An update to Amazonfail
Apr. 13th, 2009 10:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dejadrewLooks like the explanation being leaked from Amazon is "human error" as described here.
And here's an explanation of why some books got de-listed and not others; apparently the categories “gay,” ”lesbian,” ”transgender,” “erotica,” and “sex” were the tags which got toggled as "adult" in the database. I'd been wondering: I'd noticed that Fumi Yoshinaga's award winning shounen-ai tinged drama Antique Bakery had been de-listed, when her much more explicit yaoi story Solfege had retained it's rank. When I looked at the metadata categories, Solfege is categorized as "yaoi," not "gay."
We all knew that the explanation was one of three things: stupidity, malice, or stupidity AND malice. If it turns out to be merely stupidity, then that's a great relief. It does not however, explain why this wasn't dealt with back in February, when the first of these cases started to be reported.
I'd like a detailed official explanation, an official apology, and some kind of statement regarding what's being done both to fix the current situation and to prevent it from ever happening again. Until then, I'm not going to wholeheartedly forgive them, but I will downgrade from "volcanically pissed-off" to "severely annoyed."
But I'm glad that I did get volcanically pissed off, and that so many other much more clever, connected, creative people did. People should get pissed off when something like this happens. No matter how it started, it ended with the voices of a minority being silenced, and FUCK that. Amazon didn't start dealing with this situation until it became the PR nightmare it did. It's nice to see a wrathful Internet working in the service of good.
And here's an explanation of why some books got de-listed and not others; apparently the categories “gay,” ”lesbian,” ”transgender,” “erotica,” and “sex” were the tags which got toggled as "adult" in the database. I'd been wondering: I'd noticed that Fumi Yoshinaga's award winning shounen-ai tinged drama Antique Bakery had been de-listed, when her much more explicit yaoi story Solfege had retained it's rank. When I looked at the metadata categories, Solfege is categorized as "yaoi," not "gay."
We all knew that the explanation was one of three things: stupidity, malice, or stupidity AND malice. If it turns out to be merely stupidity, then that's a great relief. It does not however, explain why this wasn't dealt with back in February, when the first of these cases started to be reported.
I'd like a detailed official explanation, an official apology, and some kind of statement regarding what's being done both to fix the current situation and to prevent it from ever happening again. Until then, I'm not going to wholeheartedly forgive them, but I will downgrade from "volcanically pissed-off" to "severely annoyed."
But I'm glad that I did get volcanically pissed off, and that so many other much more clever, connected, creative people did. People should get pissed off when something like this happens. No matter how it started, it ended with the voices of a minority being silenced, and FUCK that. Amazon didn't start dealing with this situation until it became the PR nightmare it did. It's nice to see a wrathful Internet working in the service of good.
