Minekey Community Bulletin
posted on Nov 23 2008
Why were the fake profiles banned?
Minekey’s mission is to connect real people through real conversations. To date, over two million people have participated in discussions on Minekey, and over 90% of them have used their real identity. This has resulted in greater bonding and connection among the users compared to any other online community. We would like to preserve this value. Therefore, we encourage all our users to use their real names and pictures on Minekey.
Is it OK to use an avatar and an alias if I am not comfortable using my real identity?
Our goal is to provide an environment where users feel safe and comfortable to express themselves freely with their real identity. We are working on providing greater degree of control for users to choose the content they would like to see and the people they would like to interact with on Minekey. We are also working on providing greater privacy controls to our users. However, if some users are not comfortable using their real name and picture for their profile then it is OK to use an alias and a picture that does not violate the Community guidelines. Using profanities or other user names in the alias, or using obscene profile pictures purposefully to provoke other Community members and moderators could result in disabling of a user account.
How do you identify a fake profile?
Our moderators keep a close track of what’s happening on the Community and often rely on user inputs to track fake profiles. During the past few weeks we received several complaints about some users who were using fake profiles to harass others. While some users found some of these fake profiles entertaining, our moderation team found them detrimental to the overall Community and hence disabled them.
Why were people banned from Minekey recently?
Last week we announced our initiatives on profanity filter, block user and content rating functionality to give more control to users on Minekey. A few users didn’t like these new changes and sent us requests to disable their accounts. A few other users over-reacted to Minekey’s announcement, and posted pornographic material and excessive amounts of profanity to provoke the moderators. Such content severely violates Minekey Community Guidelines and is considered illegal in several countries around the world. Therefore our moderators took immediate steps to disable the user accounts.
Have these users been permanently banned or would they be allowed to come back?
For most users we give a second chance if they agree to comply with the Community guidelines. A few of the banned users contacted us and apologized for their behavior and some of them requested their accounts to be re-activated immediately. We have re-activated their accounts under an agreement that they comply with the Community guidelines.
Users may get in touch with us at “Community AT Minekey DOT com” and request us to enable their accounts. Re-activated user accounts will not have the opinions entered previously; however, votes, comments and followers will remain intact.
Why are the opinions of the banned users deleted?
If the user’s opinions are not deleted, they may be discoverable through search engines. Abusive content and behavior attracts attention of regulatory agencies and puts the Community and the users at risk. Therefore as a precautionary measure the opinions of the disabled accounts gets deleted immediately.
Why didn’t Minekey moderation team respond to opinions and comments posted by the users?
Alex Gault and Alex Box have transitioned to different roles. While, they will be involved with the overall Community Development activities, they will not be involved in moderation. As mentioned in our earlier blog posts we have a new moderation team in place. As a matter of policy, we have decided that our new moderation team will not be directly involved in the Community activities, so they can maintain an objective unbiased perspective about various issues. This would eliminate the possibility of moderators getting friendly with certain users and will ensure that the decisions are unbiased.
Were there any users behind these measures being implemented by Minekey?
To improve the Product and Community, from time to time Minekey collects inputs from a broad cross section of users through surveys and focus groups. The decision to implement these measures was made at the company level based on these inputs. We were aware that some users would not appreciate these measures. While we do listen to all Minekey users proactively and empathetically, we make objective decisions in the best interest of the majority of our users and do not get biased by inputs of a few. Even though our new moderation team received some inputs from the previous moderators, it is working on its independent judgment without any biases about the user’s history.
How can I participate in some of these Surveys, Focus groups and Beta programs?
If you are interested in participating in one of our future Surveys, Focus groups or Beta programs, please email us at “community AT minekey DOT com” with “Survey/ Focus Group/ Beta” in the subject line. Our Marketing team will get in touch with you when there is a suitable opportunity.
Who are Navigators and what’s their role on Minekey?
Navigators are user volunteers who interact with new Minekey members to help familiarize them about the Community and the Product features. These users are chosen based on their passion and track record of helping new users on Minekey. Minekey team periodically reviews the performance of Navigators and makes a decision to renew their status. If you are interested in becoming a Minekey Navigator, please email us at “community AT minekey DOT com” with “Navigator” in the subject line.
Does it make any business sense to delete content and ban users on a user generated content site like Minekey?
As a user generated content site, we do not like to ban our users or delete their content. However, we have a responsibility to protect the Community and the best interest of all the members in mind. Therefore, we do have to make tough decisions at times about deleting content and disabling user accounts. However, with better cooperation and support from all the Community members and with the implementation of new measures, we believe such instances will be very few.
Do you think these measures will solve all the Community issues?
The success or failure of an online community like Minekey heavily depends on its user base. Over the past 12 months more than two million people have participated on Minekey to express themselves and interact with other people. Several of these users have applauded Minekey to be the best place on Internet to speak their minds and connect with other likeminded people. However, conflicts and personal attacks are detrimental and we must address them to help users feel safe and comfortable as we target the next phase of growth.
Freedom of Choice goes hand in hand with Freedom of Speech. It is important for us to provide the ability for our users to choose the content they would like to see and the people they would like to interact with, so we can avoid conflicts and personality clashes. Putting the right technology and processes is in Minekey’s hand, and we have made these decisions in consultation with several experts. However, the ultimate success of these measures lies in the hands of Minekey Community members. We strongly feel that if the Community members support the right usage of these tools and prevent abuse, we can together build the greatest online community in the world.
What’s the best way to get in touch with Minekey team?
If you come across content or user behavior that violates the Minekey Community Guidelines, please use the Report Abuse links on the Opinion page and Profile page.
If you have any questions or suggestions, please email us at “community AT minekey DOT com”.
Even though Minekey is a small company, our goal is to provide world class customer service to all our users. Our moderation team keeps a close track of all the activity on Minekey, abuses reported and emails received, and responds to them on a 24 X 7 basis. Sometimes if the volume of requests is very high it may take some time before you hear back from us. However, we try our best to respond to most requests within 24 hours.
What’s the best way to stay updated about what’s latest on Minekey?
Minekey’s blog (http://blog.minekey.com) will be our key platform for communication with our users. From time to time we will also send key updates over emails to the users. Please make it a point to check your email on a daily basis and Minekey blog at least once a week to keep yourself updated about the latest product features, community policies and guidelines. You can also subscribe to the RSS feed of Minekey’s blog through Google Reader or get the latest updates via your personalized home pages such as iGoogle, My Yahoo or Net Vibes.
Minekey Community Bulletin seems to answer most of my questions. Do you plan to publish it more frequently?
Yes. Going forward we will aggregate all the questions we receive on a periodic basis and extract the questions which would be of value to the Community. We will publish Community Bulletins on Minekey’s blog on a periodic basis with answers to these questions to keep users better educated about the policies, guidelines and product features.
Category: Community, Community Guidelines, profanity
November 23rd, 2008 at 6:46 pm
Get the moderators commenting on opinions and giving explanations.
November 23rd, 2008 at 9:02 pm
1. If a user has an avatar and a nom de plume, is that not a fake profile/account?
2.” We are working on providing greater degree of control for users to choose the content they would like to see and the people they would like to interact with on Minekey.”
*Please restore the direct link to ‘friends opinions’ (those whom we are following).
Alex Gault had promised almost 2 months ago that this would be done .
It’s encouraging to see that you’ve finally cobbled together a semblance of a public relations department. It augurs well for the future of Minekey Inc.
November 23rd, 2008 at 9:19 pm
I agree that moderators should be kept out from the minekey community in order to keep some healthy distance between people and the moderation desk. This is very wise thought and i am very confident that your thoughts lead to a new and revived community athmosphere that is based on debate and less on hatred and emotional exegerations.
November 24th, 2008 at 12:36 am
I’ve got my answers, thank you.
November 24th, 2008 at 1:26 am
i have apologized twice in the kindest way possible and now you want me to go back in and tell others what i have already done…to be honest ..i give up..all i did was curse a few times and then i said i was sorry..i am not in power over other peoples actions..they were there before i ever came along..infact is was the open ones that inspired me to be blunt and bold..so if this stops me from ever becoming a member again then so be it..i have done all i should do and see no further reason why i should continue to take full blame on everyone elses behalf..i am not the voice of them ..just the voice of me and that is all!..thank you for taking the time to read this and for replying..sorry i have nothing further to say!..you site was fun at the time and i will miss it but life does go one!..thanks again! and take care..
Denyse
November 24th, 2008 at 6:04 am
I joined Minekey (then iThink) almost one year ago. i was intimidated by some of the responses i got to my opinions, but it’s just because i wasn’t used to having what i wrote published and read, interpreted, and criticised by others. i even uninstalled it … but i went back. it was a challenge. it made me think and consider things in ways i hadn’t before. and it was, after all, only words on a screen. i admit i had to develop a bit of a thicker skin as a result, but being able to separate yourself from the discussion at hand is a great thing to learn, especially in a forum for debating potentially sensitive issues, which was what i believed iThink (Minekey) was all about. As of a week ago, I had posted over 3000 opinions and had the second highest number of followers. i was in the top five for “most comments”. i loved this application, which is evident from the insane number of hours i’ve spent on it. i hope i’ll remain friends with the people i met on there my whole life. but i was singled out by a group of users calling themselves The Coalition Against Bullying and for Justice on Minekey as a “bully”, along with a couple dozen others. they passed this list around and it became public. i have never been reprimanded for my conduct on minekey by any moderator. i’ve never, to my knowledge, had one of my opinions deleted for not conforming to the CoC. i’m not perfect, but i’m not a bully and i was hurt and embarrassed by the list. this group has championed the issue of bullying on minekey tirelessly, even going so far as to create blogs about it outside of minekey or facebook. but i felt bullied by them. minekey never addressed the issue of The Coalition, but it was clear from the recent post about making minekey friendlier and the banning spree that followed that my opinions are no longer welcome here. i don’t post malicious opinions, but i do use profanity and discuss sex rather explicitly. however, that is no longer acceptable (despite the fact that i was #2 most followed and featured in the “orange box” three times). i feel i’ve been bullied out of my own home and can’t tell you how disappointed i am the way things have turned out. why has minekey never come to me directly if i’m in violation of the CoC? has minekey been bullied into following their own rules? whatever the situation is, it’s ugly and it stinks. i’m sorry to see a good application turn so bad.
November 24th, 2008 at 9:09 am
I believe those measures are fair and the whole community have to adhere to the established rules and regulations. Freedom of the speech means commitment, responsibility and respect the values and merits of the others. This site is a great one for expressing our views freely and narrowing the gap between the cultures of the world.
Thanks a lot for your distinguished efforts to improve the conditions of the community. Regards.
November 24th, 2008 at 8:43 pm
@ Danny - As clarified in our Community Bulletin - while we appreciate users using their real identity and we are putting in our best efforts to provide safety, comfort and privacy for users to use their real identities - we can understand several users may not be comfortable using their real names and pics and may use alias and an avatar. That’s a compromise we can live with.
We are certainly looking at how to better connect users with their friends on Minekey. That’s certainly a critical success factor for us and we are looking into how we can accomplish that. In fact, we released Friends’ search on Minekey - Facebook last week to help better connect users with their Facebook friends. We are aware that you have been vocal about Friends’ opinions tab. One of the big challenges so far has been the definition of Friends and Facebook Friends information is made available by Facebook for apps only with in Facebook. However with Facebook Connect we may be able to extend that to the website as well. Facebook Connect is currently in Beta and once the technology matures over the next couple months we do have plans to integrate Facebook Connect on Minekey website. Meanwhile, we will look into possibilities with in Facebook app. We’ll keep you posted.
November 24th, 2008 at 9:30 pm
@ Denyse - We appreciate the fact that you have admitted your mistakes. No, we weren’t expecting you to apologize once more inside Minekey. We were only hoping that when you go back - you would clarify and let the other Minekey members know what prompted Minekey moderation team to take such strict action. However, that is not a requirement for us to re-activate your account. As long as you are willing to comply with the Community Guidelines - we can go ahead and re-activate your account. Pls. let us know.
November 24th, 2008 at 10:07 pm
@ Kathryn/ Pea Nut - You have been a passionate user of Minekey for the last 12 months and Minekey team sincerely acknowledges your contribution. To the best of our knowledge, we do not remember seeing any abuses reported against you nor any Minekey moderation team members noticed any content that’s grossly offensive in your content. We were a bit surprised that you came forward and said you would like to leave Minekey and we thought it was a voluntary decision supporting some of your friends. As a matter of fact, you were suspecting that there may be still some of your opinions available on the website and followed up with us to ensure complete deletion and our team responded that we have taken care of things as per your request. Minekey team would be more than happy welcome you back.
It is unfortunate that things like coalition and bullying happened in Minekey. Several users brought this upto our notice. Please note those users who brought this to our attention or long time passionate users who have nothing to do with coalition or bullying and are people who wanted to see less hate speech and personal attacks on Minekey. That was one of the key reasons why we went and investigated what was happening and took help from Industry experts to determine the best course of action. Some of the recent measures are indeed a follow through of this. NO MORE COALITIONS, NO MORE BULLIES. We are committed to making Minekey a safe and fun place for all our users to express themselves freely with out attacking each other and violating community guidelines. Any support/ help you could offer to the Minekey team in this area would be much appreciated.
November 25th, 2008 at 7:28 am
I asked for my activity to be deleted because they did not meet the guidelines outlined in the bulletin about making minekey friendlier. Only after i had asked them to be removed did minekey post another bulletin saying that the filter would be optional. I asked for my opinions to be deleted rather than be reported again and again for opinions i’d written in the past that contained “unacceptable” content, now that minekey was apparently going to actually enforce the CoC. I was contacted by a friend who said one of my opinions was still on there, which was why I contacted you a second time. What a slap in the face … post a bulletin saying something isn’t acceptable, then come out a day later and say it is acceptable, that people will have “freedom of choice.” My leaving had nothing to do with “supporting” anyone … my opinions did not meet minekey’s standards of decency as per the “making minekey friendlier” bulletin, and I did not expect a second bulletin to come out and negate the first. I assumed, naturally, that you meant what you said in the first bulletin, in which case my opinions are unacceptable. I asked them to be removed to save myself and you the trouble of weeding through them for sex and profanity. I’ve had my name tarnished by the Coalition once, I wasn’t about to go through it again with minekey moderators who can’t decide what is and isn’t acceptable to post.
November 25th, 2008 at 11:08 pm
@ Kathryn/ PeaNut - Profanity and Sexually explicit material often has a wide spectrum and is subject to interpretation by people. It is impossible for us to specify what’s acceptable and what’s not acceptable. Therefore, as a general policy in Minekey’s Community Guidelines/ Code of Conduct we prohibit such usage to eliminate possible abuse. The purpose of “Let’s Make Minekey Friendly” blog post was to primarily re-iterating he existing Community Guidelines and remind users about their responsibilities. People in different countries and cultures have different tolerance levels and we rely on the sensitivity/ tolerance level of the community members, while announcing the new initiatives. We haven’t gone around deleting every piece of profane content. Our focus was primarily profane content with hate speech/ personal attacks and really gross content.
Regarding the “Freedom of Choice” blog post we received a lot of questions on “community AT minekey DOT com” from individual users about how the Profanity filter would work , if they can opt-out and if they can get more details. Therefore, we thought it would be a good idea to post an announcement on the blog. We sincerely appreciate these users who had a constructive dialog and helped improve our communication. It would be great if users make it a practice to proactively communicate with Minekey team on”community AT minekey DOT com” and get clarifications instead of over reacting to the situation.
We haven’t seen any users reporting on your content recently. So, perhaps they are with in their acceptance level at the moment. Once we enable the Profanity filter, users will be able to opt-out of the Profanity filter and opt-in for R-rated content. I am sure, those issues would have even far lesser issues.
We hope we have addressed all your questions satisfactorily. It will be great to have you back. Let us know if you are interested. Also, some GOOD NEWS: As a one time offer, our engineering team has will help restore the deleted content of users who have sent us re-activation requests.
November 25th, 2008 at 11:42 pm
It is very clear to me that Minekey is only enforcing the Terms and Codes of its website, that it chooses to enforce.
It appears that certain users of minekey can get away with anything while others are banned for lesser offences. Profanity is a lesser offence than violating copyright laws.. as many ’swear’ words can be found in the English dictionary..
the Lukas Lehmann account has several opinions that clearly violate the TERMS and copyright laws .. I have reported these and as yet these opinions still have not been deleted.
I will post here the TERMS that he is violating.
IN MINEKEY’S TERMS: YOU CANNOT:
# upload, post, transmit, share, store or otherwise make available any content that we deem to be harmful, threatening, unlawful, defamatory, infringing, abusive, inflammatory, harassing, vulgar, obscene, fraudulent, invasive of privacy or publicity rights, hateful, or racially, ethnically or otherwise objectionable;
# upload, post, transmit, share, store or otherwise make available any videos other than those of a personal nature that: (i) are of you or your friends, (ii) are taken by you or your friends, or (iii) are original art or animation created by you or your friends;
November 25th, 2008 at 11:48 pm
Two of your comments in your recent answer to Pea Nut’s letter are really hard to understand.
First … ” Profanity and Sexually explicit material often has a wide spectrum and is subject to interpretation by people. It is impossible for us to specify what’s acceptable and what’s not acceptable.”
Since you confirm that it is “impossible for [you] to specify what’s acceptabl and what’s not” The reports you will receive from “the” community (I guess you mean “the coalition against bullying”) will be impossible to judge. Hence reports on “profanity” or sexuality” can NEVER be used as a rason to ban people, because … “People in different countries and cultures have different tolerance levels and we rely on the sensitivity/ tolerance level of the community members, while announcing the new initiatives.” If you use this criterium, you can only use the lowest tolerance level possible, since that is the only one that will apply to the community as a whole. In other words, the only acceptable opinions will be come : “the sky is blue” or mor provocatively: “the grass is green” An opinion which is hard to discuss since you don’t know whether it is summer or winter, or dry, or humid. These kind of opinions will be acceptble to the lowest tolerance level. In fact, this is the kind of opinions that are prevailing more and more on your once beautifully thought-provoking appilaction.
iThink for me used to be an application with wonderful thinkers who pushed my own thinking to the limits. I am sad to see that in the recent weeks many of these true iThink philosophers have left the Minekey Community. At the same time, former members of the “coalition against bullying” are gloating in the full public eye over their success of bullying these provocative minds out of Minekey. They can do this, because they, apparently, have your full support. Repeated reporting of some individuals have not stopped their presence nor their hate-mongering. Personally, I feel heavily offended that my tolerance level has been breached again and again by these people. The suggestion of one thinker above, that you should distance yourself from the community is a big mistake. You can only listen truely to your dwindling community of users if you have your ears and eyes wide open and are at the center of where “it” happens. Make your choices wisely of who you support by your inaction and who you choose to be bullied off because of your non-support. Thinkers like Pea Nut or Kostas are not easily replaced or emulated.
November 26th, 2008 at 12:11 am
Why on earth, if there is a block user/content feature now on the site, have these banished members not been allowed back? To other users, seeing any evidence of their existence on minekey is now strictly optional. I understand about retaining site safety and integrity and certainly that’s necessary on at least the business end of this issue. But this concern is usually restricted to things like overt examples of child pornography or abuse, direct personal threats or the like. Things that could cause real legal trouble. Many banned users, while arguably offensive, were not posting these kinds of things. A questionable opinion or two, maybe. But illegal?
I’m not going to launch into a diatribe about how we’re all our own masters over how we feel and react to things around us because its been said a million times and many people honestly do not have that coping skill yet. I just urge you to reconsider the banning of people who are guilty of nothing more than pushing other peoples’ buttons. Because now that we can apparently block other users, it is no longer necessary to decide who is safe. Everyone that doesn’t break international law is safe now.
November 26th, 2008 at 12:14 am
No, let me explain again since I DO realize you’re inviting people back now… I just want to make sure that this includes any member who hasn’t put the site in legal jeopardy.
November 26th, 2008 at 2:41 pm
Dear minekey let me ask some things about all the recent events that lead to the deletion or the voluntary exit of most the users i valued on your app….
i) Why did the first blog post fail to mention that the filter would be optional? Kind of important info don’t you think? It would have saved your application from the subsequent turmoil. Most people that ‘protested’, would not mind an optional filter. Many people, including me, suspected that “optional” was added due to the ‘protests’ and was not your original intention. Is that so?
ii) Why did you delete people for profanity while several racist, homophobic, bigoted or otherwise hateful opinions are still there for all to see? I mean the if the filter would be optional there was no reason to delete them. And if the deletions were about holding the CoC then isn’t hate speech also unacceptable? Your CoC states it is…
iii) Why don’t you follow the Facebook rules for applications? It shows inconsistency and gives out the wrong message… i’m talking about the constant spamming to invite our FB friends and and the pre-selection of all of them when we share opinions. Many users have brought this to your team’s attention but you chose to ignore them.
As i have been informed you asked of Denyse to apologize because she supposedly started this riot. The truth is that your own shortcomings are what brought this mess… are you willing to apologize for them? Are you willing to clear the ambiguity of your CoC and enforce it in a consistent way? Of course it is your own application and it is not for me to tell you how to run it… but as a user i want to have some answers and to see how things are going to be from now on. This will decide my leaving or staying. I too have used profanity to express and still am… so if profanity is not tolerated now it is best for me and you if i left, since i refuse to censor myself.
Thanks in advance for your answers.
November 26th, 2008 at 9:10 pm
@ Jo - There is very little or no room for copyright violation on Minekey currently since we do not allow directly uploading third party videos or pics. We allow users to embed pics and videos from reputed sites as YouTube, Flickr etc., which have strict copy right policies and teams monitoring such violations and would remove such content if they come across any copy right issues and would automatically be removed from Minekey as well. For the content that users post on Minekey - opinions, profile pic, comments, notes users are responsible for their copyright. If the copyright owner contacts Minekey with the proof of owning copyright for such content our legal team will investigate and take steps to remove immediately.
November 26th, 2008 at 9:25 pm
@ Robert - Thanks for valuable inputs. You are absolutely right - judging the level of offensiveness of profanity or sexually explicit material can be quite challenging and that’s exactly the reason why we are implementing the profanity filter and letting people opt-in for “R” rated content. We hope this would minimize such instances where our moderation team will have to make the judgment. It is unfortunate that some thing like “Coalition” happened on Minekey. Some of the people behind the idea have already apologized to the Minekey community. We will make sure that such things won’t happen again on Minekey. BTW - we cleared the confusion with PeaNut and have reactivated her account. We will restore opinions of PeaNut and other re-activated users next week.
November 26th, 2008 at 9:31 pm
@ Ella - Thanks for your suggestion. We will make sure that no one can put the community and site under risk/ legal jeopardy. Just to clarify - block user option is still not available and we are still working on it and hope to roll it out in the coming weeks. Infact some of the users who were banned did actually post offensive pornographic content. Hence we had to take the action of disabling their accounts.
November 26th, 2008 at 9:52 pm
@ Maik - The theme of the first blog post was about making Minekey more friendly. It was primarily intended to let the community know that some of the issues in the recent time and we are taking actions to prevent such issues from happening in future. Therefore the emphasis was about letting users know that we will be providing better controls to the users and asking every one to comply with community guidelines. The intent of the blog post was not to educate about any specific features. However, when we noticed that that some of the community members over-reacted with out having all the information - we responded with a subsequent post. Most effective way for users to understand a specific feature better would have been sending an email to “community AT minekey DOT com” instead of over-reacting. We always welcome a constructive discussion and dialog and perhaps we would have even gathered interesting suggestions from users.
We we would like to clarify that we did not delete users just for normal use of profanity. Most of users were disabled for the following reasons: 1. They sent a request to Minekey to disable their account 2. They posted pornographic material 3. Used excessive amounts of profanity often combined with hate speech.
Hate speech is a violation of Community Guidelines and we do not appreciate Minekey users resorting to hate speech or personal attacks. We will continue to take strict action to restrict hate speech and make Minekey more Friendly.
We comply with Facebook rules for applications. Most applications on Facebook do prompt users to invite/ share with Friends. We will certainly look into how we can improve that experience for users.
We did not ask Denyse to apologize. She did that voluntarily. All that we asked her was to clarify to the community about the reasons why we disabled her account to help clear misunderstanding on why user accounts were disabled.
Hope we have clarified all your questions. Thanks.
November 26th, 2008 at 10:01 pm
@ all users - If you have any questions of your personal interest be answered - please email us at “community AT minekey DOT com”. That would help avoid duplication. Wordpress blog (which we use) does not automatically mail out the replies to your comments. On a periodic basis we will extract questions that may be of public interest and post the answers in Minekey Community Bulletin.
November 27th, 2008 at 12:26 am
My first comment is aimed at Kathryn (Pea Nut):
I was not one of your followers, but I did read and vote on many of your opinions. I have much respect for the way in which you posted your comments here. It proves to me that you are a great person. If you do join again, I will surely follow you.
My second comment is for the Minekey team:
I do not know who you are and whether there really is new staff or not. Nevertheless, I honestly hope that Minekey has also learned from this recent experience. A few months ago we complained when the points system was taken away and later when the previous (much more user-friendly) layout was changed. In both instances, the reaction from your team was almost non-existent. To be honest, only Mr Gault took the trouble to respond to my comments and suggestions. Many thanks to him!
I still believe that you should show more interest in the users. It is only when both your team and the users work together that you will achieve the success you are striving for. It remains the best application I have ever used and I would surely like to see it remain as such (with improvements along the way of course).
Again, as I have previously done in suggestions to some team members (and even in an opinion), consult the users before making any changes. You may be surprised by the quality of inputs some users may have.
November 27th, 2008 at 2:08 am
Dear Minekey. This morning, my entry had been deleted from this Blog. Or so I thought. It was still not there at noon (german time). I have posted an opinion expressing my sadness at your alleged nonresponsiveness to the Minekey Community. Some commenters suggested that you use this side for advertising purposes only. Yet, you did put the entry back. What’s more you answered. Although I am not 100% satisfied with your answer, I accept the compromise and the offer of communication. Thank you for listening.
November 27th, 2008 at 2:23 am
@ Minekey re: your reply. “We are certainly looking at how to better connect users with their friends on Minekey.”
Your answer to my request was spurious and an insult to my intelligence. It is quite obvious that you could easily provide a direct link to the opinions of those whom we are following on minekey.com. When I signed up to your site, I was given the option to select those users I wished to follow and made those selections; so this has nothing to do with Facebook.
I suspect that you have not provided this link in order to prevent cliques from forming. That is not for you to decide! This kind of dictatorial practice on your part has caused much consternation here of late.
November 27th, 2008 at 2:39 am
Minekey,
as I expected, you did not respond to my query.
Does it or does it not State in your TERMS that users cannot:
# upload, post, transmit, share, store or otherwise make available any videos other than those of a personal nature that: (i) are of you or your friends, (ii) are taken by you or your friends, or (iii) are original art or animation created by you or your friends;
if you will not enforce these Terms then clearly none of your TERMS are valid or are only valid if it isn’t Lukas Lehmann or any of his cronies
November 27th, 2008 at 6:33 am
Your statement that you will reinstate deleted opinions has raised my previously negative estimation of you.
It would be appreciated, in light of this statement, if you could re-activate my Minekey account. I understand that my last three opinions - formed upon a misconception of the profanity filter (which you did not initially elaborate on) - got my account disabled in the first place. Am I correct?
I wrote some well-considered opinions (frivolous and serious) and got some well-considered feedback from a small yet significant following of iThinkers; I would hate to see all that permanently erased on the basis of two or three over-heated opinions….
November 27th, 2008 at 6:45 am
@ Jo - We currently allow only “embed” videos and the terms of usage of such embed functionality is actually governed by the Terms of service of third party sites like YouTube/ MetaCafe etc., … “Embed” is very different from “upload, post, transmit, share, store” …we currently do not offer any mechanism for users to upload etc., …we have included that clause in our Terms of service keeping in mind we may introduce such a service at a later point in time. We hope you understand the difference.
November 27th, 2008 at 6:49 am
@ Robert - Your entry was not deleted from Minekey blog. Comments on Minekey blog are moderated and needs approval by a Minekey team member before they are posted on the blog. As mentioned in the email we sent across to you - some times when we have high volume of user requests it takes some time for us to approve the comments. But, nevertheless, we make sure we respond to all the relevant user queries, comments and concerns. Appreciate your understanding.
November 27th, 2008 at 7:14 am
@ Daniel - We have re-activated your account and our Engineering team will work on restoring your past opinions next week. Thanks for our patience and cooperation.
November 27th, 2008 at 7:26 am
@ Danny - When ever you referred to “Friends Opinions” we were under the impression that you were talking about “Friends’ Opinions” tab that was present in Minekey app on Facebook. That had nothing to do with who you are following. Those were the opinions of your Facebook friends and hence the reason for our previous explanation. So looks like you are now talking about “Opinions of all people I am following” which is different from the earlier version of “Friends’ Opinions” and is a new feature request. You may be following people who may not be your friends and you may not be following some of your friends.
“User satisfaction” and “User engagement” are as important goals for us as “Pageviews”. So, the reason for removing “Friends’ opinions” when we launched the website was more to do with challenges on implementing that feature on website and nothing to do with pageviews. We are looking into the possibilities of greater amount of “Friends” related features on Minekey Facebook version. Hope we have clarified the confusion.
November 27th, 2008 at 7:32 am
@ Rinaldi - Thanks for your valuable inputs and suggestions. Our users and their passion inspires us each day and we are constantly learning every day. We will certainly make efforts to work proactively with our users going forward on all the key product and community related decisions.
November 27th, 2008 at 7:54 pm
@ Minekey- Thank you for your prompt reply to the friends/followers ‘confusion’. This arose due to the fact that the previous link tab on the application was labelled “friends opinions”.
This ‘misunderstanding’ was clarified with Alex Gault in his iFeedback opinion: http://minekey.com/theopinion/1162097 and also in a private e-mail over two months ago.
My final question on this matter is: Will you now provide a direct link to the opinions of those users whom I am following and when will you do it?