Goodreads has not handled the breakdown between author/reader very well and most of their efforts to discourage this behavior in authors seems to be restricted toward finger-wagging warnings rather than firm policy that they'll risk their account if they use their position and social capital to hassle reviewers.

Yeah, exactly! Like, authors are using this site for publicity and such; it serves a purpose for them. It seems like "Don't be assholes to the reviewers who make the site work" would be a reasonably simple rule to have. But they don't appear to be dealing with the author-reader divide very well at all.

I didn't know about the friends-only commenting option, and that is SUPER handy information, thank you.

That crap is exhausting.

It really is. Ugh.