10-02-2017, 01:37 PM | #1 |
Wizard
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Amazon dumping customer forums
Folks on the Kindle forum over on Amazon are reporting seeing an announcement banner that says the forums are being shut down on October 6th.
I’ve not seen the banner yet, but am not surprised. Amazon behavior over the past few months have led many of the posters there to suspect this was coming. When Amazon shut down the forums on IMDb, I had a feeling they would remove the ones on the Amazon site as well. |
10-02-2017, 01:59 PM | #2 |
eBook Enthusiast
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I wasn't even aware that they had customer forums!
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10-02-2017, 02:19 PM | #3 |
Wizard
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The old format Kindle forum used to be very busy. A couple of years ago Amazon changed the Help forums to a newer less functional format.
Amazon has never imposed any standards at all, normal to most online forums. For example, there is a default “user name” that didn’t have to be changed. So there are multiple users with the exact same user names. There was never a decent search function either, no Sort options at all. But there were very busy at one time, and a good place to talk about books, get help with using a Kindle or Fire, etc. There were moderators, of a sort, but the last year or so has seen a steep decline. Long time posters have been banned with no explanation. And they removed the General Help Forum a few months ago, along with a few others that have been overtaken by trolls and scammers. The last few weeks has seen hundreds of scam posts, fake support numbers posted over and over, flooding some of the forums. It is my opinion that Amazon has just been looking for a reason to remove all the forums, and that has been the result. There was a Forum Pro program a few years back, that gave official “Badges” to many of the more knowledgeable posters. I was one of the Pros. That program was dumped with no announcements or explanation as well. They just removed the badges from our accounts, and that was that. The moderators have been changed almost on a weekly basis as well. |
10-02-2017, 02:35 PM | #4 |
Wizard
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Maybe the frequent posters and mods should start up their own forums. No help from Amazon of course, but at least you’d have help amongst yourselves. Like HarryT I didnt even know the forums existed. Nor did I know that Amazon owned IMDB. Seems to me that the entirety of the internet is owned by Amazon, Google or facebook. (well, yes I know its an exaggeration... but in a few years, it probably wont be)
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10-02-2017, 02:54 PM | #5 |
Sir Penguin of Edinburgh
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her's the discussion on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/forum/kindle/...x3E7JXX0VDSRJQ
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10-02-2017, 03:02 PM | #6 |
languorous autodidact ✦
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10-02-2017, 04:17 PM | #7 |
Wizard
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I found some good book sales through various forum threads.
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10-02-2017, 05:23 PM | #8 |
monkey on the fringe
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Their forums were a disaster to navigate, so shutting them down is no great loss.
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10-02-2017, 07:36 PM | #9 | |
Addict
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Quote:
It was so bad that I copied and pasted it and sent it to Amazon. |
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10-02-2017, 08:50 PM | #10 |
Grand Sorcerer
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I could never figure out to get to the forums from their site, but have read some interesting discussions from links I stumbled upon, both about specific books and authors as well as more generalized reading topics.
Same with IMDB. I really miss their forums. Not on the really popular films/shows as arguments there could deteriorate rapidly, but on many more obscure shows there were interesting tidbits about filming locations, plot twists and explanations, etc. |
10-02-2017, 10:20 PM | #11 |
Wizard
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I used to read the Kindle forum daily. It was fun and interesting for the most part and pretty active. Then it tapered off and there was less and less activity and I started reading it less often and now I've been reading it about once a month or so. Too bad. It used to be fun.
I do agree with the comments about it being poorly designed, hard to find if you didn't have a link and poorly managed, but a forum is people first and system second so with good discussions it was okay. I looked for other Amazon forums on other topics but didn't find much of interest that had enough activity to be worth the trouble. They had a tablet forum that was active for a while but then it dwindled to nothing. Anyway I can't say I'll miss it now since I haven't been reading it but I have been missing it for a long time. In it's day it was a good one. Barry |
10-03-2017, 12:25 AM | #12 |
PHD in Horribleness
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10-03-2017, 01:32 AM | #13 |
monkey on the fringe
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10-03-2017, 05:22 AM | #14 |
I am what I am
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Agreed. Interesting history and inside information about films were posted on those forums - sad that it's all lost now.
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10-03-2017, 07:55 AM | #15 |
Wizard
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