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miraba ([info]miraba) wrote in [info]fandom_wank,
@ 2013-12-19 09:40:00


Previous Entry  Add to memories!  Tell a Friend!  Next Entry
Entry tags:author entitlement, authors, person: anne rice, reviews

Oh look, Anne Rice is being wanky.
Thanks to an anon for this.

Anne Rice starts an Amazon forum thread on how to write better fiction reviews:

http://www.amazon.com/forum/fiction/ref=cm_cd_tfp_ef_tft_tp?_encoding=UTF8&cdForum=Fx1X9OILUVOYVZ7&cdThread=Tx3SETGL9XAMJT5

As anyone familiar with Anne Rice would be shocked to hear, it goes downhill rapidly. Rice minimods the thread and scolds people for going off-topic, while straying farther and farther off-topic herself. The fun starts on page four:

The Amazon system, wonderful as it is, is ripe for abuse by the mob when they want to go after an
author. Charlane Harris comes to mind as the best recent example.
Disgruntled Sookie Stackhouse fans on the site for the last novel in the series have essentially ganged up on some positive reviewers. For a long time they "neg voted" in masse any good review.
And you're right, the focus shifts to the author, with piles of personal insults.
I infer from all this that these negative fans have found that it is just as much fun to attack an author and try to destroy a publication as it is to become a fan of a series in the first place.
Of course they cannot bring down Charlane Harris or her books, but I do think they want to ruin the experience for her and others.

Around page 59, Anne is caught trashing commenters from the review thread in another subforum:

One thing is clear to me: these Amazon careerist predatory reviewers are HIGHLY sensitive to criticism themselves. Talk about thin skin! One reason they vilify and ridicule any author who dares to respond to a review is that they simply can't take any kind of response themselves. They can't handle it. That's why they struggle for supremacy in such a situation with the endless lecturing to the author not to dare to respond. Some of them are downright scared to death of criticism.
They've picked their bully neg reviewer role because they assumed they'd be immune to criticism and they are fit to be tied when it doesn't work for them.

She explains herself:

This Forum is not about that topic.
I realize you're determined to derail this Forum.
You've been trying for days to take a positive discussion and make it negative.

Does appealing to you as a decent human being have any effect whatsoever?

Can't you understand that there are different Forums on Amazon for different purposes?
Can't you see that?
Can't you understand why some one in a "Meet the Authors" Forum might address issues
of importance to authors that can't or shouldn't be addressed here?

What is it about this that you find so difficult to understand?

Everyone understands perfectly, backs off, and has a group hug while singing a rousing round of "For She's a Jolly Good Fellow," and all is joy and sunshine in the Amazon forums forever more.



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What actually happened to the wiki?
[info]talkingtoaster
2013-12-29 05:10 pm UTC (link)
I just remember being there a long time ago, and then one day I went to check and it was gone. This must have been a year or so ago now, but this is literally the first I've ever heard anyone acknowledge its disappearance (despite my mad research skilz).

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

Re: What actually happened to the wiki?
[info]neridne
2014-01-07 10:12 am UTC (link)
Yeah, the non-acknowledgement of the wiki's disappearance is pretty weird. I wish there was some sort of explanation posted so at least I know why it went down. But the only signs I see is that the link to the wiki were removed from fandom_wank and that's about it.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

Re: What actually happened to the wiki?
[info]white_serpent
2014-03-12 08:21 pm UTC (link)
HnK took it down. She owns the domain and paid for the server space, and one day as I was in the midst of trying to kill the latest group of several hundred spam accounts, the wiki disappeared and never reappeared.

I assume one of the following:
*She got tired of it.
*It was too much trouble (in one way or another).
*The size/traffic were getting out of hand because of the constant spambot incursions.
*She wanted to use the hosting space for something else (which she's clearly doing).

Also, there's the general truth that people would reference articles there, but there just wasn't much new content.

People post periodic questions about what happened to it, and this is the best I've got for you. I did email her about it after the fact, but she never responded. I think snacky asked her about it as well. From my perspective: even with the code mindset wrote, dealing with the constant spam was time-consuming. So, I miss it, but...

(Coming on this thread quite late because Anne Rice announced a new Vampire Chronicles book and I wondered if the wank was related.)

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

Re: What actually happened to the wiki?
[info]miraba
2014-03-13 03:25 am UTC (link)
I think most people (including myself) used it to locate wanks when Google wasn't cooperating. Even just restoring it as a non-wiki archive would be worth a few bucks for me.

(Reply to this)(Parent)


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