online reviewers

Apparently there's a brawl over online reviewing...

Sutherland wrote on November 12 about a damaging series of reader reviews on the Amazon website of Victoria Glendinning's new biography of Leonard Woolf.

Several reviewers had said the book was poorly written, gushy and flawed by unspecified errors. When Kevin O'Sullivan responded with a positive review, someone else pointed out he was Glendinning's "(umpteenth) husband". Nasty stuff, and unpoliced.

And epitomic of online culture.

Oh please, every single subculture online consists of the n00bs, the wannabe-mods, the trolls, the whingers, jerks, assholes, bitches, perverts, pyromaniacs...and normal people.

I don't understand what all the ruckus is about ==; Okay, one guy can't take it that there exists a bunch of n00bs online who has not been bashed over the head yet. Is there even a point to this argument?

What's with the high-handed complaints about online reviewers, when any review is biased? Who the hell reads a review in a newspaper and takes it for the word of God?

Readers know that reviews contain opinions. Is there really such a thing as "quality of opinion"?

Does having a university degree in English give you a better opinion on the latest novel than the next person on the train?



In other news, if I were a cellist and I crushed my left hand I would go into hysterics too...

300-year-old cello in a hard case or the hand I use for fingering?

I hope I'd go for my hand >_>