Amazon Fail

[pegkerr]

Minicon was fun, and it was definitely the right decision to go. I was mostly away from the computer over the weekend, which means I'm just finding out about Amazon Fail (#amazonfail) now. For more info, read here, here, here, and a gazillion other places . . .

At least I signed the petition.(Is it weird that I'm almost sorta disappointed that The Wild Swans hasn't been delisted so I can enjoy the outrage personally?)

And yet, while the righteous outrage feels so good, here and here are two alternate explanations for why Amazon might have failed so massively that might give people pause. I'll keep an eye out on this story, but I'll put down the pitchfork and torch for now and wait to see what happens.

ETA: An LJ user claims he is responsible for all this by writing a script that gamed the system. He notes that tehdely -- that's one of "two explanations" links above -- was the only one to figure it out. Sounds very smug about it, too.

ETA again but the claim may be debunked here.

What I did today to make the world a better place: Signed the Amazon Fail petition.

Comments

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

I hear you on "sorta disappointed" -- I feel left out because nobody has taken exception to my lesbian Native American witches . . .

[schnoogle.livejournal.com]

Is it weird that I'm almost sorta disappointed that The Wild Swans hasn't been delisted so I can enjoy the outrage personally?

Definitely not weird. :)

[serenya-loreden.livejournal.com]

My husband has a saying "never attribute to malice what can be attributed to stupidity". I'm with him on this one -- I think Making Light has the correct sequence of events because 1) Amazon probably has a liberal culture overall and 2) I've seen Corporate Fail like this before. Policies start out well-intentioned and are a disaster by implementation. Someone got lazy and bought a nanny-list.....

[bohemianspirit.livejournal.com]

Glitch or no glitch, it's the underlying idea that bothers me: that a bookseller is filtering out relevant results in a search based on what they think is fit to read. No. No. No.

Fear of Teh Gay means that their current search criteria have de-ranked at least one edition of E. M. Forster's Maurice but left violent, graphic crap like American Psycho untouched.

The sole purpose of a search engine is to yield relevant results. Period. Let the reader discern what s/he values, or not.

[avengangle.livejournal.com]

Ditto.

[chaeche.livejournal.com]

I'll keep an eye out on this story, but I'll put down the pitchfork and torch for now and wait to see what happens.

It is so refreshing to hear this. I like the quote from Mitch Warner's article: "The cause of gay rights and equality will not be significantly harmed if we hold off the Amazon boycott until, say, Wednesday."