My Etsy Shop

Sunday, September 27, 2009

A Modern-Day "Removal"

I just got a comment removed from The Storque portion of Etsy, and I have to say, I'm quite proud of my first removal; it's a bit of a badge of honour, and I'll tell you why.

For a long time, I've noticed a real drift to what amounts to copyng of trademarked concepts on Etsy, and the administration of the site seems to rely on site users to police this issue, by flagging shops when they see these things being sold. Okay, we could make the argument that it is Etsy's job to be aware of what is on site, and not the rest of us, but with a few hundred thousand shops to "patrol", the problem is obvious, even though it still should not be our responsibility-and many of us would be willing to put up some extra money to have our for-sale items vetted to keep it real on our so-called "handmade" site.

The problem is, now that Etsy is leaning farther to the Dark Side of corporate life (since being bought up by those companies who possess such a philosophy) we have the spectacle of an article in the blog section of Etsy, called Storque, which I would further argue is usually where the most serious of subjects is discussed, where successful sellers are interviewed and highlighted. The one that made me crazy was a disengenuous bit of fluff encouraging the t'weens among us, and those whose IQ hovers in that vicinity, to "pick" a Twilight Team to support, via those sellers who rip off and blatantly plagiarise the Twilight movies and books.
Maybe I was crazy to be shocked, but really was...they already ask members to flag offending shops for them, instead of policing the site themselves, then they play turnabout and encourage those who should be strictly discouraged to carry on with this illegal, unscrupulous bandwagonning, and give it the Etsy seal of approval...
So, despite that I have continued via covos (for those who read my blog but don't 'do' Etsy, a 'convo' is short for conversation, or message, an in-house e-mailing that members can do onsite) to have, let us say, discussions, with someone from Admin, re this subject, nothing has happened to change my opinion that Etsy is slowly but surely turning into eBay, with just the ghost of it's former self to try and keep up it's once sterling reputation.
Here's hoping that someone takes this seriously, so as not to further erode Etsy's somewhat precarious hold on handmade respectability.

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