Off-Topic Quotes

“At your next book club meeting, picture me sitting quietly in the corner, taking notes on your preferences. Imagine the next day you get an email from me trying to sell you a new grill — or a book — or accessories for your Glock. That's the Amazon/Goodreads deal. It's appalling. But everywhere in the press, you'll read about the genius of Amazon."
(Michael Herrmann and the booksellers of Gibson's)”
― G.R. Reader, Off-Topic: The Story of an Internet Revolt

“By deciding what is, and is not, allowed to be discussed in a review, by removing discussion of social context, and saying that only the words on the page count, Goodreads is ignoring fifty years of development of literary criticism, and is engaging in censorship.”
― G.R. Reader, Off-Topic: The Story of an Internet Revolt

“The Internet is transient. Information can be removed with a couple of mouse-clicks; it is an Orwellian dream. We have been advised, by people who claim to know about these things, that there is no point in protesting against a social network. Whoever owns the network will run it as they see fit, normally to maximize their profit margin. Members who dispute the rules will simply be thrown out. The Terms of Use are written so as not to allow them any recourse.”
― G.R. Reader, Off-Topic: The Story of an Internet Revolt

“If people wrote their reviews on paper and put them into a real, physical library, I am sure that the Goodreads administrators would be very reluctant to pull them down from shelves and burn them. When you can get rid of a piece of writing just by clicking on a few links, there’s a temptation to believe that it’s less serious. But it isn’t. It’s just less clear what you’ve done.”
― G.R. Reader, Off-Topic: The Story of an Internet Revolt

“No, I have never had a problem finding books to read. But I have had a problem finding people who understand what it's like to really LOVE reading. Maybe even need it. People who associate periods of their life with the kinds of things they were reading then, whether in school or in dusty old rooms of a house in Holland. The kind of people who take personal journeys into books and write responses that are part review, part stories in themselves. This is what Goodreads has always given me.”
― G.R. Reader, Off-Topic: The Story of an Internet Revolt

“You won’t believe this. 99% of reviews on GoodBetterBestReads are written by less than one percent of the members.
Did you hear that? 99%! Let’s repeat it. 99%. Let’s repeat it. 99%.

Now, the thing is, we thought that by getting one percent to do all the writing, we could sell to the 100%.
We placed a lot of trust in the one percent. Can you see our dilemma?
A lot of people’s welfare depended on the one percent.

What would happen to our cocktails and our cars and our condos, if the one percent staged a strike?”
― G.R. Reader, Off-Topic: The Story of an Internet Revolt

“And then they started deleting the protest reviews.
That was my line. When they started to stamp out dissent, actually to make it disappear with virtually no excuse for doing so...that’s not neglect. That’s not an overwhelmed person or people trying to figure it out. That’s an entity that has decided that they do not care, that they have moved on from the issue, do not see it as an issue, and is trying to avoid bad press. Or they are too far down the line to backtrack on what they’ve been doing and save face. They’re content with their wildly inconsistent policy enough to no longer care what effect it is having on their user base.
If you try to silence dissent, then something is very, very wrong.”
― G.R. Reader, Off-Topic: The Story of an Internet Revolt

“And that's the most horrible thing about censorship: To avoid falling afoul of the censors, we question ourselves and censor ourselves and make a big deal out of things in our heads. We do the work of the control freaks for them, out of a desire to avoid them.”
― G.R. Reader, Off-Topic: The Story of an Internet Revolt

“You may wish to spend a moment thinking about whether this person is an asset or a liability to your company”
― G.R. Reader, Off-Topic: The Story of an Internet Revolt

“. . . I can see how the issue of exercising corporate control over users content is truly enraging here, on a site significantly made by these contributors. It’s unavoidable that we come to this, in my opinion (corporations always do), and GR/Amazon has all keys to the kingdom, but I can see why it’s so disappointing and enraging.
Your content is theirs to do with as they please, their software works as they want, your choices are take it or leave it.

The Internet is no longer for sharing (nor for porn!), it’s for corporations to exercise their control over users.”
― G.R. Reader, Off-Topic: The Story of an Internet Revolt

“I urge you strongly not to give Stop the Goodreads Bullies traffic. Their initial postings were all doxings of reviewers. ... There are a lot of arguments on the legitimacy of doxing, but I think most reasonable people would agree that the response to a negative - not even libelous - review should not be the open posting of a reviewer's address. That's not the counter of speech by more speech, but with an implicit threat. It's not that you're wrong, and here's why; it's that I know where you live.”
― G.R. Reader, Off-Topic: The Story of an Internet Revolt

“This book is irrelevant to Goodreads because you can’t buy it on Amazon. Also it talks about oppression, censorship etc. and no one really likes reading about that because it’s boring. Yet, let me tell you anyway.
The title of this book is The Image of Everyday Life in Press during the Martial Law, which is a little bit ridiculous because what could be read in Press those days when it was so heavily censored?”
― G.R. Reader, Off-Topic: The Story of an Internet Revolt

“I am not Amish enough to emigrate when my way of life is threatened.”
― G.R. Reader, Off-Topic: The Story of an Internet Revolt

“The GR site has acquired its market value through the work of its community.”
― G.R. Reader, Off-Topic: The Story of an Internet Revolt

“There was something so unutterably ridiculous about the sight of a US company deleting posts accusing it of censorship that many other people began to protest.”
― G.R. Reader, Off-Topic: The Story of an Internet Revolt