Serious mistake on ebay.ca implies people who speak French aren't Canadian

[canadiandave10]

I am shocked at the ebay.ca  language selection to toggle to change from English and French, and vice-versa.  That itself isn't a problem but if you take a closer look, eBay has placed a Canadian flag beside "English" and a Quebec flag beside "Francais".  This is incredibly offensive and I'm surprised that such a large company as eBay could not realize how large of a mistake this is.  The implications are rather serious, implying that people who speak French must be from Quebec (which is not true), and that only people who speak English are Canadian, based on the flags that eBay has used.  This makes eBay look really bad and makes the company seems as if that they do not understand what it means to be Canadian.

[pjcdn2005]

Whether this appears to be just a tempest in a teacup depends upon your background (or perhaps your education on the subject).  It makes me recall how unimportant an issue black segregation was for whites before the 1960's

I don't think that is reasonable to compare black people being segregated and treated as second class citizens in all facets of their lives to an icon on an ebay page. The two things aren't even remotely similar.

I also don't think that it is fair to suggest that if a person has a different view on a subject like this, that it must be because of their background and/or education.For one thing, you probably do not know what sort of background a poster has. Also, that statement suggests that only those with a similar background have the capacity to empathize with others. Some people think that a certain issue is important and others don't...it's that simple. I  don't think that any conclusions can be drawn based on which view a person has.

I agree with Pierre. It was a mistake and life goes on.

[rose-dee]

Actually, it is exactly analagous to the earlier attitude of whites toward black segregation, native problems being pushed aside as not being significant, and any other "blindness" or "minimizing" of others' problems that one might care to name.  Such blindness is the result of thousands of small incidents being ignored.  Sure, life goes on for the majority -- that's the root of the problem.   

Well, one thing I can attest to is that this particular gaffe was either not noticed at all by eBay.ca, or noticed and ignored, because no one changed it until after the issue had been brought up at a Wed. "Pinks" discussion (by yours truly actually). 

I have to wonder how much backlash might have ensued had they let it run a few more weeks. 

It's precisely because many people continue to feel these sorts of errors are insignificant, inadvertent and irrelevant mistakes that they continue to be made.  Saying that we should pass over it, life goes on, mountains out of mole-hills, etc. is the easy way to dismiss the underlying problem.  

It's a small error in itself, but the fact that it was made, and the fact that it wasn't picked up by anyone at the corporate offices, reveals a great deal to me about eBay.  This kind of "mistake" would not be considered a minor one by many government agencies or large corporations, for example. 

Personally, as I said, I think an apology is in order from eBay.  

[dipmicro]

Where is the English speaking Quebec residents take on this ? Using their province flag to symbolize French language must be at least equally outrageous to them.

So it's been changed now. Next someone will get gravely offended that same flag is used for English and French. I never ends.

[i*m-still-here]

So, some eBay employee had the job that day of pairing up each countries site with it's matching flag.

On one side of the screen was the name of the site, and the employee had to match a flag to it.

Not a problem......... got to Canada and saw there were two official languages and since it was the worker's job to pair a flag with each site........ that's what was done.

There was no political statement being made.

No point of view of being expressed.

Just a rote meaningless task to be competed.

That's all.

They took two long weeks to fix the paypal shipping glitch............. 

I'd say they were on top of this nicety-split by comparison.

[pocomocomputing]

Well, one thing I can attest to is that this particular gaffe was either not noticed at all by eBay.ca, or noticed and ignored, because no one changed it until after the issue had been brought up at a Wed. "Pinks" discussion (by yours truly actually). 

If you check that weekly session, eBay said they were already aware of the issue and it was to changed soon. So your post was not the sole reason for the change.

http://community.ebay.ca/topic/Weekly-Board-Hour/May-15th-Weekly/3000009540

Post 18 was in reply to your post 17 of the May 15 session.

Thanks Rose-Dee,

We are listening. We have received similar feedback and have taken action to correct the wrinkle. It should be updated shortly. Thanks for your feedback.

Bryan

Way too much reaction to this eBay flag issue. Typical of English and French "two solitudes" that has been going on for hundreds of years in Canada.

I find the current solution makes sense with the Canada Flag and just English or French beside it. What was before was a mistake in my opinion for the reasons presented but to talk about apologies and firing whoever was responsible is overreaction. Continual discussion about this non-event is not doing any good for anyone.

[canadiandave10]

Last time I checked, this is a discussion board. While I appreciate everyone's opinion, we all have the right to express those opinions, even when they differ from that of others.  There's no possible way that discussion of this matter can harm anyone, and can actually only do good.  In my opinion, saying otherwise marginalizes the mistake at hand, and leads people to believe that the underlying issue was somehow acceptable - and that's where the problems start.

None of this was over reaction.  This is a serious issue that eBay really messed up on.  If this was a crown corporation, someone would have lost his her job.  Ebay was extremely slow at correcting this issue, and didn't even bother to offer even the smallest apology.  This is something that should have been corrected within hours to minimize the damage on eBay's corporate image. 

Instead of an immediate correction and apology from eBay, this flag fiasco was allowed to continue for more than a week even after someone publicly mentioned it to eBay, and even longer if you count the emails and phone calls that eBay had already received.  While this probably started off as a simple mistake by one person, the fact that the mistake was made visible to everyone who viewed the site, and the week long + of time before correction shows a lack of judgement, lack of supervision, and a lack of a sense of urgency by eBay management, even after they were made aware.

[pocomocomputing]

For eBay to fix or change anything on their site in a week is extremely fast. LOL. 😉

[Anonymous]

Do we need a flag?  Nah!  No need to add flags.  Just "English" or "French" is good enough.

[nuvistors]

Last time I checked, this is a discussion board. While I appreciate everyone's opinion, we all have the right to express those opinions, even when they differ from that of others.  There's no possible way that discussion of this matter can harm anyone, and can actually only do good.  In my opinion, saying otherwise marginalizes the mistake at hand, and leads people to believe that the underlying issue was somehow acceptable - and that's where the problems start.

None of this was over reaction.  This is a serious issue that eBay really messed up on.  If this was a crown corporation, someone would have lost his her job.  Ebay was extremely slow at correcting this issue, and didn't even bother to offer even the smallest apology.  This is something that should have been corrected within hours to minimize the damage on eBay's corporate image. 

Instead of an immediate correction and apology from eBay, this flag fiasco was allowed to continue for more than a week even after someone publicly mentioned it to eBay, and even longer if you count the emails and phone calls that eBay had already received.  While this probably started off as a simple mistake by one person, the fact that the mistake was made visible to everyone who viewed the site, and the week long + of time before correction shows a lack of judgement, lack of supervision, and a lack of a sense of urgency by eBay management, even after they were made aware.

Much ado about nothing !

Just a flag indicating the language.

Many websites use flags to  select the language you wish to use.

123

[art-in-the-making]

the flag isn't only to distinguish language - it also tells us at a glance if we're on .ca or .com. Nu is correct is saying that flags are sometimes used to differentiate language on websites - i.e. you have some sites that use a British flag for English and a France flag for french. IMO this concept is iffy at the best of times and certainly would not work on eBay. Imagine having the British flag on eBay.com 🙂

Obviously the problem arose from carelessness, not a "political statement" :). Fact remains, flags are not bottlecaps or avatars. Anyone who thinks national flags are nothing more than an outdated nationalistic convention, or a quaint and meaningless tradition, is welcome to propose their ideas to the public at large. Good luck bringing change on this issue. In the meantime, we fly them in front of our public buildings, parade them along our "Highway of Heroes", lower them to half mast to honour the memories of certain people and generally treat them with respect. 

Ebay has done a good job of correcting this serious issue.

[pocomocomputing]

Damage eBay corporate image???

How about PayPal shipping services for Tracked Packet not working or being available for two months? Expedited Parcel being broken for 2 weeks? That is a real issue and real damage to eBay image.

The flag "issue" is nonsense. It has been corrected. Spend the energy complaining about real eBay issues.

[prior-of-verity*shake-hands-with-your-devil]

The thing about the company is, like as happened to many others, they got more complicated, more confusing, more expensive and with that came more problems and more glitches and more unhappy people. (Kind of reminds one of a government)

Back in the 'good old days' it was simple and fun. 

[i*m-still-here]

It was a mistake by an employee in a hurry to complete the task of pairing up a flag with each ebay site.

Canada has a site with two languages, and the employee made the mistake of thinking that each site required its own flag.

It was corrected quickly by ebay standards.

What people are really objecting to is the way our language issues appear to some outsiders.

This isn't the first person who didn't understand the politics behind Canada's English/French issues...........

............and it's a safe beg that employee still doesn't care beyond the fact that his or her job didn't go as well as intended that particular day.

[cumos55]

Many times  things have been done wrong.

It was at a US football game where the Canadian flag was paraded up side down  with the maple leaf pointing down.

It is at a local auction house  where the Ukrainian flag is pinned to the wall...  up side down..

It should be with the lower half, gold for the wheat fields  and the upper half light blue for the sky.

[rose-dee]

The flag "issue" is nonsense. It has been corrected. Spend the energy complaining about real eBay issues.

With all due respect, the flag issue is not mere nonsense, because it reflects a clear lack of understanding, corporate sensitivity, and just plain absence of education on the part of the higher-ups at eBay.  It tells me that eBay has no more appreciation of Canada and its realities than the average American corporation. As earlier noted, if this were a Canadian company or government department, I imagine such an egregious error would have cost someone a job. 

I disagree with one of the earlier posters who suggested the change was probably made by some hapless junior programmer in a back office who had been told to tidy up the site.  I would seriously doubt that decisions such as how to represent a particular eBay site to the world are left up to employees on the floor.  Someone in a boardroom decided this was how the French and English versions of the eBay.ca site were to be represented. 

Understand that I am not complaining simply about the fact that a couple of flags were put up erroneously to represent two different language sites -- the realissue is that someone (i.e. corporate heads) at eBay didn't recognize the insulting perception it created until they had had enough complaints.  It should have been caught immediately, and remedied.  This speaks very, very poorly of eBay and demonstrates a complete absence of sensitivity. 

This sort of thing is the mirror by which we judge good and bad corporate citizens.  By the way, it wasn't so long ago that women were "complaining" about corporate insensitivity in similar circumstances.  Had women said nothing and carried on with life as it was, nothing whatsoever would have changed in public perception. 

The same principle applies to other humiliations by a thousand little insults, to borrow a metaphor.  I was under the impression we in Canada were beginning to live in a state of at least grudging acceptance and respect for each other.  This little bombshell on the part of eBay tells me eBay's corporate mentality is still stuck in the 1950's.   

The fact that Bryan (one of the Pinks) described the problem as a "wrinkle" (see quote in Post #24 above), means that corporate eBay either felt it was a non-issue -- in which case, shame on them for being oblivious -- or, (what is much more likely in my opinion) they realized how insulting it was and were hoping to minimize the damage by spinning it as an insignificant "whoopsie".  A corporation only makes that sort of "whoopsie" if it hires people who don't know or don't care about the consequences.  I still say I'd like to see someone take ownership and responsibility for the decision and make a reasonably honest apology to all Canadians using the site. 

[rose-dee]

Many times  things have been done wrong.

It was at a US football game where the Canadian flag was paraded up side down  with the maple leaf pointing down.

It is at a local auction house  where the Ukrainian flag is pinned to the wall...  up side down..

You are right - inadvertent mistakes of these kinds are made by people who really aren't expected to "know better".  Think of the Canadian singer recently who totally flubbed the American anthem in front of a whole stadium. 

But a corporation doing business in a country for some years, who supposedly has hired intelligent, educated people to represent that corporation, really needs to come up with a better explanation than that it was a "wrinkle", IMHO.

[pierrelebel]

"corporate sensitivity, and just plain absence of education on the part of the higher-ups at eBay. "

You are assuming the "higher-ups" at eBay were involved or even aware!   eBay.ca does not work that way.  They have a handful of well meaning and overworked staffers in Toronto.

Earlier this year, "eBay" was rebranded to "ebay" (check the upper left corner of every page).  In Canada, eBay.ca became "ebay" with no distinction to ".ca".  Many Canadian posters commented on the subject.

In an attempt to identify the site as Canadian, the Canadian flag was added.  Unfortunately, someone made a mistake by using the Canadian flag to represent the English language site and the Fleur de Lys to represent the French language site.

It was wrong.  It was a mistake. It was brought up to the attention of eBay.ca Canadian management and quickly corrected.  In fact, that is just about as fast as they can technically correct such site issue when a change of code is involved.

There was nothing more to it than that: a mistake made by a staffer. A bad mistake but just that.

Let it go.

[rose-dee]

Pierre, aside from not appreciating the patronizing advice to "let it go", it really doesn't matter to me whether it was a part-time programmer in a back room or a monkey who actually did the work. 

Obviously someone discussed it with someone, decided what to do, instructed an employee on what to do and left it at that.  I don't blame the person who actually worked on the site.  Corporations need to take responsibility for how they present themselves.  Managers on up are answerable for errors.  I'd simply like to see some open recognition of this as other than a mere "wrinkle".   

Mentioning that eBay has a "handful of well-meaning and overworked staffers in Toronto" isn't an excuse, although saying they are in Toronto explains alot about this particular faux-pas.  (And by the way, I am originally from that oft-maligned city myself, so I get to say it).:^O

[prior-of-verity*shake-hands-with-your-devil]

Rose deals in vintage clothing, harkening back to a time when life was simpler, choices were simpler, business was simpler....and people expected less and where hence less disappointed. That no longer exists. There are good and bad points to this because although 'choice' is suppose to give us more freedom......there is also the fact that too many choices, too much "bureaucracy" in an attempt to gain perfection has paralyzed us.

As the old adage goes K.I.S.S. .... Keep It Simple Stupid .....more corporate entities should try to go back to. 

[rose-dee]

I may deal in past dreams, but I'm a thoroughly modern Milly. B-)

Honestly, eBay is making enough money that I think it's reasonable to expect them to understand a little more about the country from which that money is flowing than this sloppy error demonstrated. 

I really don't feel terribly sorry for eBay managers (or employees) who are earning their keep from us and yet haven't seen fit to make some sort of frank "we're sorry" statement on this issue.  I will totally clam up and go away if they do...:8}