Spam Ratings?

Is there anything that can be done about books with artificially high ratings due to apparent spam?

Like this book - Paraworld Zero. One account appears to be the author's, all the members that have given it 5 stars have only one book in their account (while all those who rated it lower or didn't rate it are paid accounts) and one user modestly tagged it 'Absolutely Fantastic Book! I have already read it TWICE!'

Or this one - The Imagicators - where it looks like all the accounts that gave it 5 stars were created in the same time period and all seem to share a large number of the same books.

I noticed them because both had someone recommending them for one of the Harry Potter books.

Well, if it's truly *spam* and not just people being super-excited about a book, the accounts in question can be deleted. (that's in general though, haven't looked into the ones you linked yet)

I'm not sure if I'd consider the reviews of Paraworld Zero spam. The author, Matthew Peterson, sends out newsletters and encourages his fans to go to particular sites to post their reviews. That's how I found librarything.com. I've seen other authors do the same in their newsletters and blogs. Anyway, I won't pay anyone for the "privilege" of posting my reviews and giving them free content for their website. Does that make my reviews less meaningful? Truth be told, I really did like Paraworld Zero, and I'm sure Mr. Peterson's other fans did too. Otherwise, they wouldn't have gone through the effort to post their opinions of his book.

Inviting your fans over to LT may mean that ratings get inflated, but as long as they are actual readers I don't see it as spam.

> 3: Do hope you guys will use LT for more than just "Paraworld Zero"

Adds "Matthew Peterson" to the list of "shady authors to avoid at all costs"....it may not be spam, but that doesn't mean I have to personally approve.

That's an entirely different matter.

6>

Definitely.

But I think it's worth pointing out that manipulating the system, while completely within the TOS in this case, can have consequences.

> 3

Anyway, I won't pay anyone for the "privilege" of posting my reviews

No one is asking you to. People are asked to pay if they wish to catalogue more than 200 books (this is a book-cataloguing site, after all), or if they appreciate the site and wish to help assure its continued existence.

But don't be surprised that other members find reviews more credible when they are posted by people who take the trouble to fully participate in the site, rather than when they are entered by people who join the site solely to catalogue and review one book, and that at the behest of the author. "Go join this site in order to review my book" is very different from "I'd appreciate a review at any site of which you are a member".

I've wondered about The Secret Magdalene before. Ratings are awfully high, and most of the reviews I find suspicious. Like the one from a member who catalogued 24 books but reviewed and tagged ("thoughtful, gnosis, surprizing sic, enlightenment, great read, classic, keeper, literature") only The Secret Magdalene. Most of these reviews are from similar users. What's described in #3 sounds like a plausible explanation for all of this.

Or perhaps I'm just too suspicious.

>9 Medellia: - Glad to know that I wasn't the only who thought that. The tagging does look weird. It is annoying though that it's pretty much impossible to distinguish between those kinds of author requests and massive sockpuppetry.

>10 DieFledermaus:

impossible to distinguish between those kinds of author requests and massive sockpuppetry

True. The only difference is that, when known, sockpuppetry can be removed. But I think both reflect equally poorly on the writer.

11: Exactly. While one is against the TOS and one isn't, *both* would make me steer clear of that particular author's works. I mean, what does it say about the quality of their writing if they feel the need to inflate ratings and reviews?

9+

Exactly. And the kicker is, when an author is known to engage in this sort of behavior, no positive reviews of their works are trustworthy; anything good will be rightly regarded with suspicion. They're only doing themselves a disservice with this sort of ill-considered spam-by-proxy.

Has there ever been an example of Tim and co. taking action against any of the sockpuppets? The only thing I could find was the warning review for the book A Leader Becomes a Leader.

I agree with the general sentiment - I would not be interested in reading anything by an author whose books seem to show this kind of inflation.

I think action is superfluous. The OP and others can CLEARLY recognize this kind of transparent behavior and so the attempt to stuff the ballot box, as it were, is foiled. As if the folks who truly understand LT and participate fully would be fooled by such blatant manipulation. This kind of chicanery will bring about its own rewards. Can you say backfire?

15 > Great point. Actions have consequences far wider than those that are imposed by "policing."

15>

Right, as I alluded to above, this behavior isn't policeable -- you can't force people not to be shills. Eventually, one hopes, the authors responsible for this sort of nonsense will figure out that it doesn't work and is in fact counterproductive (the best course of action is probably for those of us irritated by it to contact the authors and tell them), and it will stop. Lilithcat's distinction between authors asking fans to "post a review on any sites where you're already a member" and giving them a list of sites and say "Go here, join all these, and post a review" hits the nail on the head, though it does occur to me that in some cases (not, it seems, this one in particular) some of the blame may lie with overzealous fans interpreting the former as the latter as much as with the author in question.

It's possible it's sockpuppetry, but I also wonder sometimes whether it's not marketing companies or agents who create these sockpuppets, rather than the authors themselves. Either way, it does seem potentially against the TOC to use LT to promote their works.

It's interesting, for instance, that several of the reviews for the first of those books above, are also posted elsewhere on the net, with the same dates etc.:
http://www.bookmuse.com/pages/rreview/kidsreview.asp?rid=1856&range=temp
http://www.iblist.com/list_reviews.php?id=61991
http://www.sfbookcase.com/viewbook.asp?bookno=15859&commentid=184837#184837
http://www.buildingrainbows.com/morereviews/passcatnumber/B000010047

etc. just google a line from the reviews and you'll probably turn up more. Now, there's nothing in the LT TOS preventing people from posting reviews in multiple places, but this looks more systematic and sockpuppet-like to me.

I just saw Message 3, which partially explains what I posted about in 18, but it's also curious that the same two or three people would post their reviews in in all these same places.

ETA Perhaps these very detailed instructions explain that. Anyway, these may not technically be spam, but they do seem a bit like "drive-by" reviews and ratings, since the members don't participate in the site much otherwise and seem only to be using it to publicize a particular book - and it certainly does lead to inflated and less trustworthy ratings.

> 18
It's interesting, for instance, that several of the reviews for the first of those books above, are also posted elsewhere on the net, with the same dates etc

I don't find that unusual at all. I post reviews here, at Amazon, on my blog, and sometimes elsewhere. Once I've written my review, I generally just cut-and-paste it, and post it on the various sites at the same time. I expect others do the same.

I didn't mean it's curious the same reviews would be on multiple places, but that several different individuals would post their reviews on the exact same sites. (What are the chances they were all members of exactly the same group of sites?) If you look at the review pages on all these different sites, they're almost identical - the same list of reviews, by the same individuals.

edited for typo

I just went to the Parallel Worlds main page, and can't stop giggling at the notion of a lawyer staying home from work to finish the book. I hope he wasn't due in court!

> 21

Oh! I misunderstood. Sorry.

That is, if not weird, certainly suspicious.

What about books like this?

http://www.librarything.com/work/8322863

Is there any way to remove junk like this?

Report it to Abby?

>24 hyper7:

Hyper7, this is the result of zealous LT members fighting spam. If you will look at the Editions link, you will see that this is many many spam books that have been combined to corral them; we hope that some day there will be a mechanism for removing them from the system.

Thanks, zealous LT Spam Fighters.

I think a lot of people are over-zealous in making accusations of spam. I read The Secret Magdalene in part because it had such high ratings here, and almost six months into the year, I think it's still holding steady as the best book I've read so far. Several brand-new LT users have come and posted enthusiastically about it in my 75 Book Challenge thread, presumably following the Conversations link from the work page. Some of them have since started up a separate thread for it in the 75 Book Challenge group. In all of these instances, there's been actual discussion, not just spammy praise.

The fact that people are enthusiastic about a book doesn't automatically imply that they're evil and acting with bad intent. Sometimes--surprise!--it just means that the book is exceptionally good.

Eh yes. Does anybody mark that as spam? But did you take a look at that editions list : http://www.librarything.com/work/8322863/editions/ ? Those have nothing to do with much admired books.

Does anybody mark that as spam?

I'm not sure what you're referring to here. Posts 9 and on were full of claims that certain reviews were spam.

Ah okay, I see. I thought you were talking about this particular instance. Hadn't read back that far.

Using this thread to keep a note on sock puppetry. This activity used to be more prevalent but I haven’t seen it in a while.
But this book has 19 new members add and rate it within a week, with 18 reviews that feel like they’ve come from the same pen.

I’ve reported it to staff.

https://www.librarything.com/work/32229467/members/

Notice the similar pattern in the member names too.

https://www.librarything.com/work/32294937

It had 2 reviews just yesterday; now there are 71, all by new members, and 13 bogus published reviews. Those should be left for Kristi to examine. Already sent her a message.
The new profiles are even recycling profile pictures. Massive effort.

>33 2wonderY:

Looks like it's being dealt with. Although the work page says there are 85 reviews, if you click on that, there aren't any at all.

Spoke too soon. There are more.

Ha ha! They’ve resorted to letter and number member names now. Already 8 members since Kristi cleared the nest out this morning.