[nesfa-reading-group] Elfland Re: Three Books

[Tracy Marks]

This misplaced review isn't a fluke. MOST books I look up on Amazon -
several dozen a week -have reviews that don't belong on the page on
which they're located.  And teaching classical Greek and Russian
literature in translation, as well as being active in the international
books meetup, I find that just about every book in translation is
mashed up in Amazon with other editions of the book. One doesn't
even know what translation and edition of the book each review is
about when they're all heaped up together. This did not use to happen.

I was an Amazon Vine book reviewer for about 12 years and never
once saw a misplaced review. Before 2016, Amazon staff looked at most
reviews andb refused to post inappropriate ones and immediately removed
or moved reviews if someone notified them about a placement error.

The richer Amazon gets, the less attention they pay to quality).
If someone, for example, posts a review of a horror movie and rates
it 1 out of 5, on and it ends up on a page for a poetry book, that
hurts the rating of a book that may not be getting many reviews
anyway but is favorably reviewed by the experts. And fewer people
will even read up on a book if the reader ratings are.

Just a few minutes ago looked up one of my own books on Amazon
to see how it was doing and lo and behold, I got a new reader review.
My first one star review ever too, in 25 years. If it wasn't so
absurd, I'd be angry.

So my Amazon review rating just dropped (well, from 4.9 to 4.5
anyway, which isn't TOO bad!) due to this one star review which says:
"This is witchcraft... Jesus Christ is the only way to a true spiritual
encounter in this life. I'm not talking about church. I'm talking
about the God and Jesus in the Bible.  He is our only true way
to salvation from this horrid world into his heavenly kingdom
which he has promised to us."

Good grief!! Now that was not a very Jesus Christ Christian thing
to do to my book which is not even about religion and which
the reviewer quite obviously didn't read!! I wouldn't be surprised
if he's posting the same paragraph all over Amazon, since Amazon
is likely to let him do it.

If I wasn't homebound and totally dependent upon delivery for
everything, I wouldn't buy from Amazon. Though I do recommend
Amazon Fresh - high quality food deliveries, and on time.
Tracy
p.s. We should probably just rely on official reviews by
reviewers who are experts on the subject being reviewed.....
But most people don't bother to seek out the experts. Some
still think that whatever is online (or whatever certain
politicans say) is the truth. The borderline between
reality and fantasy seems to have dissolved quite a long
time ago....And there are still many who view climate change
as science fiction.



On 2023-10-08 13:47, cjhi newcastle2.com wrote:
> Tracy: you're assuming Amazon has anything more to do with it than
> Google had to do with the temporary disappearance of a connection
> between the Mass Pike and 128 a few years ago. Both are crowdsourced,
> with Amazon probably being if anything less mediated; the review you
> quote could be a prank, or somebody being careless about which window
> they posted in.
> 
>  OTOH, I don't think Amazon was ever about quality or efficiency, or
> anything else other than the benjamins.
> 
>  /CHip
> 
> -------------------------
> 
> From: reading-group <reading-group-bounces at lists.nesfa.org> on behalf
> of David G. Grubbs <dggrubbs at gmail.com>
> Sent: Sunday, October 8, 2023 3:21 PM
> To: tracy at windweaver.com <tracy at windweaver.com>; NESFA Reading Group
> <reading-group at lists.nesfa.org>
> Subject: Re: [nesfa-reading-group] Elfland Re: Three Books
> 
> That's a great idea: Rambo in Elfland
> 
> I'd probably read that and I'd *definitely* see the movie.
> 
> On Sun, Oct 8, 2023 at 3:11 PM Tracy Marks <tracy at windweaver.com>
> wrote:
> 
>> Once upon a time Amazon was about quality and efficiency. Now,
>> Amazon
>> delivery trucks seem to be taking over the roads as Amazon greed
>> prevails. Meanwhile Amazon book pages continue to be completely
>> unreliable in regard to reader reviews. Check out this one for the
>> paperback, The King of Elfland's Daughter:
>> 
>> "5.0 out of 5 stars Nonstop action.
>> Reviewed in the United States on September 6, 2023
>> Realistic and raw. Believable. Bruce Steele is the new Rambo. Hot
>> shot
>> pilot saves the veep and gets the girl."
>> 
>> I simply can't grasp their degree of incompetence in including this
>> as a
>> review of a Lord Dunsany elfland novel.
>> Tracy
>> 
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