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At the rate they are slowly, but surely diminishing the community aspect, then making this site just a place to review & rate books does seem very viable.

Shan ~A~ wrote: "At the rate they are slowly, but surely diminishing the community aspect, then making this site just a place to review & rate books does seem very viable."

Yeah.. I have to say that I do also agree with this. I just believe that they'll continue to do so in increments and not all at once.

I believe that all things regarding community interaction will all be gone within two to three years. I'm afraid that that's being optimistic at best. Soon, this will just be a site for reviews and shelving books. It will look like every other book website out there.

I don't think they will ever remove reviews totally because it aids amazons book sales, but I've been waiting for them to start rejecting reviews like they do on amazon.

I'm sure most of us have written a review that posted word for word here but we were told to fix some unknown aspect 🤷🏼‍♀️ when we posted on amazon- which is what we agree to do with arcs. A book I read about nazis was rejected for one profane word!🤦🏼‍♀️

Liz~In~Colorado wrote: "I don't think they will ever remove reviews totally because it aids amazons book sales, but I've been waiting for them to start rejecting reviews like they do on amazon.

I'm sure most of us have ..."

Yes. I too have always believed that their main objective has been to censor our reviews as they do on their main site. I will not be surprised when comments on reviews are taken away, as well as them Big Brothering what we post in our reviews. They may even not allow for our reviews to be posted instantly anymore as well. I do know that the second this type of censoring begins is when I'll be leaving this site for good. I have already refused to post any reviews on amazon because of this, a few years ago.

I think that they will let us keep groups, but disable making a new one. they have already had a bunch of members leave, so i don't think they want any more bad publicity because of that. if they do remove groups im switching to fable

I feel that most things regarding community and friendships made here, that old and new users have come to love or depend on with this site, will no longer have these things available to them in the next few years.

I believe Amanazi made this bold move of taking away DM's as the first step of truly taking down all "community" aspects of GR. They don't want or intend for their users to communicate with each other. Groups will be next. Yes, they'll probably start with not allowing new groups to be made, but they will eventually get rid of the ones that are active now. It's only a matter of time.

As for the ratings and reviews:
I think they intend to make this site mirror Amanazi's in every way, i.e. they will Big Brother and censor every word written in our reviews, and will absolutely not allow anyone to reply or comment on them.

Maybe in a few years Goodreads will be completely gone if they keep the pace.

id say they'll remove pf comments first tbh

Khang wrote: "Maybe in a few years Goodreads will be completely gone if they keep the pace."



Personally, that's what I'm hoping for. If they want to completely take away everything that's made GR the Community we've all come to know, use and love-then I hope it blows up in their faces and there's no one left here-a mass exodus, if you will. No matter what they think, they need us.

Thanks for all the votes and comments guys!

I am agreeing basically with all of you on where you think this site is heading.. I personally hope, as well as @ Debbie does, that this site has to be shut down. At the very least I hope that if it does remain active, that AmaNazi does not benefit from even half the things they assume they will, by destroying our community that has been here for over 19 years now...

I'm not gonna lie, being a member here since 2009, it will be a tough transition for me to have to leave here. I have put a lot into this site over the years as far as my book reviews and moderating my groups and community here. But I will not stay if I can no longer even have the rest of my community aspect or freedom of speech to exercise on my reviews and such. Just as @Kalinka stated above, I do not post book reviews on amazon any longer as well. I finally stopped doing so in the summer of 2024, due to their posting reviews tactics.

Wait i came back after a long time. What have they taken away?

I also don't review books on AmaNazi. Once I realized they were "greying out" some of my reviews (for no reason that I could see), it infuriated me to the point I said to myself "NO MORE"! It was ludicrous those reviews were being hidden; there was no foul language and nothing that would offend even the most sensitive soul on the planet. The rating was 5 stars, the review was glowing.
I will not be silenced or censored. I will not work my reviews around to try to "please" the Amazon Nazi Police. So, I just stopped reviewing anything on their site.

Mystic Orange wrote: "Wait i came back after a long time. What have they taken away?"


They just removed DM's. Quite the bold move.

Mystic Orange wrote: "Wait i came back after a long time. What have they taken away?"

Well, last Sept 2024 they took away personal email notifications to let you know when someone emailed you on GR or liked/commented on anything you did to prompt you to come to the site- and they also changed how these notifications work on the site itself, by shutting off auto notifications for your personal updates (reviews, photos, status updates, group threads etc.,)... which is why you have to check notify me boxes for EVERYTHING you post now, if you want to know if/when someone comments.

Now in the coming weeks, we will no longer have the ability to send personal DMs between individuals.:

"Changes to Messaging on Goodreads
message: Hello Goodreads Member,

In the coming weeks, we will be making some updates to how messaging works on Goodreads.

What's Changing?
• Direct messages between individual members will no longer be available
• Images and external links will no longer be supported in messages

While direct messages between individual members are no longer available, you can still access your past messages from your inbox, Group moderators can still send broadcast messages to their group members, and you can still send group invitations to your Goodreads friends. All other public interactions, such as writing and responding to book reviews, remains unchanged.

-The Goodreads Team"

I think in the next 2 years or so however I'm praying that they don't and I'm also praying that there are fans of how goodreads used to be before AmaNazi took over it and are planning a new reader website that will never be corrupted by the AmaNazi

Our group will be on LibraryThing by March!

Foxy Vixen wrote: "Our group will be on LibraryThing by March!"

This is great news that you are able to get new alternatives for your group. I'm happy for you.. But, just so you and your members are aware, LibraryThing is currently 40% owned by Amazon. This acquisition occurred in 2008 when they got the Seattle startup Shelfari, and with the purchase of Abebooks, they received a 40% stake in LibraryThing.. So just an FYI to you, before you move.

So long as Groups can moderate their members so there is no bullying, making of weird requests, etc, I think groups will be kept. This is the difference from personal messages in which someone can act really bad and get away with it until they are blocked.
The history of Group members can first be checked by the Moderators so no offensive people can be allowed to join.

In short, because Groups are tightly controlled by the members themselves as opposed to no control of personal messages, the Groups will remain.

bro ppl on goodreads take things so personally that they start complaining when the tiniest thing goes wrong. so I wont be surprised if they take it away...

Robert wrote: "So long as Groups can moderate their members so there is no bullying, making of weird requests, etc, I think groups will be kept. This is the difference from personal messages in which someone can ..."

I think that no DMs is gonna do the opposite for us moderators here. By taking away our ability to send out individual DMs, we will no longer be able to address certain issues that are simply not for the group or public consumption, when these types of sensitive issues arise. Members will also not feel comfortable saying much about issues, cause they can no longer come to us in confidence..

So this loss of DMs will negatively affect the way we can police and govern our groups in the long run.. Which will feed more into chaos on wayward members and behaviors in groups. This will then lead to AmaNazi saying that since groups are now more of a detriment or negative space for the GR community, we are now removing this feature from this site..

I said it before and I'll say it again, AmaNazi's continued campaign of removing features from this site since 2015, have all been a direct affront to killing community engagement here.

Robert wrote: "So long as Groups can moderate their members so there is no bullying, making of weird requests, etc, I think groups will be kept. This is the difference from personal messages in which someone can ..."


I'm very surprised that anyone is buying GR/Amazon's "explanation" of the why they're removing DM capabilities.

All GR Members have control of their DM's by going into their settings in their Profiles. They can set it to only receive DM's from "friends", therefore Members shouldn't be receiving DM's from bad actors in the first place, IF they've utilized the features/controls correctly.

This, among other things GR has done, is why this excuse of getting rid of DM's doesn't hold water for me.

I completely agree with Princess Nya-Amazon (AKA AmaNazi) has a campaign against the "Community" aspect of GR, and they won't stop until this is a site where only ratings/reviews of books are allowed. Even then, they'll be censoring those-mark my words.

It seems at least the moderators should be permitted to DM whoever is in the group, and vice versa.
I asked my AI about why there is such a proposed change, and apparently GR has not published a reason. Guesses are (for whatever they are worth since we don’t know):

1. Reduce spam, abuse, and harassment.
2. Lower moderation burden.
3. Legal or compliance risks.

It would be nice if they let us know so we could directly address the issue!

@ Robert

They do not have reasons. Except maybe one. Avarice.

It truly is disgraceful that AmazNazi is doing this. I started mirroring my reviews on LibraryThing a couple of months ago (nothing to do with the DM thing. But here we are...)

Yeah, Amanazi has a partial stake in LibraryThing but I don't really like Fable and I enjoy writing reviews so LT is better for me. That said, I have my reviews backed up in case.

It sucks because of the 5 sites I looked at, all of them have something someone might like, but none of them have all the features Goodreads has (for the time being, anyway...)

If one of the other sites besides LT becomes more functional, then I will consider using another site, but at the same time I don't wanna spread myself too thin, I don't use a lot of social media and prefer to socialize in one place, I prefer this to Facebook, lol. Problem is, Fable is an app - I already dislike browsing GR on my phone and much prefer using my PC.

Nooo i really hope they dont take away groups😞 i really like fable too and you can sync goodreads so you dont have to readd all your books.

It is my hope that wherever you guys decide to land, if you choose to leave GR, I hope that it is the right space for you..

I haven't really decided where I'll be yet.. I was thinking of StoryGraph, but not sure.. I just know that once they start messing with reviews and groups that I am leaving.. But, I'm looking into seeing if there is a platform that could be made for us all. With all the things we love about GR and a few awesome upgrades. But mainly a place that is not and never will be beholden to AmaNazi.

If this becomes a reality I will definitely spread the word for you guys to move there.. If you guys know anyone who has the ability and care to make it happen, please let me know as well.

If they did I would leave which is really upsetting because I just got here. I already think I should look into alternatives like Storygraph based on these comments....

✰Robin✰ wrote: "If they did I would leave which is really upsetting because I just got here. I already think I should look into alternatives like Storygraph based on these comments...."

If I leave here, StoryGraph is where I am most likely to go as well.

Thank you for the awesome response in votes and comments everyone!

As I stated earlier on this thread, it is my hope that wherever you guys decide to land, if you choose to leave GR, I hope that it is the right space for you..

It's too bad that the alternatives discussed (LibraryThing, StoryGtraph, Fable, Litsy, Hardcover) can't be merged and have the good features from these sites all available in one site. Only two of these sites have DMs, not all of them do reviews or groups, etc etc. So the choice isn't so easy or obvious since we all have different needs and use more of this or that feature.

KarensKael wrote: "It's too bad that the alternatives discussed (LibraryThing, StoryGtraph, Fable, Litsy, Hardcover) can't be merged and have the good features from these sites all available in one site. Only two of ..."


I agree. I use many features here, but I find most of those features are centered around community engagement with my friends or groups. While the logging and reviewing of books is a great feature for me, it is not the only or main reason I am on this site.

^Kalinka^ (On Semi-Hiatus) wrote: "KarensKael wrote: "It's too bad that the alternatives discussed (LibraryThing, StoryGtraph, Fable, Litsy, Hardcover) can't be merged and have the good features from these sites all available in one..."

Logging and reviewing was the main reason I joined GR, but I came to enjoy/make use of the social aspects later on and made some wonderful friends.

I've exported the bulk of my reviews to LibraryThing but I am still here for the social aspect and enjoy my groups and making comments on reviews/chatting. So I will maintain my account here for as long as it's feasible but if the Groups are removed, then I don't see much reason to remain.

This sounds like a plan, KarensKael.