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New to forum. Alexa appears to be having a crisis

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New to forum. Alexa appears to be having a crisis
« on: March 09, 2018, 07:39:10 pm »
Hi. I am new to the forum and these are just my views based on my experience of Alexa.
I am not sure what changed at Amazon around November 2017 but since then Alexa appears to be  experiencing a major crisis. Its not just the "evil laughing" but everything from how she hears invocation names to how she deals with slots and instances. It all just seems like a big mess right now. To give you an Idea. When designing an skill invocation model Alexa gives the example. --- "nvocation
Users say a skill's invocation name to begin an interaction with a particular custom skill.
For example, if the invocation name is "daily horoscopes", users can say:

User: Alexa, ask daily horoscopes for the horoscope for Gemini
But if you set the invocation as per the example ---- Alexa, ask daily horoscopes for the horoscope
Alexa response is ------invocation name cannot contain upper case characters.
change Alexa to alexa and you get "Invocation name may only contain alphabetic characters, apostrophes, periods and spaces"
Confused ? thats OK so is Alexa  :D

Its worse look at the verification questions Amazon ask when submitting posts?
Verification:
Which is smallest? piano, iphone, xbox, train:

Well I have a chocolate train and I can eat it Haaa Haaaa . Realy Amazon?

Which can you eat? rock, fertilizer, cake, wood:

Well i baught a candy rock from the sea side town of Brighton last week so i say i can eat a rock. --Haaa Haaaa realy Amazon. Whats going on

Offline jwlv

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Re: New to forum. Alexa appears to be having a crisis
« Reply #1 on: March 09, 2018, 10:28:08 pm »
Those verification questions are only there to deter spammers. Once you are an established user here you will no longer see those verification questions.

The verification questions are only for this forum. It has nothing to do with Amazon. And this forum is not run by or affiliated with Amazon. I run this forum on my own with the help of a couple of moderators. Amazon does not pay me or give me any discounts or preferential treatment. In fact, I pay Amazon to the tune of several thousand dollars each year from the products I buy. I'm sure Amazon knows the existence of this forum but they probably do not care to know who I am since this forum is minuscule in the realm of all that is Amazon.

Most people who participate in this forum are hobbyists. Many are average consumers. Some are professionals in the IT industry. A few are caring individuals who are looking for technology that can make their disabled or elderly loved ones lives a little bit better. As for me, I just want to live in a Star Trek world where I can say "computer, tea earl grey hot." Thus far, Alexa gets me about half way there.  :P
« Last Edit: March 09, 2018, 10:29:54 pm by jwlv »

StevenR

Re: New to forum. Alexa appears to be having a crisis
« Reply #2 on: March 10, 2018, 04:46:36 am »
The invocation name should simply be the phrase you want users to use to refer to your skill. So, with the given example, the invocation name is just "daily horoscopes" and not "Alexa, ask daily horoscopes for the horoscope for Gemini". The "for the horoscope for ..." part belongs in the sample utterances for your intent.