SAN FRANCISCO, CA – According to numerous sources around the Internet and my Inbox, the popular site Authonomy has been attacked by what appears to be a flash mob led by someone codenamed Klazart, which is overwhelming Authonomy servers and distressing numerous Authonomy followers.
According to reader John Minichillo, Klzart is the author of the book LESSER SINS. The novel quickly rose to the top Authonomy’s rankings in only a few days, backed by the author’s legion of fans, who were spurred to log in and vote for it via a YouTube video.
Authonomy employs a user-generated method of ranking titles, and theoretically the ones who generate the most esteem from other members of the ardently passionate community rise to the top, where they are supposedly reviewed by Harper UK editors.
Blog commenter Trashy Cowgirl sums up thusly: “A group of gamers following a guy who calls himself Klazart, flashmobbed the site. He is backed by 880 people, and on 233 watchlists. He is now ranked ninth. Not bad considering he only posted his ms on the 19th. Of course the flood managed to jam the site and create an enormous uproar.”
Such a big uproar, apparently, that as of this writing I can’t even open the Authonomy website.
According to Minichillo, Klazart is popular in the Internet gaming community for “narrating videos of Starcraft tournaments and popular players.”
Further research conducted by your intrepid reporter shows that Startcraft is apparently a video game. Who knew!
Klazart’s actions apparently caused Authonomy’s zealous nongaming followers to go completely bananas in the forums.
Is this the future of user-generated aggregators or will this be a hiccup along the way? Should we begrudge Mr. Klazart his Starcraft-backed following?
Stay tuned.
UPDATE: “Klazart” weighed in in the comments section. His real name is Vineet and he’s a nice guy. It wasn’t a flash mob per se, and Authonomy’s shutdown doesn’t seem to be (or at least shouldn’t be) related to his followers joining the site. Authonomy posted a statement clarifying matters and confirming that Klazart/Vineet didn’t break any rules.
Kat Mayo says
I guess gamers are like drug addicts and alcoholics: They are very supportive of one another, kind of like family. Apparently gaming is the new “in” addiction.
Jade says
I can’t open the site either – wonder how long it will take to be up and running again?
This is the reason why I feel that any contest that requires a popular vote – from Idols to Authonomy – is vulnerable to manipulation and the results should therefore not be taken too seriously.
I wonder how many of those rabid fans would end up actually buying the book if it were published?
Tracey S. Rosenberg says
Ya see what happens when you let the public in?? It’s like the Modern Library’s Top 100 books list as voted by the public:
https://www.randomhouse.com/modernlibrary/100bestnovels.html
Note how, um, different that list is to the board’s choices.
Hubbard-loving Scientology types and Ayn Rand Objectivists have every right to vote (ONCE), but swamping the list defeats the purpose. Not sure how you can control for that – or even if you should.
Nixy Valentine says
I had a similar issue on a website that I run in which a user with a large group of fan-friends ran away with a contest.
There was a huge kablooie. People ranted that it was just a *popularity* contest and not a “best quality” contest now that someone had figured how to “rig” the results. Others said that if someone had a large enough fanbase to “fix” the contest, was it a fix at all?
But, but, but… they aren’t OUR people, complained the site regulars.
So, hacked probably isn’t the right word, unless I’m misunderstanding what happened. “Hacked” implies that code was illegally and maliciously manipulated to change the website itself. Sounds like the guy just asked people to vote for him.
But if that’s the case, isn’t that what authonomy is all about? User popularity?
They only way to avoid things like this happening is to restrict voting to other people who also have an approved work up on the site. Otherwise, there’s always some wiseass out there with five hundred friends.
Deaf Indian Muslim Anarchist! says
Man, I haven’t logged onto Authonomy for a few days and this happened!!!! WHY DID I MISS THE FIASCO YESTERDAY!!!ARRRRrrgghhhhhh
Nathan Bransford says
Yeah, I couldn’t decide what word to use. Hacked isn’t quite right, but hijacked wasn’t quite right either.
I ultimately went with hacked in the general sense, not the original connotation, but if someone has something better I’ll change it.
Deaf Indian Muslim Anarchist! says
Besides, i heard his book was total crap (and not even complete). My guess is that the Harper Collins editors will probably refuse to read his book…then I’m going to laugh at him.
StirlingEditor says
I joined Authonomy in February, and have enjoyed the community. I don’t want to comment on Klazart’s book in any way, but the fact that this situation has closed down the site for the rest of us who are generally following the “rules” (read that as actively participating in the forums and reading/commenting on others’ books), has left me chagrined.
As I said to another Authonomite this morning: I’m all for capitalism but no one is capitalizing when no one can reach the goods. Hmm…He’ll reach the Editor’s Desk in a few days (whether deservedly or no), and we’ll get back to the business of honing and improving our manuscripts.
I still believe it is a wonderful writers community worth saving.
Sam Hranac says
New addiction? Being addicted to gaming is getting old enough to buy booze legally. It has been around long enough to become mainstream. Some of these people have given up sleeping on their Mom’s basement couch and now sleep on basement couches of their own.
I sometimes considered Potter fans rabid just because I never saw the draw.
I say this is a hick-up for this one creator, but not for the movement of what is “popular.” Just as the music industry lost control when the Beatles hit the scene, publishers are loosing control as users storm the gates of content creation.
Oops… rambling…
[Takes meds]
Sorry.
PurpleClover says
oh see i was think hijacked was less confusing.
Either way that is hilarious! But how frustrating for those that are on there with honest intentions and sorely losing out because they aren’t “gamers” in any sense of the word.
Shaun Hutchinson says
As much as I respect the general public, their ability to consistently vote the best of anything to the top is hampered by their inability to resist things that are shiny. This is why the most talented members of American Idol are usual voted off before those with a schtick (a schtick that usually wears thin quickly).
Flash in the pan trends are fine…sometimes they sell stuff, but in 100 years I don’t want my great-great grandchildren to be reading books by a guy named Klzart.
RW says
It’s a kind of vandalism, and it’s temporary. It doesn’t fatally injure the concept of user-generated aggregators. (Other flaws in the concept not withstanding.) It just makes a mess that the host site has to have a system for cleaning up.
Bradley Robb says
This is really interesting. An author has shown that he can leverage his own, rather minimal, grass-roots social support in order to win a competition which allegedly is asking author’s to do just that. Honestly, Klazart is just using social marketing.
A similar tactic was used by Sean Tevis in a local Kansas election last year. He made an XKCD-styled advert which netted enough donations to bury the incumbent.
It’s not gaming the system, it’s marketing outside of the box. If Klazart had done this with a self-published, or even published book, the headline would probably be something like, “Author Uses YouTube Fame to Sell Books.”
Cameron Chapman says
I think “hacked” is definitely the right word. He found a weakness in the system and he exploited it. The fact that he did so for his own gain and at the expense of others would lead me to even label him a “black hat hacker”. And it was not just long-time members who were on the forums. Many very hateful, very hurtful things were said by “gamers” and long-time members alike. I watched most of it unfold on Saturday night until the site was flooded to the point it was effectively shut down.
Anonymous says
Now this is a concern.
Is the once esteemed craft of writing being reduced to gladiator battles to the death in public forums to gain the favorable eye of publishers?
Is Harper UK the emperor and Authonomy now become a virtual coliseum? Will the crowds cheer for the emperor to signal thumbs up or down?
Do we have to develop a fanatical following in another arena to compete for the whims of the emperor?
Does this not promote self-advertisement, self-promotion… leading to self-publication?
I hope, no, I pray … that all of this is a joke… or a bad dream?
Mercy Loomis says
I’m with Nixy – if no code was changed or inserted, no hacking took place. This is what we lovingly call “gaming the system.” Happens all the time – even Stephen Colbert does it, like with his call to the Nation to vote for his name for the new NASA pod. (https://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,508998,00.html)
As for gaming being the new “in” addiction, where have you been Kat? We gamers have been doing our thing for more than 30 years, as a group. The Starcraft fans are a very rabid subset – and I don’t mean that in a negative way. I think Klazart’s strategy is a brillant use of his resources. The hobby gaming industry is very incestuous, in that the same people tend to move around from company to company and gain a following with the consumers. I don’t see the video gaming industry (or the publishing industry, for that matter) as being too terribly different.
I think this illustrates why the publishing houses will hang out longer than some people think – it’s not that people can’t game their system, but we’re used to it and we know who is doing it and what kind of books are likely to be produced by it. I don’t think the general public is ready for the books that are picked by gamers and people who watch YouTube.
L.C. Gant says
Yup, there’s nothing on the site now but an “undergoing maintenance” message. Yuck. What a mess.
I’m with Jade here–Idol, Authonomy, high school Homecoming courts–they’re all the same. Whoever has the most friends, not necessarily the most talent, wins. I’m not a fan of that type of thing.
Sadly, I think this is just the beginning. I don’t see how Authonomy can regulate this type of vote bombardment. Eh, I’ll watch from afar, I guess.
As a side note, Ray Rhamey over at Flogging the Quill recently blogged about his new love of Authonomy: https://www.floggingthequill.com/flogging_the_quill/2009/03/my-new-authonomy-addiction.html I’d like to direct him to this post, if that’s okay. I think I’ll enjoy his thoughts on it. Thanks for the info, Nathan!
Erin says
I think you should try to use “absconded with” if possible, Nathan. You just don’t see it enough these days.
Also, the site is totally crashed and down. I blogged about it too 🙂 My overall verdict on the subject is that HC is facing a total PR nightmare and it’s going to be extremely funny to see what they decide to do. Alienate the regulars? Or annoy the gamers? And it’s never a good idea to annoy the gamers…
Rick Daley says
I think hijacked is a better term than hacked. This reminds me of the “Vote for the Worst” initiative that kept Sanjaya on American Idol so long (was that last year or the year before?).
I think it exploits an obvious weakness in the premise of sites like Authonomy, i.e. all you need is votes to succeed, so campaign for them however you can.
I posted a portion of my novel on Authonomy, but I haven’t had much time to read other works, and therefore have not even been ranked. I did get a comment recently from someone along the lines of, “let’s face it, I’ll never read your book, but I’m moving up on the rankings so do me a favor and add me to your bookshelf.”
Julia Weston says
It’s just my luck. I registered just for fun less than a week ago. I enjoyed the site until everything blew up. Suddenly there were shadow-people everywhere(fake name, no avatar) picking fights with the “locals.” Bizarre. And pretty discouraging.
Even though Shazam (or whatever) wasn’t breaking the rules, per se, his actions still don’t sit well with me.
I also wonder if HC will come issue some sort of official statement.
Bradley Robb says
Perhaps this just shows that HarperCollins skimped on their server needs. With under a thousand votes, and under six thousand YouTube views, applying the term “traffic explosion” would be a large stretch. The front page of Digg drives a hundred times that number in a single hour on a typical weekday afternoon.
Bane of Anubis says
Perhaps the term you should use – gaming related – is “fragged”
Jeremy D Brooks says
Democracy in action…the popular kids get invited to the party, and the smart kids are home watching Dr. Who reruns again.
Not too dissimilar from what the gaming community did with the Spore game release ratings on Amazon last autumn, or the battle between Penny Arcade and Harlan Ellison last year, or–not to troll but make a point–the earth-shaking herd that came out to support our own Nathan as best blog (Webby? BestBlog? Sorry, can’t remember which) just a few months ago. In the new economy, mobs certainly do rule the day.
Dawn says
You’re right, Sam Hranac, we Potter fans are rabid. It’s frightening.
Jan says
I joined Authonomy Feb 2nd of this year and my story has climbed into 45th place because of the helpful critique from fellow members.
I’ve read part of Klazart’s book. It’s ok but definitely not ready for the editor’s desk.
I think he would have been wise to go the traditional route and improved his work with the aid of fellow members before seeking the editors desk.
His gamer friends will get him into the top 5 ranking, but then what? A red face when HC reviewers point out all the books flaws?
His tactics for manipulating the system have earned him instant placement in the top ranking. The problem is, his large following of gamers are backing him as a person, not his book and writing ability. Most have not even read his work.
Jan
Marilyn Peake says
Sooooooo, maybe the future of books is in selling large numbers of them to people induced into mass hysteria first. Think about the possibilities. The book wouldn’t have to be well-written; it could actually be thrown together very, very quickly. And, heck, no one would even have to read the damn thing, just flashmob the Amazon site, download the book into their Kindle or Kindle 2 or Kindle Whatever all at the same time, before the mass hysteria wears off, in order to boost the Amazon sales ranking to #1. Then the critics will give it a great review because it sold so well and it got people to “read” again after all the time in which people had supposedly given up reading for other more addictive pursuits. Ain’t literature gonna be grand? Ch-ching, think of all the money.
Vineet says
Nathan
The Authonomy FAQ specifically encouraged us to ‘ask friends and family to come to the site’, and if we have a website/blog and have people there who will come and ‘champion’ our work then we should invite them also.
I read this and posted a simple video on youtube asking the community to help me get noticed. Honestly, I didn’t anticipate that so many of them would come. I figured, maybe a couple of hundred people would come and it would raise my profile a little.
Also, 880 people over 24 hours is hardly a flash mob. There are so many community based forums around the internet that have that many people on all the time simultaneously, and I had no way of knowing that the authonomy servers would not be able to handle this, “relatively small” increase in traffic.
In hindsight, I’m sorry for all the trouble 🙁
dmw819 says
A gamer just gaming the system? I have no financial interest nor am I defending the video game industry. But annual video game sales now exceed theatrical film releases revenues. The writing about tournaments for the product, Starcraft might sound trite. Starcraft is one of the oldest (and still) most lucrative video game franchises in history. The other little game by same manufacturer, might sound familiar, is called Warcraft. Humungous sales. Content consumers who buy media content regularly. I don’t think it is such a leap of faith – that Electronic Arts, or Nintendo, or Blizzard, could get into publishing other types of media. Stock it in every vertically integrated video game depot. It was’t just a gamer gaming the system. It was a brilliant marketing move.
StirlingEditor says
The site’s back up! Here’s an update from HC about what happened:
https://www.authonomy.com/Forum/Posts.aspx?threadId=18893
Vineet says
From Authonomy
“Finally, we need to apologise for the performance issues which are dogging the site at the moment. We appear to have a fault in our hosting infrastructure. It is not related to the activities at the weekend and we really should have more than enough capacity in the servers for the task at hand. We are investigating and service may be at erratic until this is resolved. Please bear with us on this one. We are making this a priority. “
Can people PLEASE stop blaming me for killing the site now 🙁
Bane of Anubis says
I don’t blame you, sir, I commend you 😉 – call their bluff and see if their servers can survive 1,000 more gaming cuts 🙂
Mercy Loomis says
Poor Vineet, I bet this wasn’t what you expected your 15 minutes of fame to be like!
If nothing else, Authonomy has learned a valuable lesson – they need bigger servers. Or something like that.
Vineet says
Mercy I wasn’t hoping for 15 minutes of fame.
Maybe 15 minutes on an editor’s desk and some honest feedback?
Julia Weston says
Vineet! I’ll stop blaming you if you back my book 😉 Seriously, I can’t say I agree with your method, but I’m still probably going to check out your ms 🙂
Vineet says
Julia – I appreciate all honest, constructive feedback 🙂
I’ve got a lot of stuff to read still on my watch list, but I’ll try to get around to yours at some point.
David Russell Mosley says
I don’t normally comment, but I have to say that this is, one hilarious, and two it goes to show that perhaps having a voting contest like this might not be a great idea.
Bane of Anubis says
Hey, if you can get a legion of fans to do this in a day’s time, then some of them would likely be willing to coin up and buy the book – that’s how I’d look at it if I were HC. We should all aspire to that level of distributionability (viral or otherwise) – I guess that means I’ll need to come out of my cave at some point 🙂
150 says
I’d say “gamed”, actually. This is the Internet. Major news outlets post polls like “Who’s the best vampire, Dracula or Edward?” EXPECTING the uptick in hits from the Twilight fans. Anyone who can mobilize almost a thousand people, well, more power to him.
Anonymous says
Vineet,
My comments concerning the gladiators battling in the arena were not directed at you — you too, are a gladiator.
This demonstrates the problems with public arenas – we sometimes forget there are people behind the virtual.
PS. I apologize for calling your friends fanatics. Fanatics have purpose… my friends are just uselessly crazy…
Of course this is why I must remain,
Anonymous
Marilyn Peake says
Nathan,
Sure hope you post a blog about writing again sometime soon. Last week’s discussion about writing was great.
Nathan Bransford says
vineet-
I’m not sure you should aplogize. As you say, you were following the rules, your group shouldn’t really have overwhelmed their servers, and I wouldn’t begrudge any author that has a built-in following.
I do find it an interesting possible preview of the future. It will be chaotic until all of this is worked out.
Mira says
I read the comment at Authonomy. I thought they handled it well.
Vineet, I hope you don’t feel badly, the site is backing you.
Frankly, I suspect they see this as a big positive. Look how much publicity they got from this. Look how much action on the site. Isn’t Authonomy a relatively new site? To have a user rally a thousand people – that’s a thousand more people who now know about this site.
Besides, this totally fits in with their concept – like they said, there were no rules broken.
They still don’t have to publish anything – that’s where the site retains the ultimate power.
But good luck to you, Vineet!
Peter Morin says
I’m bemused by the whole thing, but a tad annoyed too. There are NO rules (generally) other than what the community has adopted by silent consensus.
Here’s my Authonomy Fable.
Mira says
Oh, whoops. Nathan said the same thing. The foils of that lack time between reading and typing…
Bane of Anubis says
Just b/c all the cows graze in pasture X, doesn’t mean the new cows need to follow suit… or, as Emerson put it: “foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds”
lotusgirl says
I wouldn’t begrudge him his gamer following any more than I would begrudge Chipper Jones his baseball fans following. Just because he’s popular doesn’t mean he’s a great writer. We all cash in whatever chips we’ve got when we “publish” to succeed.
Dara says
Very interesting.
I’m not part of that site, but I find it funny how it’s gotten this far.
Anonymous says
It’s made the site much more interesting.
All this stuff about voting don’t mean a thing. The only vote that’s worth anything is whether people are prepared to pay for it. Now if authonomy was a pay per view site, and the guy was getting hundreds of backings, THAT would be something.
Anonymous says
We all know celebrity books sell. He was just showing publishers that they are overlooking certain types of celebrity.
Nathan Bransford says
Thanks for the link, StirlingEditor. I updated my blog post to reflect Authonomy’s position and Vineet’s comments.