Re:I don’t know if whoever flagged the typos in my eBook tho...
by zenexer on Tuesday December 24, 2019 @04:48PM
(#21875133)
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.
[ Parent
| on HN ]
Re:I don’t know if whoever flagged the typos in my eBook tho...
by ajmurmann on Tuesday December 24, 2019 @05:04PM
(#21875229)
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
Re:I don’t know if whoever flagged the typos in my eBook tho...
by justinclift on Wednesday December 25, 2019 @01:39AM
(#21877249)
> ... 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.
Re:I don’t know if whoever flagged the typos in my eBook tho...
by rasz on Tuesday December 24, 2019 @06:01PM
(#21875524)
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.
Re:I don’t know if whoever flagged the typos in my eBook tho...
by kalleboo on Wednesday December 25, 2019 @12:06AM
(#21876942)
Considering how bad Amazon is at screening fake reviews, I actually would be surprised.
Re:I don’t know if whoever flagged the typos in my eBook tho...
by rzzzt on Tuesday December 24, 2019 @07:12PM
(#21875821)
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.
Re:I don’t know if whoever flagged the typos in my eBook tho...
by lolc on Tuesday December 24, 2019 @08:58PM
(#21876220)
Right on empowering random Amazon users to edit one's book with no oversight. The customer always knows best.
Re:I don’t know if whoever flagged the typos in my eBook tho...
by rzzzt on Wednesday December 25, 2019 @03:39AM
(#21877621)
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.
Re:I don’t know if whoever flagged the typos in my eBook tho...
by egdod on Tuesday December 24, 2019 @07:41PM
(#21875944)
That seems even more abuse-prone.
Re:I don’t know if whoever flagged the typos in my eBook tho...
by owl57 on Tuesday December 24, 2019 @09:08PM
(#21876243)
Yes. I still don't understand why Wikipedia doesn't fall apart. But pretty sure it doesn't.
Re:I don’t know if whoever flagged the typos in my eBook tho...
by gbear605 on Tuesday December 24, 2019 @11:24PM
(#21876800)
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.