"Sponsorship is different from ads" therefore Paid users will see it

[ex_uniquewo]

In September 2006, brad was saying : sponsored "whatever" are ads. don't worry, we (at least most of us?) realize sponsorships are the same as ads. and we remember which account levels see ads and which don't. Paid users won't see sponsored stuff -- ignore the previous post. paid users won't ever see ads. that's why you paid, and we're not in the

Comments

[elfwreck]

Exact phrasing of comment: It seems that the point that you most disagree with is the "sponsored" versus "ads" issue. We believe that sponsorship is different from ads and don't believe in preventing paid users from accessing a feature simply because it's a sponsored feature. Whereas you believe that they are the same thing and should be restricted accordingly -- that paid users shouldn't have access to or view sponsored items like mood themes and journal themes.

I've gone ahead and forwarded your concerns on to the individuals in charge of making these decisions, so that they are aware of users feelings on the sponsored vs. ads issue. I can't guarantee that this will change how we handle sponsored features, but I can assure you that your opinion does matter to us and we are going to continue to consider carefully how we handle sponsorships for all user levels.
emphasis addedI heartily recommend other people open support requests related to this issue--they seem to have a small collection of pre-written responses, and it's

[ex_uniquewo]

*nods* I especially loved the parts which talked at length about how paid users should have the right to use these themes and how we wanted to prevent them from doing so whereas none of us, as far as I know, said anything even remotely close to that. On the contrary, we suggested some compromise that, I believe, would have made all users happy (but, well, obviously, neither sponsors nor LJ happy).

[andy]

Regarding your suggestion to flood the Feedback team -- Do you really think it would take them very much time to open all of our requests in separate browser tabs, copy-paste their answer, and submit? I doubt.

[ex_uniquewo]

I think they have proven that they don't really care about giving people answers, personal or copied-pasted. I don't think that's the point of what elfwreck suggested. The point is to show you disagree with LJ's decision - and this is one way you can show it.

[andy]

This way seems counter-productive to me, for three reasons:

1. As you have said, they don't care of answering people much, they only hope to create an illusion that they care by copypasting the words you have citated.

2. They will not spend a lot of time handling our requests. Most likely they will answer them massively, or even massively close without response. (The latter is easier to do, actually. )

3. I personally dislike flash mobs which imply harassing actions, such as flooding Support board with requests.

[ex_uniquewo]

Flooding? Mobs ? Harrassing? I don't know what you're talking about here. What elfwreck suggested is not what those words imply. If Feedback is not the place to send feedback then I don't know what its use.

As users we don't have a lot of different means of action: show our displeasure by writing to the appropriate section of support, stop supporting the site by no longer giving them money or simply moving to another blogging service. It's up to people to decide whether this is something they wanna do and to decide which way they think is the best one.

[andy]

I'm sorry but I suspect you perfectly understand what I'm talking about. It is always good for people to write to Feedback what they really think, but your friend's words sound like he or she encourages others just to go, fill in the form, and submit, not to express their opinion.

Maybe I've got something wrong, but this is how your friend's suggestion can be understood, and hopefully it is just fine to put this opinion in a comment here.

[ex_uniquewo]

First, elfwreck is not my friend. They are another user who happened to agree with me on something and decided to write to feedback too. I find it strange that you assume that two people who agree on the same thing are automatically friend

[andy]

OK, maybe I have misread something, or just misunderstood it, whatever, or maybe I have put my words in a very incorrect way -- you know, English is not my mother tongue, and such things can happen. I am not going to argue with you about this, anyway, and I'm sorry if something in my behavior is absolutely wrong.

The only thing I'd like to mention is: Instead of signing a petition by submitting similar requests, it would be better to collect voices in comments and submit it as one request. This would not lead people on the other side to be so frustrated of copypasting, and maybe we will get more reasonable answer.

[ex_uniquewo]

English is not my mother tongue either so I do know such things happen. No harm done. It just seemed to me that you were seeing something that wasn't there. It happens. No worries.

Well, this is also a form of petition and, in my experience, it had never gone well with LJ. There has been quite a few already and it never helped.

[ex_uniquewo]

*what its use is.