Scribophile

I am a long-time member of this site, but there are drawbacks. I am actually one of the authors who has been published, thanks to Scribophile. However, I can't stand by and let the bullying continue. It's just too much, and the only way to end bullying is to take a stand against it.

I was in this forum, and there were five so-called writers who really lambasted a complete stranger without knowing her at all, without speaking to her, without meeting her. They decided to pick on her because she is also a literary agent, but she did not ever advertise her agency on the website. She is a real professional who simply sought to participate in the writing community. She never once mentioned it when I worked with her.

In one fell swoop in one thread, they completely discredited this author. At least two pages of judging a complete stranger, all invalid. Jerry Quinn, for example, didn't even know that Predators and Editors have not been running for at least three years now! So uneducated!

Just to let you know, the author had won an international award and is widely published over a span of thirty years. She has a lot of credibility, while these newbie pleebs have none. I know her on a professional level, and she did not ask me to leave this review. I have been bullied, so I know how to end it: take a stand.

It's really such as shame when people have to spoil what would be a great platform for writers, but it's such a negative place! She has tried to speak her mind and protect herself, but the owner and all his moderators have done everything to suppress her voice. This poor woman! She has actually been nominated for by several people to hold a Tedx talk on her experiences with bullying! She's a mental health professional who has been published widely on mental health and parenting. She's one of the real ones, unlike the jealous posers who sought to completely ruin her reputation.

She's trying her best to fight the bullying on the platform, so I decided to post something here to let other users know exactly what you're in for.

Five of the "writers," strangers to the person I know, all decided to call my acquaintance a fake and a phony with no knowledge. When I say strangers, they were literally strangers to each other. My colleague had not known these people at all. Yet, they all called her a fake, phony, fraud, predator, dishonest person, and even compared her with a drunk driver without knowing her or her situation. When she woke up, she literally saw an entire thread covered with libel! That's just not right!

She has been trying her best to work with the site, but unfortunately, the site's owner and his moderators all work to silence and censure her.

Good thing they cannot control everything. Thanks, Sitejabber, for providing me a voice to protect an undeserving person from abuse and to let the general public know what they're in for when they deal with Scribophile.

Well, a good, honest professional who has spread more good and light in the world was abused at the hands of these trolls: Song Magrew, Ann Wellington, Caroline Mack, Jerry Quinn, and Don Logan. I did some research about these posers, and they are known across social media by different names. This is usually what con artists do. My experiences in corrections tells me so. By contrast, the author I know is consistent across all platforms, showing her honesty and genuineness. Song Magrew is a nobody because I found this person nowhere else. It really shows how invalid their abuse was toward this loving, kind woman.

Not only was I upset when these people picked on her, but also, she told me the moderators are all deleting her posts! All of them. It doesn't matter what she posts now! It's outrageous, like living under a Nazi regime or within the novel 1984. It's really awful! The site left libel and slander up for over twenty four hours! Yet, she posted simple things to address the bullying, and it was deleted within minutes! Awful, awful. She did nothing to deserve this type of treatment! The trolls' posts should have been deleted instantly. It's like the owner and the moderators are sending the message, eh, bullying and libel is okay on this site, but go off topic, and oh, no, they can't allow that to happen even for a moment.

The abusive posts were deleted, but nothing was done to the bullies! They are still all on the site, ready to abuse everyone else they come into contact with. This is why I provided their writer names for everyone to see. People should be warned that when they deal with these people, they are open to be abused. It just goes to show that people can abuse others there and not be penalized at all, which says volumes about this site.

There was nothing fair about this situation, and you can expect that if you suffer at the hands of trolls, you will be treated the same way. The woman who runs the biggest beta swap on the site told me that it has been a really big problem for years. She told me that this one troll was so bad, the person would abuse everyone who was just starting out on the platform, so she and a group of others would make it their mission to go around and send kind messages to the troll's victims to make them feel better.

There is only one way to correct people's unprofessional behavior: Don't tolerate it. It's not rocket science. These transactions are in writing. They should have never been allowed to be left up for over twenty-four hours to spread the libel of these individuals. These individuals should have been banned for their behavior. The owner should revise his policies to clearly state that trolling and abusive behavior will result in the closure of their account.

I'm calling out the owner of this site to make it better and safer for upcoming authors. If you tolerate abusive behavior on the site, people will keep doing it. I hope the lightbulb goes off in your head. Revise your policies and mete out appropriate penalties and consequences for trolls, and they will no longer exist on your site. Suspension of their accounts for a certain amount of time is the very least penalty people should experience. Then I will leave a review of five stars, because despite your antiquated ways of tolerating trolls and bullies, it's a great platform! I really love it, but something has to change.

UPDATE: The owner is really just unreasonable. My friend just contacted me and told me that she was banned from the site because she tried to stand up to her bullies. So disappointing, Alex Cabal! But, these latest actions completely prove my point. It's a place overrun with trolls and bullies, and the owner is the biggest one of all, and keeps all the trolls on the site and bans nice, good people so all that is left is a pit of abuse. Also, I hear people complain their work is stolen from the site. Fakers from other countries use the site to steal others' materials and publish them in other countries. Then, you have little recourse to go after them. It's totally not worth it. Everyone should just leave and find a reputable writer's circle to join. There's better ways to get feedback than this. No reason why you should be subjected to bullies, con artists, and thieves. I'm going to go close my account now.

I went to scribophile to learn and grow as a writer. While the site is fairly well structured and encourages writers to support one another, their critique system could use improvement. As could the overall attitude from members and moderators alike.

Commenting on other's work in regards of grammar, etc. can earn you flags. Not to mention they discourage lengthy critiques. They also don't like you posting chapters or pieces over 3,000 words. Which can be quite a pain as a number of writers end up having to divide their work into even smaller parts just to comply with the rules.

Also, unless you're a paying member... which its $9 dollars a month just to message freely and not have a limitation on the amount of work you post, it can slow you down to a snail's pace. Not to mention actually present your work in a decent format. If you're not a paying member, it is even harder to earn karma points. Even if you do a lot of reading and critiquing the limitations they set makes all those stacked up karma points seem wasted. Not to mention, it slows a number of writers down that might have deadlines or be looking for some serious feedback on their work.

Though I'll say this much... I ended up being a paying member so that way I could fully utilize everything, it still felt overpriced as there were times I would take out a lengthy time to read and critique another's works to get flagged and would end up get half-assed critiques that were pointless to even acknowledge imo. But as I did not want to cause trouble, I let it slide. Not to mention I didn't want to have to deal with the moderators which came off as rather pushy, snooty, and condescending.

First off set up is pretty good I like the critique features but this site takes a ton of work to post anything. It's like I critique five other works just to get one chapter of my work up. Leadership is terrible the mods do keep things moving but they are bias and for some reason volunteers. The head guy is unprofessional and plays favorites. People are leaving this place left and right save your money and go for something else.

I've enjoyed my time at Scribophile, but was surprised to find out two things as a non-paying member:

1. You cannot italicize anything in your submitted stories. I use italics a lot, so I was disappointed to find this out. Granted, they do say that "premium members" will enjoy certain format enhancements that will make your writing shine. Too bad I didn't read the fine print.

2. I somehow missed that at a certain point, you must pay up to continue membership. Nothing is free in this world after all. Trouble is, I'd already critiqued enough stories to earn 5 credits, enough to submit my next story. Ok, after reading more fine print, they do let you delete past stories and critiques to keep submitting stories for free. I guess you just have to be really on it. They have subtle ways of urging you to become a "premium member." Perhaps marketing is marketing, and I just need to deal with it!