Most links within the "book" entry go to where the fic was posted. The other identifying info is usually part of the author profile that regular users do not control. That info is added by the author or a Librarian. The good news is that if some effort is spent educating Librarians, the amount of info posted may be reduced even without the author's involvement.
Re cover credit - there is no place to credit the cover art (it is something you have to manually type in the description field which means cover credit is more miss than hit in what I've seen). The cover sizes are small thumbnails which most likely would fall within fair use. Again, on tumblr posts, cover credit also seems to be hit and miss, but that is no excuse.
All these issues are fixable once the author claims their profile (or you can ask a Librarian to fix it). The "data" that is being included is very typical of what many fans put up on tumblr or blogs or websites or tweets when they rec a story. It is the location that is the issue and the location "issue" is not specific to Goodreads but can and will crop up anywhere on the net.
Which is why I agree with elf that it would be helpful to have an FAQ: "So someone has posted something about you on the Internet".
Re the good old days on concrit - well in my day, you did not have to ask permission to submit an LOC or write a review. And even when we migrated to the Internet, reviews and feedback were offered without so much as a by your leave. So clearly the good old days have mutated too. ;-)
no subject
Because I believe discussions go better with real examples rather than general statements, here are some examples:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/15992088-sharp-teeth
(author links visible in the profile attached to the book)author links now removed from the profile, so here is another example: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18103472-asunderhttps://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5027408.DarkEmeralds( a more direct example of an author profile with links)
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23676350-goddamn (an entry with no author info)
Entries pulled from here, so feel free to poke around
https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/14985.M_M_Supernatural_And_J2_Fanfiction
Re cover credit - there is no place to credit the cover art (it is something you have to manually type in the description field which means cover credit is more miss than hit in what I've seen). The cover sizes are small thumbnails which most likely would fall within fair use. Again, on tumblr posts, cover credit also seems to be hit and miss, but that is no excuse.
All these issues are fixable once the author claims their profile (or you can ask a Librarian to fix it). The "data" that is being included is very typical of what many fans put up on tumblr or blogs or websites or tweets when they rec a story. It is the location that is the issue and the location "issue" is not specific to Goodreads but can and will crop up anywhere on the net.
Which is why I agree with elf that it would be helpful to have an FAQ: "So someone has posted something about you on the Internet".
Re the good old days on concrit - well in my day, you did not have to ask permission to submit an LOC or write a review. And even when we migrated to the Internet, reviews and feedback were offered without so much as a by your leave. So clearly the good old days have mutated too. ;-)