Explanations
Because of the outcry at my decision to remove accounts that were created without permission I am making a new post to address issues that have been brought up in the comments in my previous post.
You are not seeing it from your customer's point of view
I realize that it may appear that way but this is not the case. The site at this time, is not open to the public. There has always been a policy that beta testers and those who donated were not to invite other people to join. We have hashed this out on Scribblit itself with those who are actually part of the beta test and those that donated that invitations are not to be sent out unless there was an exception and permission given by me.
You shouldn't have had the invitation page up to begin with
Perhaps however with the problems we have been having with the servers and having to move everyone around, we have missed a few journals - these things happen - and so to make things easier on ourselves, we sent out invitations to those who were supposed to have them and did not get them. Should we have turned off the page when we were done with that? Probably but again I refer you to point #1 where the site is not open to the public and users were told not to invite people.
You're just going on a big powertrip and you don't care about your customers
This couldn't be farther from the truth. Every decision I make about this site is made in an effort to make it the best site it can be for everyone. However, it seems that some people are not realizing just how much work there is to do to get this site up and running. And while it may appear that we're not working on getting things fixed, the fact is, we are. We know about a lot of the issues and are working to get them fixed as quickly as possible. Keeping a smaller userbase on the site while it is still in testing generally makes it easier if we do have to back everything up and move everything around. And the faster we can get the problems fixed the sooner the site will be open to the public.
Let me reiterate a few things:
1) I have not nor will I ever delete journals randomly. Should a journal need to be deleted there will be a specific reason for it and the owner will be notified.
2) I have made no promises that there wouldn't be bumps in the road during the beta testing. Bumps and mistakes happen and in all honesty, should be expected when something is not fully functioning as desired. The people running this site are only human after all.
3) I care a great deal about the success of this project. I have been working on it for almost a year. I would have loved to have gotten it up and running and ready for January - I want to welcome everyone who wants to be there to the site. This site is my baby and I want it to succeed as much as anyone who is supporting this site. It was never my intention to do anything that would put people off - granted, I'm not going to be able to please everyone all the time but it has always been my intention to be as clear and transparent and available as possible.
What's going to happen to the journals then?
I have thought about this while typing up this entry and while reading the responses to my previous post. An investigation will still be done to determine the number of accounts that have been created since the beginning of March. If there is sufficient evidence that these accounts are not in fact spam account setups then these accounts will be suspended until the site is open. If it appears that the journals created have been the work of someone squatting on names or something similar then appropriate action will be taken (The squatted upon names will be deleted and purged so that they will be available to legitimate users when the site is open.)
For any user (beta tester or early contributer) who has sent out an invitation when they shouldn't have, your account will be suspended for an amount of time yet to be determined.
This is a reminder to all users: just because the invitation page may exist does not give you permission to invite people. And as I stated previously, we will be disabling it so this does not happen again.
As usual, I always encourage civil discussion but please keep it civil. I do not want to resort to disallowing anonymous comments due to someone saying something inappropriate.
[edit 5:08pm]
One last clarification, I apologize for leaving this out.
Beta testers were allowed to create secondary accounts for themselves. If you are curious as to whether or not you should be deleting that account you do not need to, the problem was with people inviting outside the beta tester/early contributor circle.
Also, only accounts that have been created from March 1/2008 will be examined.
[edit 5:16pm]
And one last thing. Since a number of people are claiming that it was never explicitly stated that users were not to send out invitations I would like to direct you to this post calling for more beta testers. Take note of the first point:
Do not create an account for yourself or for anyone else. If the account creation page is active it means that I am working on fixing the error that exists with it. DO NOT create an account
Common sense would dictate that one would extend such a rule to the invitations page since it clearly states not to create an account for anyone else.
You are not seeing it from your customer's point of view
I realize that it may appear that way but this is not the case. The site at this time, is not open to the public. There has always been a policy that beta testers and those who donated were not to invite other people to join. We have hashed this out on Scribblit itself with those who are actually part of the beta test and those that donated that invitations are not to be sent out unless there was an exception and permission given by me.
You shouldn't have had the invitation page up to begin with
Perhaps however with the problems we have been having with the servers and having to move everyone around, we have missed a few journals - these things happen - and so to make things easier on ourselves, we sent out invitations to those who were supposed to have them and did not get them. Should we have turned off the page when we were done with that? Probably but again I refer you to point #1 where the site is not open to the public and users were told not to invite people.
You're just going on a big powertrip and you don't care about your customers
This couldn't be farther from the truth. Every decision I make about this site is made in an effort to make it the best site it can be for everyone. However, it seems that some people are not realizing just how much work there is to do to get this site up and running. And while it may appear that we're not working on getting things fixed, the fact is, we are. We know about a lot of the issues and are working to get them fixed as quickly as possible. Keeping a smaller userbase on the site while it is still in testing generally makes it easier if we do have to back everything up and move everything around. And the faster we can get the problems fixed the sooner the site will be open to the public.
Let me reiterate a few things:
1) I have not nor will I ever delete journals randomly. Should a journal need to be deleted there will be a specific reason for it and the owner will be notified.
2) I have made no promises that there wouldn't be bumps in the road during the beta testing. Bumps and mistakes happen and in all honesty, should be expected when something is not fully functioning as desired. The people running this site are only human after all.
3) I care a great deal about the success of this project. I have been working on it for almost a year. I would have loved to have gotten it up and running and ready for January - I want to welcome everyone who wants to be there to the site. This site is my baby and I want it to succeed as much as anyone who is supporting this site. It was never my intention to do anything that would put people off - granted, I'm not going to be able to please everyone all the time but it has always been my intention to be as clear and transparent and available as possible.
What's going to happen to the journals then?
I have thought about this while typing up this entry and while reading the responses to my previous post. An investigation will still be done to determine the number of accounts that have been created since the beginning of March. If there is sufficient evidence that these accounts are not in fact spam account setups then these accounts will be suspended until the site is open. If it appears that the journals created have been the work of someone squatting on names or something similar then appropriate action will be taken (The squatted upon names will be deleted and purged so that they will be available to legitimate users when the site is open.)
For any user (beta tester or early contributer) who has sent out an invitation when they shouldn't have, your account will be suspended for an amount of time yet to be determined.
This is a reminder to all users: just because the invitation page may exist does not give you permission to invite people. And as I stated previously, we will be disabling it so this does not happen again.
As usual, I always encourage civil discussion but please keep it civil. I do not want to resort to disallowing anonymous comments due to someone saying something inappropriate.
[edit 5:08pm]
One last clarification, I apologize for leaving this out.
Beta testers were allowed to create secondary accounts for themselves. If you are curious as to whether or not you should be deleting that account you do not need to, the problem was with people inviting outside the beta tester/early contributor circle.
Also, only accounts that have been created from March 1/2008 will be examined.
[edit 5:16pm]
And one last thing. Since a number of people are claiming that it was never explicitly stated that users were not to send out invitations I would like to direct you to this post calling for more beta testers. Take note of the first point:
Do not create an account for yourself or for anyone else. If the account creation page is active it means that I am working on fixing the error that exists with it. DO NOT create an account
Common sense would dictate that one would extend such a rule to the invitations page since it clearly states not to create an account for anyone else.