Amazon.com Pierces Reviewer Anonymity 333
theodp writes "Amazon reviewers who anonymously posted book reviews or signed their critiques only as 'a reader from (fill in the city)' lost their anonymity this week when their identities were revealed on Amazon's site. Among those named were prominent authors who posted glowing five-star reviews of their own work. The weeklong glitch, which Amazon fixed after outed reviewers complained, provided a rare glimpse at how writers and readers are wielding the online reviews as a tool to promote or pan books when they think no one is watching. An Amazon spokeswoman told the NY Times the problem was 'an unfortunate error.'"
Out of the closet (Score:5, Flamebait)
MOD PARENT UP!!! (Score:3, Funny)
- A reader from Chapel Hill, NC
Re:Amazon.com rating problem and solution (Score:5, Insightful)
Information which is completely useless in determining whether I would actually enjoy reading the book.
Roger Ebert always says: "What's important is not what the movie is about; it's how it manages to be about it." I submit that this is even more true with fiction.
Software (Score:5, Interesting)
Submitted reviews are also used by software companies to promote their products. Its pretty blatant usually.
Re:Software (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Software (Score:5, Informative)
It's ironic that this request comes from an executive officer of a security company. OTOH, their credibility had already bugun to slide since they changed their focus to litigation and Microsoft press releases.
Re:Software (Score:5, Insightful)
And if it's a new book I'm buying with only a few reviews? It's probably one I've been waiting for expectantly and any number of reviews won't matter. Besides, it's not like my only source for decision making on buying something is amazon reviews.
Re:Software (Score:5, Interesting)
Really, it makes me wonder if there's some "service" out there that specializes in spamming reviews.
Hmm... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Hmm... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Hmm... (Score:3, Informative)
Wikipedia (Score:5, Informative)
Astroturfing [wikipedia.org]
Re:Hmm... (Score:5, Informative)
Astroturf is the fake grass used in (American) football stadiums -- especially those with roofs -- in place of real grass, because it's more durable and doesn't require sunlight or watering.
A "grass root" action or campaign is one that is started spontaneously, and is largely sustained, by private persons, as opposed to politicians, corporations, or public relations firms; a "grass roots" campaign comes about because of the popular feelings of some mass of people, as opposed to being the creature of the powerful.
"Astroturfing", then, is a campaign crafted by politicians or spin-doctors, but in such a way as to appear it's the result of popular feeling rather than crafty manipulation by political or corporate elites.
Astroturfing to one degree or another is increasing common in American politics (and business). In reaction to the (often correct) cynicism that politicians and corporations are not acting in the best interests of "the people", an astroturfing campaign attempts to gain legitimacy by appearing to spring forth spontaneously from "the people", like Athena from Zeus's forehead; when it's discovered that the campaign was meticulously crafted and manipulated by the same spin-meisters that public has learned to distrust, the astroiturfing adds to the very cynicism it was designed to circumvent.
One technique of an astroturfing campaign is to induce a number of its supporters to write email, letters to the editor, or in this case, Amazon reviews, in support of the campaign's goals. The campaign instructs the supporters on what to say, how to say it, and where send it, and above all, to make it appear that their indignation, appreciation, joy, or hate is entirely spontaneous and independent -- and thus "real" -- and not at all the product of an orchestrated campaign.
The idea is that the public at large will see lots of apparently "uncoordinated", "spontaneous" and "objective" viewpoints all in line with that of the astroturfing campaign, and will come to believe that if so many of their fellow "citizens next door" believe something, they should believe it too, for all those "independent" viewpoints couldn't have been faked.
With the advent of the internet, it's become even easier to whip up an astroturfing campaign, as the cost of emailing -- especially of emailing a pre-written, sign your name at the bottom email -- is so low. Anonymity, as in the Amazin case, makes it even easier, as one person can play the role of a whole group of like-minded people.
Re:Hmm... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Hmm... (Score:5, Funny)
Hey, thanks!
Ok, I added it, with the caveat that's it's rough and less stiff than my usual form for Wikipedia entries.
Now watch as some mod comes along, sees the prior post with the Wikipedia astroturfing url, and mods me as a plagiarist.
Re:Hmm... (Score:4, Interesting)
Great comment, but I have one nit to pick: Astroturfing is nothing new in American politics. At the turn of the 20th century is was common to have newspapers in major American cities sponsored by local political parties. Some were open about this practice, but many of these relationships were hidden under the guise of journalism. Numerous other examples abound: political "clubs" which were fronts for voter fraud and intimidation, letter-writing campaigns organized by local ward bosses, workers fired for voting for the wrong candidate, etc.
Let's just hope... for our sakes... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Let's just hope... for our sakes... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Let's just hope... for our sakes... (Score:5, Funny)
Nanny, nanny, poo poo, yoooou caaaaan't seeeeee me!
KFG
Re:Let's just hope... for our sakes... (Score:5, Funny)
DAMNIT! Now I've been found out! (Score:3, Funny)
Unfortunate Error or... (Score:5, Insightful)
Glowing reviews posted by the author of the book perverts the system. I would welcome such a useful and eye-opening feature.
Re:Unfortunate Error or... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Unfortunate Error or... (Score:5, Insightful)
Then rejoice at the brilliance of whoever was behind the "unfortunate error". They just dope-slapped a whole bunch of authors and reminded everyone that anonymity is almost always an illusion, while keeping their anonymous posting feature. Genius!
Re:Unfortunate Error or... (Score:5, Funny)
Likewise... (Score:5, Interesting)
What to do, what to do...
Re:Likewise... (Score:4, Insightful)
Cynical me wonders how much of that statement is really truth, and how of of it's trying to mitigate looking like a total butthead. How do they know if the other posters were their rivals...when they were anonymous, too--or at least anonymous at the times of the postings.
I've begun to notice this phenomenon... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:I've begun to notice this phenomenon... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Unfortunate Error or... (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, the moral of the story, boys and girls, is that you shouldn't trust information you find on-line if you can't verify the source as someone you trust. Simple as that, really...
Re:Unfortunate Error or... (Score:5, Funny)
Definitely good advice.
Doh! Wait a minute, that's just something I read online from someone who's trustworthiness I can't verify. Ha! I'm on to your little game, and you're not gonna catch me that way! I'm gonna go and trust anything I read online.
Double-doh! Now I've gotta trust your advice again. Errrr, so I'm not going to trust your advice. So I am going to trust your...
Infinite recursion detected, process Raven terminated... AT$@AA#-^%%%
CARRIER DISCONNECT
Re:Unfortunate Error or... (Score:5, Funny)
Somewhere in the programming department at amazon...
"My, this bastard writes flashing comments about his own books and I can't do anything to stop him... Oh wait let's imagine for a second that I inadvertantly comment this 'unless ($anonymity_check)' thing...?"
Thomas Miconi
Hypocrites on /. (Score:4, Insightful)
Repeat with me: technology can be used for good OR evil. The same applies to any innovation, even book reviews.
I read this book review on the internet, so it MUST be true.
There's no Hypocracy (Score:5, Insightful)
When you read a review on Amazon.com, you are expecting an unbiased review. The person making a self-interested post is actively decieving you.
There is a difference between wishing to preserve your anonimity, and trying to pretend that you are something that you are not.
Sangloth
I'd appreciate any comment with a logical basis...it doesn't even have to agree with me.
Re:There's no Hypocracy (Score:4, Insightful)
I've heard that the same thing goes on in some graduate admissions offices with letters of recommendation. If the recommender doesn't have something bad to say, then it's assumed they don't know you well enough.
Re:There's no Hypocracy (Score:4, Interesting)
DITTO! Whenever I look into the reviewing histories of most any "top x00" reviewer, I find stuff that smells.
Example: looking through the profile of a "top 100" reviewer, I found that she claimed that she was a librarian who could speed read. She reviewed on average 30 books a week, and ALL were given glowing 4-5 star reviews. I found a sci-fi book that I knew was an absolute stinker (I regret ever buying it), and her review was 2 paragraphs. The first paragraph was A WORD FOR WORD TRANSCRIPT of the back cover. The second paragraph COULD HAVE BEEN ABOUT ANY BOOK AT ALL, and matched the style and general content of ANY of the 2nd paragraphs from ANY of her reviews.
Damn shame amazon doesn't have a "friends and enemies" list, so I could give a -4 modifier to any such reviewers, and do the same for enemies of my friends of friends. Etc.
Sickening. (Score:5, Funny)
Should have kept the change.... (Score:5, Insightful)
-Maher-
Re:Should have kept the change.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Should have kept the change.... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Should have kept the change.... (Score:5, Funny)
I don't see a problem (Score:4, Insightful)
On an unrelated note, I will now mod this post as +2, 100% Insightful.
Re:I don't see a problem (Score:4, Insightful)
Without all that, Battlefield Earth might never have happened!
You have to wonder.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Seriously, I'm sick and tired of every major website requiring me to either a.) register for an account or, b.) fill out all of my personal information, before I can actually take advantage of the website's features.
Yeah, yeah, yeah..I know: marketing. But, come on. Requiring an e-mail address (with an opt-out radio button) is fine; do they really need all the other crap?
Ugh.
Re:You have to wonder.. (Score:5, Interesting)
When a website requires anything other than an email address I name myself after the websites. If I ever get spam directed to Amazon DotCom I know who sold my address and can block future emails from it. I remain anoymous (Well as close as I can given my email is out there, but it is only a temp address anyway) and a foulup like this would have revealed only that I used a fake name.
Re:You have to wonder.. (Score:5, Interesting)
Your method is easier but I think I'll stick with mine. It works even if only my email address is sold, and doesn't matter if my name was used. It also gives me a unique email address for the registration emails to be sent to, or the spam if the email has been sold -- and doesn't clutter my normal inbox.
(but since I get more than 600 spams a day, taking a little extra effort to set up the filter is worth it to me)
Re:You have to wonder.. (Score:5, Informative)
But they don't lead to spam! (Score:5, Interesting)
Of course, I'm sure some web sites aren't too careful about who gets their email list, but from my experience, the vast majority don't pass their list on to spammers, and the vast majority of addresses to spam comes from other sources.
Re:But they don't lead to spam! (Score:5, Interesting)
Me too. If a web site wants my address it's always website.tld@mydomain.tld.
And like you, I've almost never gotten spam back -- the only mail to these addresses is from the web sites I've given them to.
But. Let's adjust our tinfoil hats....
Does that mean that the we sites don't sell the email addresses they get to third parties, or does it mean they don't sell the addresses that contain their site name, and would serve to tip off where a spammer got the address?
Re:But they don't lead to spam! (Score:4, Informative)
1) ABC Stores (familiar to locals and tourists in Hawaii) had their customer database stolen. Or at least that's what I think happened. I bought some mac nuts from them because they were the cheapest online place and I really had the cravings for da kine from back home. 6 months later, I started getting porno spam with my REAL name in it sent to the address I used with ABC. When I contacted them and spelled out all the details, they passed it on to their "IT department" who denied that anything had happened, instead tried to blame packet sniffers between their smtp server and my smtp server.
The fact that the spammers had my name meant they also probably had my credit card, address and phone and that of all of their other customers too. (I use one-time use credit card numbers online so I wasn't too worried). Consequently I will never do business with ABC stores again online or b&m (only tourists shop at the ABC b&m anyway). If they don't care about their customer's security, I sure as hell don't want to be their customer. Neither should you.
2) TigerDirect These guys are infamous. Once they get your email address you can not shake them. I bought one thing from them years ago, I must have "unsubscribed" via email and their website 10 times before giving up and shitcanning that address. But before I completely routed it to
3) Inktomi Once upon a time I signed up for a contest to win an SUV. That was stupid because that address got passed around the spammers for years, all kinds of weird spam I got on it too, not the standard penis-enlarger low-grade stuff, but AARP solicitations, timeshare solicitations both domestic and foreign, etc. Finally, long after the dot-bomb after Y2K I got some marketing drivel from Inktomi (remember them? an early search engine) and I was in a bad mood that day. So I scoured their website for every single email address I could find, figured out their standard email addressing scheme (like firstname_lastname@inktomi.com) went to Edgar, got all their C* people's names, the BoD's names and spammed them back with a nasty old flame. One of them must have forwarded it to one of their engineers because all I got back was some guy congratulating me for tracing how they got ahold of that address and then bitching at me for giving them a taste of their own medicine. I told him to fuck off and die like the dirty spammer his company had turned into. I guess he did because shortly afterwards the company got bought for chicken-scratch (I think it was by yahoo), I figured their sinking to spammerhood was a sign the end times were near anyway.
4) Viruses I've received a couple of viruses sent to vendor-specific addresses over the years and used that info tell the vendors that not only did they have a virus infection, but in most cases the specific machine they needed to start with. However, whenever this happens I make a note never to business with that vendor again (even when they've given me a special "discount" as a reward for alerting them to their problems) because if a virus can dig up my email address on their system that means there is a good chance that a virus could dig up more confidential details as well so it speaks to them having poor information security practices.
Most recently I've been mydoom bounces (and direct emails too) from the home computer of this little one-woman ditzhead li
Re:You have to wonder.. (Score:5, Informative)
If Amazon.com is repeatedly stating that anonymity is guaranteed for book reviews, what the hell is the purpose of collecting full names from their creators?
There's at least one technical explanation: if Amazon didn't link each review with a reviewer, it would be harder to prevent someone from filling out a hundred reviews of the same title to skewer the average rating.
You may have come across this if you reviewed the same thing twice: you would have received an error telling you that you've already reviewed the item and can't do it again, even if you reviewed it anonymously.
Re:You have to wonder.. (Score:3, Insightful)
s/opt-out/opt-in
Opt-out is not an acceptable way for companies to use my e-mail address, ever.
(Said the person who had just once again received an e-mail, even acknowledging its source, claiming that he had given his permission for the e-mail address to be used for marketting purposes, when he had done nothing of the sort.)
Re:You have to wonder.. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:You have to wonder.. (Score:5, Insightful)
There's an annoyingly inevitable quality to these accusations. It's the sort of thing you always suspect about any issue involving ruthlessly ego-driven professions like writing.
Here's how dumb I am: it never occurred to me to write glowing reviews of my books. Evidently I am not a marketing genius. On the other hand, I was too obscure for rivals to bother trashing me, so maybe that's why I never thought about it.
Anyway, no matter how depressing these revelations are, I don't think the solution is to strip away the anonymity of reviewers. In almost every case, the best solution to bad information is not to restrict the free flow of information. Far better to increase the flow of information so as to drown the bad information in a sea of better information. In this instance, making people verify their identities before reviewing a book is just going to discourage people from taking the time to share their thoughts. Better to put a disclaimer up for visitors to let them know that a great review might have been written by the author, and then let them react if they find a bad book with a glorifying review. That'll be far more effective in promoting actual opinions about books than restricting reviewers to the group that's willing to put up with intrusive registering requirements. Besides, authors, being both clever and desperate, will quickly find ways to circumvent any identity check, so that their bad information will gain prominence in comparison with everyone else, who will not be as likely to take the trouble to post.
I don't know if information wants to be free, but it seems obvious that the world works better when information is free.
Re:You have to wonder.. (Score:4, Insightful)
They collect your name when you sign up for an account, and usually you give them the real one because you want the books you order to arrive. I assume they keep data on who posted which review so they have it when they discover inappropriate language of something, so they can ban that user.
I'm also sick of sites collecting my data, and accidents like that one confirm that my concerns are justified. However, I have never been denied any service or content when I supplied a pseudonym. On the Amazon site, you could use one account with your real data for ordering, and another one with a pseudonym for everythig else (community features etc.)
By the way, most of the discussions I saw at this page are totally pointless for exactly this reason: Amazon can't check if every review was postet by someone who seriously is of the opinion stated and not related to the author in any way. That some authors used their own accounts for reviewing their own books was dumb, dumb, dumb, but if the 'anonymous' feature hadn't been there, they'd have used a different account from the start.
Re:You have to wonder.. (Score:5, Funny)
NY Times article (Score:3, Informative)
Reviews (Score:4, Interesting)
"Outted" authors (Score:5, Funny)
-Eric_Cartman_South_PaR#@J::: [MSSQL Error: Author "CmdrTaco", Action "PostAs: User 594330" not valid]
Re:"Outted" authors (Score:5, Funny)
Begone, heathen!
privacy.... (Score:4, Interesting)
Although most take privacy as something only criminals doing dirty deeds would need... Here is an excerpt of a doc I wrote...
But heck who the hell am I kidding... Only you, yourself are to blame for giving your privacy away. Instead of only whining about not having privacy, don't some of you think it's time to wag the tail instead of keeping it tucked under your asses. Write to your lawmakers, start complaining. Simply crying about it does nothing, and companies will continue walking all over you.
Slashdot wouldn't do that to us.. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Slashdot wouldn't do that to us.. (Score:4, Insightful)
No wonder I hated that Britney CD ! (Score:5, Funny)
I got a Britney Spears CD based on 18 rave Amazon reviews and really tried to like it !
I feel vindicated !
Britney, I'm sorry, but you suck ! (or does she blow ?)
Oh, the scandal! Oh, the horror! ;) (Score:4, Insightful)
Authors reviewing their books anonymously pretending to be a reader are just hurting themselves in the long run, esp. now, after their "anonymous" reviews have come to light. HOWEVER, I would definitely welcome posts from authors that post as theirselves and try to rebuttle defamatory comments/reviews. The whole purpose of the Amazon system is ACCURACY, not making sure every book scores 5/5.
user reviews not worth the electrons. (Score:4, Insightful)
For pitys sake does anyone take 'user reviews' seriously??? Even if there not written by interested partys, the chances of them being written by someone clueful are scant and its more trouble than its worth to establish any track record for a given reviewer.
A system of meta moderation would add credibility to the system, if someone buys a product get them to evaluate a few reviews (if encouragement is needed pay them in 'loyalty points')
Re:user reviews not worth the electrons. (Score:5, Insightful)
I'll always trust in my feelings on something, but my feelings will be based on the description of the item, my need for the item, my penchant for items of that nature, and influenced by the good/bad ratio of the product.
Re:user reviews not worth the electrons. (Score:3, Informative)
from the Red Dwarf FAQ [faqs.org]
What does "smeg" mean?
It's a word made up by Grant Naylor for the characters to use as an all-purpose profanity. Some fans have theorised that it was derived from "smegma" (a particularly unpleasant bodily secretion), but Rob and Doug deny this. In the interview on the CD included with the Six of the Best box set, they state that "we wanted to invent a futuristic curse word which had the right sort of consonant and vowel arrangement to make it sound like a genuine . . . curse word.
Sometimes. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Sometimes. (Score:3, Interesting)
In addition, no story about Amazon reviews is complete without a mention of this [amazon.com] review, on the book Ping. Quite possibly the most-rated review on the entire site!
Metamod (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:user reviews not worth the electrons. (Score:4, Insightful)
It's pretty easy to tell who's a "clueful" reviewer, because reviewing a book is an act of writing. If the reviewer likes the book but is illiterate, the book might still be good, but if the reviewer writes well, you can give her opinion more weight.
Of course, that gives sneaky authors reviewing their own dogs a little bit of an advantage, because even the lamest hack has to write a little better than average to get widely published. But life ain't fair. That's probably why I have excellent karma, in spite of my cranky personality.
Cowards? (Score:5, Funny)
Oops I thought I was posting this as AC...
Re:Cowards? (Score:3, Interesting)
The Authors (Score:5, Insightful)
It is the right of everyone in this country to have an opinion on the quality of work of art. There are always going to be people who enjoy something and people who will dislike it.
Get over it and start living in the real world.
Frankly I'm suspicious of anything or anyone who doesn't have a bad review of it. I'll buy from anyone who has a smidgeon of negative feedback on Ebay because I know that this is a real person who has had to (just as I have in my store) deal with some moron who cannot be pleased no matter how far you bend over backwards. I trust reviews that have a critic because many of thier points are valid ones. I may not agree that the point detracts from the work of art, but they are often valid points nonetheless.
You can't please everyone and these authors need to realize that, move on, and create to please themselves. If they do that there will always be someone to appriciate thier works.
On the other hand . . . (Score:4, Interesting)
Why Act Suprised? (Score:5, Insightful)
What person doesn't promote his or her own work? That's just normal..
Also, we all know there is no true anonymity out there, so why be surprised with *yet another* 'glitch' publishes peoples identities...
So what? (Score:3, Insightful)
That's before we even get to the issue of people who are specifically PAID to provide good reviews for all of a company's products site-wide on amazon. I only feel bad for regular users who were not posted anonymously for the last week. For authors and such in the business reviewing their own material... well... fuck them. I'm glad they were outed. Fucking cheats.
Review. (Score:5, Funny)
I'm surprised it took this long to discover...
"Insightful! Trillian's comments show a true understanding of the situation!" -- Some Anonymous Reviewer.
"Interesting! Why didn't I think of that?" -- Some Other Anonymous Reviewer.
"Ha ha ha! +1 Funny!" -- A Third Anonymous Reviewer. Definitely not the same as the previous two. Oops!
In a related story.... (Score:5, Funny)
Anonymous Ratings (Score:3, Interesting)
For example, there is a Dr. of Psychology here at my shool who is doing a study on the value of a rating system on sites like http://www.ratemyprofessor.com. I am not sure what her stance is on the topic, but most others at the school feel that it would be easy to sabotage her study.
Movie studio representatives have been caught giving reviews of their films under false identities. So is it surprising that authors would not stoop to the same level as those who produce movies?
There is no way to ensure that a College Professor cannot go to ratemyprofessor.com and give a review of him or herself (it is all anonymous). In the same way there is no way to prevent authors from giving anonymous reviews of their work to boost sales.
It is my not so humble opinion that openly anonymous forums lack credibility in this sense.
An ethical question... (Score:5, Insightful)
In the same vein, it's why the media, if they report on something newsworthy happening that they might be tied to, they explain the tie to the company. For instance, if some news happens on say Sourceforge.net, Slashdot is ethically bound to say "Slashdot shares a parent company with Newsforge" so that we are told some biases might exist.
Flame on because I know I've probably missed some nuance...
Something like what sony did? (Score:5, Informative)
It would not surprise me if authors were INDEED promoting their own works courtesy of public forums like amazon and the like.
Easy solution: the old system? (Score:4, Interesting)
Now, perhaps it was too hard to verify the true author comments or they simply had too many fake "I'm the author" reviews, but allowing the author to actually say his/her piece might be helpful/insightful (perhaps, even... "+5 insightful?")
Re:Easy solution: the old system? (Score:5, Informative)
I had put in place a system later dropped that had the reviews checked by human beings for sense (not content) before they went live. Of course, with thousands of reviews posted each day, that became untenable.
There's no good way to build a system that can't be gamed.
Did anyone get the info on... (Score:5, Funny)
Astroturf everywhere (Score:5, Interesting)
Unfortunately, astroturf is common on Amazon. I've long known and tracked one author (Robert Stanek) who has written dozens of glowing reviews for his own incredibly-bad books, and adds reviews of other books "casually" mentioning himself in the company of Tolkien or Martin. He even Googles regularly for comments about himself elsewhere, which is how I found him on my own site once, trying to discredit me because I had written about his unethical behavior. I recently noticed another example, where an excellent book by Charles Perkins got several identically 40-column-formatted slag reviews in quick succession - probably an author or publisher of a competing book.
The problem is that it's too easy to establish multiple identities on Amazon. It would be trivial for me to create a hundred identities and use them to have a significant effect on the ratings of books I like or dislike. . .and you'd better believe I'd be less obvious about it than Stanek. Any claim Amazon might make about policing such abuse is a joke. Let's face it, folks: anywhere that online identities can be created basically out of thin air, fraud will be rampant. Yeah, that means Slashdot too. Pseudonymity is great, but anonymity is too often a cloak for abusers.
Anonymous Cowards (Score:4, Funny)
John Rechy?! (Score:5, Informative)
I guess I shouldn't be surprised that he was hustling reviews on Amazon the same way that his characters hustled and tricked their ways through his books.
Rechy's books disturbed me, which is a good quality in a book. How can I describe them for a Slashdot crowd? Start with William Gibson or Bruce Sterling; subtrace all the "cyber" part of "cyberpunk"; and replace it with gay sex. LOTS of gay sex.
Just stop removing "bad" reviews (Score:5, Informative)
The really disturbing thing in the case of the book I was reviewing was that it advocated emotionally & physically abusing adults with disabilities. Regardless of who pointed it out, the author would have any review that wasn't sterling removed, so the book still has a great rating. Most of the ones remaining are either mindless "I know the author and she's really nice" comments that have nothing to do with the book itself, or testimonials from other wives/husbands that feel it's cool to throw things at, scream in the face of, and emotionally one's disabled partner into feeling deeply inferior. VERY disturbing.
Re:Just stop removing "bad" reviews (Score:5, Interesting)
For instance, a book I co-wrote on GoLive was criticized for not explaining at length how to install, configure, and run database systems like MySQL and Microsoft SQL. Beyond the scope of the book, and not fair comment. (We had included 10 pages on the basics, too.)
In other cases, if people don't like my writing or they attack the words, that's what the reviews are far and I don't complain
Normal Practice (Score:5, Interesting)
Wasn't this obvious? (Score:5, Insightful)
Beyond this, if you're going to write a review of your own book, the least you can do is register anonymously. That's too funny.
Once thing that annoys me about Amazon reviews is that they'll clear the slate for subsequent editions. I spent more than a month compiling notes on some Oracle manuals that really exposed their horribly-documented publications, and then they came out with a new edition that was more of the same crap, but Amazon obsoleted the reviews. I know sometimes new editions are really "new" but most of the time they're not. If there are reviews of previous editions of a book, they should be prominently featured on the latest edition review page.
Time to go back to original method to pick a book. (Score:5, Funny)
Anonymous Cowards (Score:5, Insightful)
Amazon should seperate their reviews into two groups - one with a proof-positive name and contact info, making the writer liable for slander or lible, and another for 'anonymous cowards.'
If you aren't confident enough to stand behind your words, your words have much less value.
Jokes aside (Score:5, Insightful)
How many of you ACs that posted in the MS Source Code Leak story [slashdot.org]
the other day with your reports of what's in the code you downloaded
got a bit nervous when you read this story today?
Author and Publisher Abuse (Score:5, Informative)
In spite of this obvious attempt to mislead readers, Amazon chose to do nothing. That recommendation is still up there!
Censorship at Amazon--a Catch 22 (Score:5, Insightful)
-
Q: Why is Amazon doing any of this?
- A: To make a buck.
The "customer" reviews are just part of that purpose. For example, from my own experience I can assure you that Amazon does not want honest and negative reviews, because such reviews might discourage some people from buying the book. I've submitted a couple of such reviews, thoughtful pieces that covered both sides, but which ultimately came down on the negative side, and which were rejected with various doublespeak explanations. The REAL problem was that I made a persuasive case against buying those books.From their perspective, a totally bogus but glowing review is fine, just as long as it will sell more books.
Amazon claims an impartiality that is totally lacking in practice, but I say they are shooting themselves in the foot--or maybe in the head. I think the people who most want to buy and read books are the same people who most strongly object to censorship. Actually the desire of those people for access to all of the data is likely to cause them to read more books from all angles. (And I really don't think the fans of the goddess of hate [barnesandnoble.com] could actually be reading more than one book a year.)
Amazon's money-grubbing slanted policies have so damaged their credibility that I actively avoid buying anything from them (unless I really can't find another source--but unfortunately they are also abusing their market influence to become an increasingly monopolistic sole source).
Potential Solution (Score:4, Insightful)
Registered Users Rate this Book: 2.2
Anonymous Users Rate this Book: 4.8
To prevent multiple sign-ups as "registered users" you would restrict the class of "registered users" to those who have made at least one Amazon.com purchase with a unique name on their credit card.
Such a system could be gamed, but only at a much higher cost and level of effort.
Brian
Re:The review by John Rechy (Score:5, Informative)
A reader's feast, October 19, 2003
Reviewer: A reader from Chicago, IL
This book is moving, hilarious, sad, laugh-aloud funny, touching, and very, very sexy--a feast. The characters are all memorable, Lyle the cowboy who never rode a horse; his Miss America mom--and the minor characters! A finicky female porn entrepreneur and her detested husband and their nasty director, Za-Z La Grande; a "poster" woman whose image is all over the city, "the sexy chicano." The names of the minor characters will knock you over--real names only slightly disguised. Also "Mr. Fielding," an eccentric gambler and the corrupt evangelists, who are vile and at the same time hilarious. Lyle, like Tom Jones, is in and out of unique situations--accidentally in a magician's show, at the playboy mansion "saving" Miss Universe," confronting an exploiter of Star Maps sellers, teenagers--(...) There are poigant moments, with Sister Matilda, gospel singer, and Clarita, the Mexican housekeeper. The song Amazing Grace recurs, and the ending is unforgettable, starting with an Academy Awards ceremony you won't forget.
And yes, funny joke there, but Amazon probably doesn't let you rate your own reviews (I could be wrong, though.)