As some people have already noticed and inquired about, little Water Faerie's auction is no longer in my eBay history. An eBay member reported a violation contained in the listing and the auction was subsequently removed by eBay. To save time and emails, this is what happened.
The violation was as follows:
A strip of fabric was tied around Water Faerie's chest with text that read, "Faerie's hair may be arranged to hang in front and her top is removable (required to meet eBay's policy on nudity in this category)"
I spoke with eBay support this morning and was informed that this text was "making a reference to a prohibited item" because I stated that the top was removable. It was therefore in violation of eBay's policy with respect to nudity.
Water Faerie was a past auction that was already paid for and shipped, so it's unclear why anyone would bother to have it removed.
The intent of eBay's policy on nudity is to protect children from being adversely affected by exposure to adult material. But in this case, a child would have to make the effort to search out my past auctions and sift through a lot of fine print before coming into contact with the offending text. So, as frequently suggested, these complaints may originate from competitors rather than concerned parents.
A few months ago, my ABOUT ME page was also removed because of a complaint. For those not familiar with eBay, this is a place where sellers can add information about themselves and put a link to their own website. EBay notified me that it was called to their attention that my website was in violation of their policy and my ABOUT ME page required immediate removal because it contained a link to it.
After a discussion with eBay, I learned that the problem was that the "destination page" of a link cannot contain material that is not fit for anyone under 18 years old. My home page was deemed for mature audiences only because the faerie in the top left corner was wearing a sheer top. EBay support suggested making the fabric less transparent to comply with their policy (You will notice that the faerie's top is still sheer on the other pages).
Water Faerie will appear in my website gallery when I have time to catch up. I have many irons in the fire at the moment, but she will be back!
And, again, the advantages of listing with eBay far outweigh these minor inconveniences.