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The problematic part isn’t that they’re notified—that’s the expected behavior. The problem is that the book is pulled automatically without waiting for the auth

The problematic part isn’t that they’re notified—that’s the expected behavior. The problem is that the book is pulled automatically without waiting for the author to respond. That wouldn’t be so bad if there were a lot of valid issues, but anyone can get a book pulled maliciously just by reporting a bunch of “mistakes”—which, as was demonstrated here, need not be actual mistakes.

ajmurmann 7y ago
Pulling a book because of a typo is also a unreasonable overreaction. It would be better without typos, but I'd still rather read a book with a typo than not having the book at all. This is even more of an overreaction than it would be to pull software that has any bugs whatsoever. Edit: typos
- justinclift 7y ago
  > ... I'd still rather read a book with a typo than not having the book at all. For technical education material (both mechanical engineering and optics recently for me), I definitely don't buy books where the comments indicate a lot of typos. It's a real PITA to be working through practise exercises, and come up with a different result than the expected answer. Then not know if it's me, or the book author who got it wrong. :( For fiction books though, an occasional typo is not a stress.
rasz 7y ago
According to tweets they get at least 5 days. I wouldnt be surprised if Amazon is prescreening user generated reports wits some basic NLP checker to filter out trolls/missclicks.
- kalleboo 7y ago
  Considering how bad Amazon is at screening fake reviews, I actually would be surprised.
rzzzt 7y ago
Authors could also use an automated system that processes these complaints, applies them unilaterally to the manuscript (false positive non-typos be damned) and uploads a modified version.
- egdod 7y ago
  That seems even more abuse-prone.
  - owl57 7y ago
    Yes. I still don't understand why Wikipedia doesn't fall apart. But pretty sure it doesn't.
    - gbear605 7y ago
      Only because there are a number of people who monitor all the pages. It couldn’t (currently) be done with an automated setup, as shown by the legion of bots that monitor as well and still don’t do a perfect job.
- lolc 7y ago
  Right on empowering random Amazon users to edit one's book with no oversight. The customer always knows best.
  - rzzzt 7y ago
    It doesn't really matter. Amazon is happy, the customer is happy, sales are coming in, and when the book finally does not make any sense whatsoever, the original version can be uploaded.

ajmurmann 7y ago

Pulling a book because of a typo is also a unreasonable overreaction. It would be better without typos, but I'd still rather read a book with a typo than not having the book at all. This is even more of an overreaction than it would be to pull software that has any bugs whatsoever. Edit: typos

justinclift 7y ago
> ... I'd still rather read a book with a typo than not having the book at all. For technical education material (both mechanical engineering and optics recently for me), I definitely don't buy books where the comments indicate a lot of typos. It's a real PITA to be working through practise exercises, and come up with a different result than the expected answer. Then not know if it's me, or the book author who got it wrong. :( For fiction books though, an occasional typo is not a stress.

rasz 7y ago

According to tweets they get at least 5 days. I wouldnt be surprised if Amazon is prescreening user generated reports wits some basic NLP checker to filter out trolls/missclicks.

kalleboo 7y ago
Considering how bad Amazon is at screening fake reviews, I actually would be surprised.

rzzzt 7y ago

Authors could also use an automated system that processes these complaints, applies them unilaterally to the manuscript (false positive non-typos be damned) and uploads a modified version.

egdod 7y ago
That seems even more abuse-prone.
- owl57 7y ago
  Yes. I still don't understand why Wikipedia doesn't fall apart. But pretty sure it doesn't.
  - gbear605 7y ago
    Only because there are a number of people who monitor all the pages. It couldn’t (currently) be done with an automated setup, as shown by the legion of bots that monitor as well and still don’t do a perfect job.
lolc 7y ago
Right on empowering random Amazon users to edit one's book with no oversight. The customer always knows best.
- rzzzt 7y ago
  It doesn't really matter. Amazon is happy, the customer is happy, sales are coming in, and when the book finally does not make any sense whatsoever, the original version can be uploaded.