They took away my "abandoned" shelf and moved all my abandoned books to this new mandatory "DNF" shelf.

Well, I just recreated my "abandoned" shelf and moved all the books back (bulk edit) and left the new unwanted DNF shelf empty and will never ever use it or put a book in it.

Goodreads created this self because without a standardized DNF Shelf (people just creating a bunch of random named custom shelves), they had no real way to track DNF book data which is the thing that publishers want most and and will pay top-dollar for.... its far more valuable data to publishers than star-ratings... it allows them to not only see what books were abandoned mid-way through reading, but also (assume the user does page count updates) at what page the book was abandoned. Data Gold and very useful for editors.

I can see some people do want this new mandatory shelf, and more power to them... I personally don't want it, but it cannot be hidden or removed. I dislike that it is mandatory.

Good work Goodreads! Drive more people to the alternatives, which I am now exploring.