As seems to be the habit of tech companies, Kobo has "upgraded" its software and "improved" its functionality. These changes occurred during the week after Christmas. One of the whiz-bang features that has been added is a line of recommendations across the bottom of my machine's home screen and the left hand side of the computer interface screen. After my machine upgraded and this new feature showed up, I wasn't terribly happy because what had been a nice clean interface of the 5 most recent reads or additions to my library became a cluttered mess. I basically decided to ignore it and move on with my life assuming some marketing "genius" decided that if they foisted covers in front of me I would mindlessly buy more books.
I was doing pretty well at ignoring the change until one day when I handed my Kobo to a student whom I was attempting to encourage to read more and thought perhaps a machine might be enticing to him. After poking around for a while, said student looked up and asked, "What's sodomy?"
Pardon?
He turns the Kobo to me and sure enough in my list of recommended books is a book entitled "Sodomy". Fan-frackin-tastic. So after a VERY clinical explanation I retrieved the Kobo and scanned through the list of "recommended for you" choices which also included "Bears" and "Whose your Daddy?" Yes apparently my Kobo thinks I need more gay erotica in my library. Now I would be equally irritated if the titles included straight erotica...its not the sexuality or that I think pornography is bad. (An argument for a very different blog post). However, I DO think that on my machine that I paid for I should have the right to decide what exactly appears. I should feel free to hand my machine over to any of my students without fear of exposing them to anything that would result in a phone call from a parent. I can't do that right now.
The question I really want an answer to is why does their program think that gay erotica is something that I would like? My library consists of Mysteries, Historical Romance, Dystopian Teen Fic and a couple of non-fiction titles. Nothing that should make a program say, "Hey she likes X, so let's give her some XXX."
So I wrote an e-mail to the Kobo help desk and 2 days later I got an Extremely Condescending reply explaining to me that if I go to the computer interface screen and click "Not Interested", the offending titles will be removed. Yeah thanks...like I didn't do that already. I know some people are not the most tech savvy, but when I write an EXTENSIVE letter explaining the issue, phrased in a way that they should take as a warning that there may be something wrong with their program and perhaps they should fix it before REALLY Offending someone, I expect that I would at least not be treated like an idiot.
It is now 2 weeks later and I'm killing time waiting for a student and guess what...it's all back including the addition of the book "Open- Life, Love and Sex in an Open Marriage".
That pounding sound you are hearing is the sound of my forehead hitting my desk in exasperation.
The Home Screen of my Kobo
On the left are books in my library and on the right are the helpful "suggestions."
I was doing pretty well at ignoring the change until one day when I handed my Kobo to a student whom I was attempting to encourage to read more and thought perhaps a machine might be enticing to him. After poking around for a while, said student looked up and asked, "What's sodomy?"
Pardon?
He turns the Kobo to me and sure enough in my list of recommended books is a book entitled "Sodomy". Fan-frackin-tastic. So after a VERY clinical explanation I retrieved the Kobo and scanned through the list of "recommended for you" choices which also included "Bears" and "Whose your Daddy?" Yes apparently my Kobo thinks I need more gay erotica in my library. Now I would be equally irritated if the titles included straight erotica...its not the sexuality or that I think pornography is bad. (An argument for a very different blog post). However, I DO think that on my machine that I paid for I should have the right to decide what exactly appears. I should feel free to hand my machine over to any of my students without fear of exposing them to anything that would result in a phone call from a parent. I can't do that right now.
The question I really want an answer to is why does their program think that gay erotica is something that I would like? My library consists of Mysteries, Historical Romance, Dystopian Teen Fic and a couple of non-fiction titles. Nothing that should make a program say, "Hey she likes X, so let's give her some XXX."
So I wrote an e-mail to the Kobo help desk and 2 days later I got an Extremely Condescending reply explaining to me that if I go to the computer interface screen and click "Not Interested", the offending titles will be removed. Yeah thanks...like I didn't do that already. I know some people are not the most tech savvy, but when I write an EXTENSIVE letter explaining the issue, phrased in a way that they should take as a warning that there may be something wrong with their program and perhaps they should fix it before REALLY Offending someone, I expect that I would at least not be treated like an idiot.
That pounding sound you are hearing is the sound of my forehead hitting my desk in exasperation.
The Home Screen of my Kobo
No comments:
Post a Comment