Announcement on Goodreads: fixes Listopia spam by adding suggested Listopias to update feed...

Reblogged from Debbie's Spurts:

*sigh*

 

I'm shoving my response under spoiler for "posterity" in case it gets deleted.

 

My response:  

I'm a little shocked it's the listopias being put on our feed—frankly I thought listopias were having major issues that staff said they were working on. What has changed that staff now say listopias are well-curated and spam is now under control? A new policy of "can't fight it [spam] so may as well join it" and make it even more attractive by putting on "the billboard of book promotions" ... er...that is "member updates feed"?

 

Don't get me wrong; I fully expected the next announcements to be adding feature after feature to our feed. (I'm actually grateful at least this latest drown-out-friend-activities-on-feed feature can be turned off).

 

Were you guys working on listopia features and on reducing listopia spam as promised? Have you now finished but forgot to announce the new controls by which listopias can be curated? Did we misunderstand the work you were doing with listopias and instead of reducing spam activity you meant goodreads wanted more? Was the spam causing a major drop in reader's creating and using listopias where you felt posting out to feed would get them used more?

 

Or did you decide the spam was so popular with authors you might as well just give up and not only let authors spam them to death but make them even more book promotional by adding them to our feed? Seriously — unless you've drastically changed listopia controls where they are now easily curated -- I'm seeing this as one more instance of goodreads morphing continually into a book promotional arm for authors and our updates feed one big giant billboard promoting books in various ways drowning out the effective book promotions from friend/followed reviews.

 

Lobstergirl wrote: "...My second thought is this will be a big magnet for author spam and author circle jerks. Once the SPAs realize suggested lists are appearing in p..."

Umm...well-curated? In response to the pleading to all the please, please, please threads to help stop listopias being overrun within book promoting authors/minions spamming the things have new controls been given to list creators? More librarians created to curate (and that nasty message about getting their librarian status risked for editing listopias)? New staff hired? Some new anti-spam scripts handling?

(show spoiler)

 

Source: http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/2364836-new-suggested-lists?page=1#comment_form