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Authors hit by bad reviews on Goodreads before review copies are even circulated

(www.thebookseller.com)
97 points healsdata | 27 comments | 25 Jun 25 11:35 UTC | HN request time: 0.827s | source | bottom
1. mrweasel ◴[25 Jun 25 13:16 UTC] No.44376983[source]▶
Online reviews in general are pretty useless these days. We know that sites like Trustpilot will take down negative reviews if you pay them, Amazon reviews are mostly bots and some sites have weird incentives for users to write reviews.

E.g. take reviews of business on Google, there's no link to actual purchases, but you get a star and a "Local guide level 4" or something if you do enough reviews. A family member runs a consulting business, he has a 2-star review, the only review. It's not made by a customer, just some random dude. What it looks like is that this dude just walked around reviewing business after business, based on look of their office perhaps. He's not customer of ANY of them. So now multiple business are trying to have these negative reviews removed, Google doesn't give a shit, so what are these reviews actually worth?

Most people who write reviews aren't exactly the most mentally stable people either. If you're not getting something in return, most people won't write a review, that just leave the nut jobs.

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2. dev_l1x_be ◴[25 Jun 25 13:29 UTC] No.44377102[source]▶
Funnily enough this is the perfect usecase for a blockchain. We could get rid off both the issue of removed reviews and the illegitimate reviews.
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3. margalabargala ◴[25 Jun 25 13:31 UTC] No.44377131[source]▶
Right, because it will be impossible to remove lying reviews, and they will all be illegitimate?
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4. sidewndr46 ◴[25 Jun 25 13:32 UTC] No.44377135[source]▶
My parents live in what is still a relatively rural area, it's unlikely you'd ever send something to their address on accident. They perpetually get kids toys shipped to their house. Address and name is correct each time. The package is clearly from Amazon. I'm relatively certain it is some part of weird review scam process. It's become a common enough thing that they just hand out the toys to who ever has young kids in the family.
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5. automatic6131 ◴[25 Jun 25 13:35 UTC] No.44377175{3}[source]▶
Because you'd have to pay to leave a review. And maybe get paid to leave a review by people that pay to upvote that review.

I see absolutely no way this incentive structure could be misused, after all, people wouldn't use bots to spam reviews out to hopefully farm upvotes, would they? Nope <:o)

6. threetonesun ◴[25 Jun 25 13:35 UTC] No.44377184[source]▶
Funny enough this is the perfect use case for the old web, where people just review things on their blog and you either know them or trust them from previous content.
7. bluGill ◴[25 Jun 25 13:37 UTC] No.44377197[source]▶
If you want to find a lawyer there are various slander/libel laws on the books. However each country has different laws and in most cases only lawyers win if you bother.
8. dinfinity ◴[25 Jun 25 13:37 UTC] No.44377202[source]▶
> Online reviews in general are pretty useless these days.

It depends on the contents and the number of them. If multiple/many negative reviews for something all mention a similar defect, you can be pretty sure it is an actual issue with the thing. It is then up to you to determine if the thing is still worth your time/money.

I will say that for some things the motivations of the reviewers are something to take into account especially. For book reviews on Goodreads I've found that animosity towards the author causes heavy overstating of the 'defects' of a book.

9. bbarnett ◴[25 Jun 25 13:42 UTC] No.44377251[source]▶
Online reviews in general are pretty useless these days. We know that sites like Trustpilot will take down negative reviews if you pay them

I've had multiple Amazon negative reviews vanish over the years. Often, it happens a few weeks after posting. I've heard it's people bribing Amazon reps to do so, under the auspices of "bad review". I've even occasionally noticed others on Amazon, in reviews, complaining that their last review went missing.

Really sad.

10. reverendsteveii ◴[25 Jun 25 13:48 UTC] No.44377317[source]▶
>I'm relatively certain it is some part of weird review scam process

https://www.uspis.gov/news/scam-article/brushing-scam

tldr - the seller initiates the sale themselves for w/e it is they sell to a second account that they own registered to a random address. They then ship a near-worthless item to that address and use that secondary account to write a glowing review for their original account. You get something for free that would be a bargain at twice the price and they get a 5 star review on their account. The only victim is anyone who trusts the review system.

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11. sidewndr46 ◴[25 Jun 25 13:56 UTC] No.44377404{3}[source]▶
Yeah, I haven't seen any negative impact of it. The only way I could see is if Amazon decides their address is somehow criminal adjacent & just blocks all shipments to it.
12. mrweasel ◴[25 Jun 25 13:57 UTC] No.44377411{3}[source]▶
That's somewhat insane. The review would have to be worth more than the items, plus shipping.
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13. rendaw ◴[25 Jun 25 14:03 UTC] No.44377478[source]▶
> Most people who write reviews aren't exactly the most mentally stable people either.

That's a wild claim!

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14. mrweasel ◴[25 Jun 25 14:13 UTC] No.44377581[source]▶
Clarification: Write unmotivated reviews.

I'd argue that most people don't review anything, unless they are somehow encouraged to do so. Sometimes they are motivated by anger, but those reviews are quickly taken down on many platforms, or they are based on completely unrealistic expectations, but then we're frequently back at being slightly unstable.

15. reverendsteveii ◴[25 Jun 25 14:27 UTC] No.44377732{4}[source]▶
Let's say the item is literally a single seed worth practically nothing and it costs $3 wholesale to ship. As a new shop, are a hundred 5 star reviews worth $300 to you or do you think you can more effectively spent that $300 on a different marketing plan? It's counterintuitive but it's actually perfectly rational.
16. jajko ◴[25 Jun 25 14:31 UTC] No.44377786[source]▶
As an owner of airbnb listing, there is some truth there (although as a blanket statement its obviously not true). Its mostly Karens of this world, or simply people pissed off enough to bother getting an app and creating an account, and putting time to write down the review.

Normal folks in normal situations simply couldn't be bothered, not in 2025. The only exception is when platform forces you to do so, and then the sea of dishonest shallow blah to reach certain word count ensues. That's now you get 4.8-4.9* average review out of 5, while judging an OK but not perfect place (and no place is ever perfect since many subjective aspects enter the game).

17. echelon_musk ◴[25 Jun 25 14:53 UTC] No.44378052{3}[source]▶
> You get something for free that would be a bargain at twice the price

Free x2?

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18. epakai ◴[25 Jun 25 15:24 UTC] No.44378376{4}[source]▶
Amazon runs the vine review program. There are frequently multi-hundred dollar items available to vine reviewers in exchange for writing a review.

It seems a lot of companies value early reviews highly, or their prices are rather inflated.

19. npteljes ◴[25 Jun 25 15:26 UTC] No.44378404[source]▶
>Most people who write reviews aren't exactly the most mentally stable people either. If you're not getting something in return, most people won't write a review, that just leave the nut jobs.

Baseless, callous accusation. And the conclusion is wrong too. Without getting something in return, people write genuine reviews with multiple different intents: out of feeling of obligation, support, appreciation. Out of discontent. As a substitute or alternative for customer support. To help other people find the thing, or to dissuade them from an unworthy purchase.

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20. Larrikin ◴[25 Jun 25 16:24 UTC] No.44379069[source]▶
The default mind set for a normal person should be there is no reason for them to waste their time to improve a closed source data set for a for profit company. You can break this mind set if you truly care about the product and they are small enough to matter, like a local restaurant or single dev software, but we should not be contributing our time to helping Amazon weed out the complete crap USB cords from the only kinda crap USB cords. Professional organizations like consumer report and America's Test Kitchen can do it at scale and smaller reviewers (who refuse free products) can handle more niche things in the interim.

But I believe open data sets will become as important as open source for the future. Filtering out the spam, fakes and slop will be similar work to what AdBlock filter people do today.

21. reverendsteveii ◴[25 Jun 25 16:41 UTC] No.44379269{4}[source]▶
yes, that was the joke. 0 x 2
22. rsync ◴[25 Jun 25 18:03 UTC] No.44380149[source]▶
"Most people who write reviews aren't exactly the most mentally stable people either. If you're not getting something in return, most people won't write a review, that just leave the nut jobs."

Strongly disagree.

IF there were a generally decent and functional and efficient review forum and IF it were painless and friction-free to leave a review, then I think reviewing a product insightfully is something that adds real value and makes the world a (slightly) better place.

Unfortunately, the fora for this kind of activity are either nonexistent or laden with pathological baggage. Reviews at Amazon are unusable at best, fraudulent at worst, and I hear nothing but bad things about "goodreads".

23. const_cast ◴[25 Jun 25 22:49 UTC] No.44382503[source]▶
In my experience working as various fast food places as a youngen, nobody writes reviews for good service. Because reviews are all about state of mind and emotions. If you're happy, you go home happy and never think about it. If you're angry, you need to vent somewhere.
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24. illiac786 ◴[26 Jun 25 06:54 UTC] No.44384880{3}[source]▶
You’re saying all 5 stars reviews are fake?
25. debesyla ◴[26 Jun 25 08:48 UTC] No.44385474[source]▶
Or as a personal note. I use Goodreads to track what I read and if I liked it or not, what was it about, so I don't accidentally buy the same book again after half a year :V
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26. debesyla ◴[26 Jun 25 08:52 UTC] No.44385494{3}[source]▶
Unless it was unexpectedly good. Sometimes I rush to write a 5 star review if a random restaurant in middle of nowhere exceeds my expectations - so more people would know of the place.

In my scale 3/5 is good (got what expected), 4/5 is very good (nice bargain), 5/5 is uniquely amazing. But I do understand that for some anything below 5/5 is bad.

27. npteljes ◴[26 Jun 25 09:45 UTC] No.44385746{3}[source]▶
That's a good one too. AnimeNewsNetwork works the same, you can attach a note to a media, that shows up on your profile. Some use it for reviews, some for personal notes.