forget where). A googol is just a very large number: 10^100. A centillion is an even larger number.

Derek wrote: "I don't believe Amazon wants to eliminate the physical book—or they wouldn't have CreateSpace. Still, I also can't say the general demise of physical books scares me. Technology changes. I don't know that anybody today misses scrolls..."

I hadn't heard the conspiracy theories about Amazon ending physical books. I'm pretty sure the only conspiracy Amazon engages in is making money however they can. I also share your blasé attitude about the supposed demise of print books. As much as I love them (mostly as fetish objects :-), every time someone tells me that ebooks aren't 'real' books I ask them where their illuminated manuscripts are.

Slightly sideways to the topic, if you want another great Ken Liu story I suggest 'Mono no Aware', available here:

Whitney wrote: "I hadn't heard the conspiracy theories about Amazon ending physical books."

I'm not sure about "conspiracy theories", but I was actually responding to #16, above. Amazon, like most corporations, would like to become a monopoly. They don't really care whether they monopolize books in print or electronically. And absolutely, the hard copy editions are fetish objects. Memories of who gave them to you, or signed them; the feel of a leather bound book; the smell. I'll always have those. I just won't actually care to read them :) I have one book that covers all of those categories—a leather bound The Master Of Ballantrae inscribed from my grandfather. I may never read it again, but if I do, it's on my Kobo.

And, yes, Mono no Aware was next on my list. Ruby introduced me to Liu with The Paper Menagerie, and I became an instant addict.

Derek wrote: "I'm not sure about "conspiracy theories", but I was actually responding to #16, above..."

Thanks for the clarification, I hadn't reread the posts. Not a conspiracy theory but probably a realistic assessment. And, as you said - things change.

"And, yes, Mono no Aware was next on my list. Ruby introduced me to Liu with The Paper Menagerie, and I became an instant addict..."

Yep, that was my first exposure too (thanks, Ruby)! Ken Liu is going places, for sure. I've been doling out the stories available online and haven't been disappointed yet.

Derek wrote: "I'm not that concerned. I've been net-stalked, and still use my real name online in many places. I know I'm mostly relying on security-through-obscurity: ...."

It's not cyberstalking that bothers me. It's the filtering of content, even through my own my preferences. If all we ever hear about are the things we "want" to hear, how are we supposed to have an informed view of the world?

Derek wrote: "I just finished The Perfect Match. I agree it was a bit heavy-handed. Centillion is a pun. When Google registered their name, it was supposed to be Googol, but somebody screwed up (Don't ask me ho..."

Yep. And I think Tilly is meant to be a play on Siri.

It's heavy-handed, and my first instinct was to dismiss it a bit. But it has been several months now since I read the story, and I'm still seeing reminders of it all over the place.

Ruby wrote: "If all we ever hear about are the things we "want" to hear, how are we supposed to have an informed view of the world? "

Public. Radio.

I listen to about 14 hours a day.

Derek wrote: "Ruby wrote: "If all we ever hear about are the things we "want" to hear, how are we supposed to have an informed view of the world? "

Public. Radio.

I listen to about 14 hours a day."

Where do they get their info from? :)

God's mouth to their ears�

Ruby wrote: "Where do they get their info from? :) ..."

Which goes to show we all filter our information, with or without the internet. We choose to listen to public radio, others choose to listen to FOX news. As you said, without the filters you got a lot of results that held no interest for you. Google is prioritizing what we would select based on our history. As long as it's based on a neutral algorithm, it seems pretty benign. Once it starts serving the purpose of, say, the Chinese Government, then it becomes a problem.

Whitney wrote: "Once it starts serving the purpose of, say, the Chinese Government, then it becomes a problem."

Interesting perspective :-) I haven't left Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ because it took me long enough to establish a set of interesting people to have discussions with and would prefer not to convince them all to move to a different website then re-upload all books and reviews. I understand that it's this exact docile behaviour of consumers that companies like Amazon prey upon. Well, it obviously works!

A social website dedicated to books is probably the least likely place to be taken over by a consumerism because there are too many free thinkers here. We are (mostly) not the customers of games that you pay to play themselves or hypnotists that condition you to go to the gym automatically: as book readers, we're too aware of the rewards of self-motivated hard work, so there is a natural limit of docility.

Now I'm trying to think of a funny cultural reference that I can call 'the natural limit of docility'... people who watch The Big Bang Theory? I dunno.

ok I'm late to the discussion.
Abebooks was bought by Amazon? ( message 5) And here I was thinking I was supporting Amazon's competition!
I am not happy about the whole Amazon takeover, in fact, I did stay away from Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ and explored other sites but came back as this one has the most interesting comments, discussions etc. Hopefully, amazon will take a hands off approach with it.
What is disturbing is that Jeff Bezos bought the Washington Post and I don't know what to make of that. Except its a bit depressing. I lived near DC way long time ago before the internets and LOVED reading that paper. Sunday was especially grand for it had "Book World".
Anyway, After reading MaddAdam I think it is the corporations like Amazon we have to be leery of and not so much governments......well... maybe China....

Jan wrote: "Anyway, After reading MaddAdam I think it is the corporations like Amazon we have to be leery of and not so much governments......well... maybe China.... "

Well, China is essentially "The People's Republic of China, Inc." so, yeah, I agree, it's the corporations. Which is very cyberpunk.

Only became aware of this because Leo commented on it. GR's new policy for the purpose of 'protecting' GR authors.

http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/1...

No, it's not for protecting authors—the review policy is unchanged, and the shelf policy is probably doomed (I can recreate my only likely-to-be-deleted shelf in two clicks from Calibre). The major policy change is actually about author behavior. They can lose their accounts for even commenting on negative reviews.

It's a misguided attempt to make the site more civil. Good luck with that.

Derek wrote: "No, it's not for protecting authors—the review policy is unchanged, and the shelf policy is probably doomed (I can recreate my only likely-to-be-deleted shelf in two clicks from Calibre). The major..."

The shelf policy is bullshit. If someone spams us or behaves badly towards us, we should be able to shelve those books somewhere so that we know not to engage with that person or their book again.

Derek wrote: "No, it's not for protecting authors—the review policy is unchanged, and the shelf policy is probably doomed (I can recreate my only likely-to-be-deleted shelf in two clicks from Calibre). The major..."

Ah, it's obviously more complicated than initially apparent. I just saw a bunch of people complaining that their shelves and reviews had been removed without warning. And, while the policy per se is unchanged, they did make it clear they were upping the level of enforcement, which is itself a form of policy change.