Sunday, October 26, 2008
"Waves of Leavers"
The phrase is Judy K. Polhemus,' a member in good standing of Amazon's possibly most knee-jerk "Friends" voting group, the Guardala Gang. She predicts the departure in their own perhaps sincere, but no doubt bizarre outrage of various personages of the group who've been shockingly reduced in both reviewer ranking and number of countable positive votes. Either Hondo, the HKAS, or now Amazon must be guilty according to their newest claims, personal responsibilty having been laid aside by common consent long ago. Yet one wonders if such departures will be really more of a threat than a promise. In a possibly endless series of farewells, Steve Guardala who led the exodus even before Amazon subjected him to precipitous falls in ranking and "Yes" votes, nevertheless returned to cancel once again his mere content summary - aka "review"- of "Landknechts", apparently in preference to responding to questions about his innocence in vote manipulation by the Ghost and Yours Truly. Others of the group who will punish us all, along with Amazon, by their departure include such worthies as Giordano Hussein Bruno and H.Schneider. Ever a follower, like so many of the commentators on these guys' threads who "know" that a book must be worthless if one of these paragons doesn't recommend it -how clever these followers must be, to know a book's merit without bothering to read it- Judy Polhemus threatens to follow suit. What potential losses to the world of genuine reviewing!! Ave atque vale, nevertheless.
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7 comments:
Wot? They're threatening to leave Amazon? Oh, that'd be teeeeeeerrible... :-)
Betty Dravis, Our Lady of the Hot Pen, is the latest and unintentionally the most amusing reviewer threatening to defect from Amazon following the alteration in many rankings. In her comment below H.Schneider's review of "Tropic Thunder" she unwittingly gives a large part of the whole sad game away:
"It will be hard to do without you and your fine reviews, HELMUT, but Amazon's loss is someone else's gain. I won't be far behind, as soon as I fulfill some commitments made to about ten authors for whom I owe reviews ... unless Amazon restores my rank, which I doubt they are honorable enough to do. C u in Cyberspace, and best of luck. Keep in touch, friend! ;-)"
Betty in her demotion sounds as "on the take" and irony-free as Katisha in "The Mikado." "Give me my place" Amazon or "This insult you shall rue"!!!!!
Jeezus! Stanley, you were right, the Landsknechts review is gone again. Wow.
Am I alone in finding the astonishingly sudden reappearances of two exploded but still self-important Amazon "Drama Queens" unintentionally amusing? After childish threats to punish us all by leaving the site, and, for the record, getting for their petulence droves of lemmings begging them not to, H.Schneider has returned, with the speed of a soap opera character afflicted with amnesia, as "Uwe Dehnstumel" while Giordano Hussein Bruno is currently wearing skirts as "Kepler's Mother." I mention their current noms de guerre for any readers who may be unable to find them and thus miss out on the pretty steady diet these reviewers offer of a hilarious, Dostoevsky-like oscillation between supreme, if sincere, arrogance and almost total servility.
Betty "Keep Your Pen Hot," though, has still to leave the fold, as has Judy K. Polhemus who was thrilled by H.Schneider's endorsing Gio's leading the way for a presumptive "wave of leavers." Just hot air it turns out to be, and after all the phony pathos and fake indignation!
Oh, they're back? So it was all histrionics, just as I thought... not that it's terribly interesting or important, of course: I don't mind, let them go on.
A lot of frantic activity all of a sudden: "Judy K. Polhemus" is now "Troll Warrior". Why all these renamings? (Giordano Hussein Bruno has renamed himself a few times too during the last few days to Kepler's Mother, then Giordano Bruno, sans Hussein this time; and so did H.Schneider who, after posing as "Uwe Dehnstumel" for a moment, has now settled on "retired Hermit"). Despite whining and threats to leave, none of them left of course: you were exactly right. I still don't understand why they're renaming themselves all the time... hiding something? Google finds them all, regardless of name changes. What can the reasons be? Must be votes (?) Let's see: Judy K Polhemus used to have 8,111 helpful votes; after the revolution it's 3,858 (a loss of 4253 votes). "Giordano Bruno" had 10,776 votes; now it's 5,846 votes (a loss of 4930 votes; unlike Judy, he's also suffered a gigantic slide in rank: from 256 to 1,760). "retired Hermit" (née "H.Schneider") had 4,915 votes; now it's 3,411 votes (a loss of 1,504 votes; he's suffered the biggest slide in rank: from 695 to 6,554). Is it this that they can't bear the very mention of? It is a lot of faked-out votes, but still... Very strange.
Btw, Harp lost more than 100,000 votes. Can you imagine? Even Harriet, whom I would never suspect of vote stuffing, lost 35,411 votes. Incredible. The mind boggles at such numbers.
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