Flagged reviews/not-reviews

I'd be really interested to know the mechanisms for the following instances:

1. When a review is flagged as 'not a review', what happens subsequently, if anything? Is it a message to the reviewer to change or delete it? Does it get picked up by admin and followed up? Or does it stay there forever?

2. Following on from the last scenario, what happens if the reviewer then turns it into a proper review? Does the flag stay even though that's no longer appropriate, or can only the person flagging it remove it?

!. Nothing happens, other than the review is sorted to the bottom of the list when the reviews are sorted by votes. The reviewer receives no message. The admin watch the flagging for abuse, but beyond that, I don't think they get alerted either.

2. The flag remains. The only way to remove the flag, according to Tim, was to remove the book then put in a new copy with the proper review. (Or possibly email the admin regarding it.) You could also place the request into this group for counter flagging purposes that allow the flag to disappear with other's support.

Thanks for this, gilroy! I've messaged a couple of not-reviewers who were obviously confusing personal comments on books with public reviews, and from their abashed replies I've assumed they intended to correct this.

In all honesty, don't worry about it. Staff has stated that pretty much folks can put whatever they want into the review field. We have a user here putting in nothing but "Group A" into their reviews, other folks adding commercial and affiliate links, etc.

The only real exception is the 25+ (edit: word) review rule for a book reviewed as part of the Early Reviewers program.

I only mind when, as someone who enjoys reading other LT readers' reviews almost as much as the titles themselves, I find myself on occasion irritated at a succession of statements on shared titles that really belong in individuals' comments/private comments boxes. No worries though!

There are three reviews posted for John Ross's El Monstruo. One of the three is fine. The other two are exact duplicates of each other but have different bylines. I flagged them both as violating terms of service.

Did I do wrong or did I do right or did I waste my time?

Deke

> 6

I have an odd feeling that they are the same person. Each account has reviewed the same books, and only those books.

And it can't be a coincidence that the 70 books I share with one account are also the same 70 books I share with the other.

So was I right or wrong to flag them?

> 8

Wrong. If it's the same person, and I think it is, it's perfectly okay for him to copy himself.

9: But what about the sock puppet thing? I thought we weren't supposed to review the same book from more than one account.

> 10

I don't see how that's different than my reviewing a book twice from one account because I own two copies.

The sock-puppet thing, as I understand it, is to prevent authors from improperly promoting their books. That doesn't seem to be the case here.

11: Okay, that makes sense. I was focused on the two accounts rather than the content.

Well, if you review the same book twice because you own two copies, I'd say you're nuts if you do it from one account or seventeen accounts. I don't understand why LT allows it, unless the practice allows LT to claim more reviews (and more reviewers) than LT has actually got.

Well, dekesolomon, I can totally see where the reviews of two copies might be different. There might be additional material that is substantial, as in a Norton Critical Edition, or there might be issues relating to the physicality of the book ("lousy binding" or "I don't know why they chose such an illegible font" or "the print quality of the pictures in this coffee-table book is superb").

From looking at the reviews/accounts in question, it looks like the person has an account specifically for Librarything for Libraries (LTFL) where they copied the review between the two accounts. I'm not sure why some people do this, but that is one thing that people do.

staffordcastle -- I wouldn't beef if the two reviews were different. My beef is that the two reviews are precisely the same -- that's SAME, as in word-for-word identical. Why would anybody do that? I actually thought that someone had copied the review of another member and posted it, crediting his-or-her own account. Turns out that's exactly what DID happen except the two people (who have different user IDs) are in fact the same person.

Oh well -- If doing so is accepted practice, then I withdraw my complaint and you'll never hear me complain again no matter how silly things get.

> 16

My beef is that the two reviews are precisely the same -- that's SAME, as in word-for-word identical. Why would anybody do that?

Easy. If you have two copies (or more) copies in your library, you want all the information about each book in each individual book's record in your library.

But something just seems /wrong/ about that.
It's like it's unfairly bolstering (or lowering) the rating for a book. If a book only had say, 10 reviews, and eight of the reviewers gave it one star, but the other two reviews (the same person in this scenario) gave it five stars, it messes up the math and makes the book look better than it really is.

>18 benuathanasia:
There's always a weakness in any procedure. Though I suppose it's not a lot different from Putin being bigged up to seem more popular than he really is by multiple voting.

Supposing I encounter an old review from 2007 that is just a link to a blog, and that link appears to be broken. I'm assuming I should flag that, right?

Yes, broken links can safely be flagged as "Not a review".

>20 Cecrow:

If the person seems to be still around, you might drop them a comment letting him know. That would allow him to fix it if possible.