04-13-2009, 10:34 AM | #61 |
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An article about this got greenlit on fark today, and the commenters aren't happy:
http://www.fark.com/cgi/comments.pl?IDLink=4324569 |
04-13-2009, 10:53 AM | #62 |
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Amazon is doing something very well. Pissing off customers.
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04-13-2009, 10:55 AM | #63 |
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04-13-2009, 10:57 AM | #64 | |
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Quote:
Last edited by maynard; 04-13-2009 at 11:06 AM. |
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04-13-2009, 11:04 AM | #65 |
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04-13-2009, 11:10 AM | #66 |
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04-13-2009, 12:20 PM | #67 |
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They've done it now. No more buying from Amazon.
I could understand if it was gay romance - it can be pretty 'adult', but Maurice? And Lady Chatterley's Lover? Orlando?! Even if this is a glitch, this is just too stupid. |
04-13-2009, 12:28 PM | #68 |
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SparkNotes has a "Discuss the role of homoeroticism in the novel." exam question, together with a suggested answer.
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04-13-2009, 12:33 PM | #69 |
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They need to fix this and give us a detailed explanation, but assuming the de-listings are reversed then that glitch theory doesn't sound that far-fetched to me.
A person claiming to be a former Amazon employee commented on this cnet article saying that he (or she) had once made a programming error that similarly seemed to unfairly affect a group of books. The first customer service responses about adult material were probably correct - according to that supposed employee, the search results would be swamped with adult titles unless Amazon made an effort to control that. So maybe some kind of bug really did cause a lot of works with certain tags to be unfairly ranked as adult books. Ordinarily, I'd tend to dismiss someone saying they were an insider as a fake post, especially because they conveniently avoid details by mentioning a non-disclosure agreement. But it's tough for me to believe that Amazon has suddenly implemented seriously homophobic policies. Their company's nondiscrimination policy includes sexual orientation. They offer medical and other benefits to same-sex partners of employees. They even have a GBLT employee group. Here's their Human Rights Campaign rating. I know that Amazon has done things to earn the mistrust and bad feelings that a lot of people here seem to feel towards them, and I'm glad that people have been voicing their displeasure over this issue to the company. But maybe we should hold off on the torches and pitchforks and account canceling, just until we see how they respond now that the holiday weekend is over. But their fairly gay-friendly corporate policies make me want to give them the benefit of the doubt for a couple of days at least. Of course the way that they've bungled some other problems makes me worry that they're just going to reinstate the listings and announce that they fixed the problem, with no further apology or explanation. I really hope they don't do that. |
04-13-2009, 12:50 PM | #70 | |
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So complaining is absolutely legitimate, while everyone disagreeing with Amazon's decisions will make his/her own choices. I signed the petition and for now I hold off on further judgment until some more time passes and it is clear if this is Amazon's policy or just an error But it's amazing how fast they are learning to annoy people badly... |
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04-13-2009, 01:01 PM | #71 | |
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The same standards need to be applied to books about/with gays and lesbians as straight people. If a Nora Roberts romance with a fade-to-black scene between a man and a woman in it isn't "adult" then neither is the equivalent gay romance. Amazon could solve any (perceived) problem with an opt-IN filter that would filter for honest-to-god erotica (the equivalent of NC-17 films), whether straight or gay/lesbian. It might also filter they, oh, 20,000+ sex toys that Amazon sells. |
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04-13-2009, 02:22 PM | #72 | |
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Public ignorance is not and has not been a determining criteria for me, ever. It is why I still know the word "niggardly." Amazon is very large, but assuming B&N/Sprint/at&t/Whomever or Sony or any iTunes or any other media source exists, amazon is not "the only" anything. It's a stupid move on their part, but I'll defend Amazon's right to sell/not sell what they please forever. |
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04-13-2009, 02:32 PM | #73 |
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Personally, I'm waiting to see how this plays out and if it's just a "glitch" as they claim. I can see ways that could be true. I also wouldn't mind if they gave people an option to exclude things with certain tags from their searches. They could even make an option for people to override public tags. Maybe they could even subscribe to a tagging and filter set. Groups that thought certain works were objectionable could make their own lists and their members could use them to filter their searches. I'm of the opinion that folks should have nothing to fear from knowing these books exist or seeing the cover when they're searching for something else, but if it makes them uncomfortable I have no problem with Amazon giving them the tools to make themselves comfortable. However, I think Amazon is heading into a quagmire if they try to filter these books themselves. They would do better to stay, for lack of a better term, agnostic on the matter. If they do embark upon this thankless process, they should at least give people a way to opt out of restricted search. If they do, I'd be curious to see the statistics on how people chose.
Last edited by Alisa; 04-13-2009 at 02:43 PM. |
04-13-2009, 03:03 PM | #74 |
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I suspect that the "glitch" is that the script they were developing to do this fired off early and badly.
There's also some guy on LiveJournal claiming that he did this with a few simple scripts as revenge against gays tagging his ads on Craigslist. I have no idea if that's even possible. |
04-13-2009, 03:17 PM | #75 |
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Amazon Rep says this is definitely not a glitch (linked in from feministing.com)
http://www.feministing.com/archives/014797.html |
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