You Sphinn Me Right Round, Baby

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1. I remembered, hey, I forgot to get her picture « Delor.es.Defacto wrote:

   […] also have been spending the past couple of days messing with my post at BAYB about how Sphinn cancelled the two accounts I tried to set up, without reason. It was frustrating […]

   March 22nd, 2008 at 10:08 am
2. 6 Rules for Social Media Websites | Blog About Your Blog wrote:

   […] Delores’ recent trouble with Sphinn, I thought I’d write a quick guideline to follow for social media and social bookmarking […]

   March 24th, 2008 at 4:56 am

1. Aaron at FullTiltBlogging.com said:

   I often wonder if those who complain to these types of sites are given more weight than those who actually submit stuff. I had the same problem at Digg (which is notorious for banning members at the slightest complaint.)

   Of course if someone signs up just to complain about sites of their competitors no one would notice, right?

   March 18th, 2008 at 4:19 am
2. Dan Thornton said:

   As far as I’m aware, I’ve abided by the Sphinn rules, and yet I can’t access my account at all at the moment.

   I presumed I’d got my password wrong, so applied to reset it, and then tried to log in again – no dice.

   I contacted them, and got an email suggesting I reset my password. So I did it again – no success.

   I emailed again, stating that my account still wasn’t working, and I’m awaiting a reply over a week later.

   March 18th, 2008 at 5:04 am
3. deloresdefacto said:

   Dan:
   This is exactly what happened to me except they didn’t even respond to my password query. I would try “Contact Us” at their site and see if you get a reply. Let me know if they get back to you.

   Aaron:
   You’re absolutely right. I’ve heard that Digg members are locked out for using the service for profit but supposedly setting up a new account after the axe is accepted. {shrug}
   That’s why I wanted to post my complaint about Sphinn because I thought somewhere, somehow they would sit up and take notice.
   Hopefully social networking services will either fix their mistakes or fade away if enough valid accounts are turned away for unknown reasons.

   March 18th, 2008 at 10:43 am
4. deloresdefacto said:

   Update:
   Apparently Michelle thinks, “Sorry, not going give actual links – even nofollows – to a spammer that then goes on to claim innocence.”

   Notice that she won’t give actual proof of the accusation of spam links? Also, why can they post this on their service site, yet not contact me directly to explain the problems they had with my account? Absolute rubbish.

   If she’s referring to my personal blog posts then all Sphinn needed to do was send me an email stating “please delete your own links.” This is what the other services do.

   March 18th, 2008 at 10:52 am
5. deloresdefacto said:

   Hello Delores –

   I appreciate your frustration with not being notified when your account was disabled. User Feydakin has posted a comment that I think succinctly states the overall management problem of contacting each and every user whose account is disabled. We get a significant amount of spam on a daily basis and it is not unreasonable to expect users to take responsibility for the status of their account – by understanding the guidelines of the community in which they are participating. Violating those guidelines result in accounts being deactivated, and we make that clear, and make no promises about notifying users when their account has been disabled.

   Regardless of how other social sites operate, at Sphinn, which is much more narrowly focused than a site like Digg or SU or any other more broadly based social site, users are expected to be familiar with and follow our guidelines, and accept the fallout from the community and/or moderators when they repeatedly violate them.

   Sincerely,
   Michelle Robbins
   Sphinn Admin

   March 18th, 2008 at 12:14 pm
6. Mark said:

   Well, I read Michelle’s response here, but it’s still mysteriously missing anything having to do with your account. Just the same old “we don’t accept spam” reason, which you’re already aware of. What you (and the rest of us) want to know is what is the spam?

   I get the sneaky suspicion that this is like when a referee makes a bad call at a game, the crowd boos them, but the ref sticks with their decision because gosh darnit, they it’s just poor form to be wrong. 🙂

   March 18th, 2008 at 9:20 pm
7. Burgo said:

   “Update:
   Apparently Michelle thinks, “Sorry, not going give actual links – even nofollows – to a spammer that then goes on to claim innocence.”

   Notice that she won’t give actual proof of the accusation of spam links?”

   Actually Delores, if you read further, you would see that she does mention the pages submitted. She simply typed it out, rather than giving live links, which is what Michelle meant. Go back and read the comment. That section, in full, it reads:

   “Sorry, not going give actual links – even nofollows – to a spammer that then goes on to claim innocence.

   deloresdefacto dot com /?p=68
   and /?p=65
   and /?p=72”

   See? The links are there, just typed out, not in full URL form.

   And you know what, I read it… and seemed like pretty off topic stuff to me too.

   March 18th, 2008 at 11:17 pm
8. Aaron at FullTiltBlogging.com said:

   Spam is in the eye of the beholder. What one editor sees as spam someone else might see as vital, helpful information.

   March 19th, 2008 at 6:52 am
9. SlightlyShadySEO said:

   One thing you have to understand is that Sphinn has been under a barrage of spam due to some mass social bookmarking sites. Now, with these no one checks on their accounts after the initial creation, and they give no thought to the fact that sphinn is about internet marketing.
   So swiftly deleting the accounts is by FAR the most efficient way to deal with it. Most people that submit personal/off-topic posts are not looking to be real sphinn members, and would not respond even if they were told why. If the account was left in tact, the spam would continue.
   But since they don’t check the accounts after it’s deleted, all is well.
   It’s really the only way I can think of to deal with it.

   March 19th, 2008 at 10:46 am
10. deloresdefacto said:

    I tend to disagree with the whole “we don’t have time to notify members of closed accounts.” If every other service we all use is capable of contacting someone (Simpy and Newsvine for instance, as I had pointed out) then why wouldn’t Sphinn? They are not as high up on the social bookmarking ladder and I had only heard of them through BAYB.
    My point here is clearly understandable; if tracking back to your own site is considered spam in the eyes of Sphinn, fine, but for Heaven’s sake, don’t just point the finger at a “guilty” person without explanation. Give users a chance to delete their own links and move on. How can it be too hard to contact the user if they can take the time to sift through each users’ links and declare which ones are “spam” or not? (Not to mention, taking the time to write some long comment renouncing my beef with them so other users won’t wonder “huh, maybe this girl has a legitimate complaint.”
    It’s simply bad business and lack of communication, when I had tried to honestly understand what I needed to fix in my account, was ignored.
    Basically when Sphinn is giving as an answer is to create phony accounts to swamp Sphinn with links that do not appear to be of their own site. It seems to be a backwards way of working things out with their consumers. If spam is such a problem with Sphinn’s admin to keep tabs on, then why couldn’t they not allow links to be added if the URLs match with the blog claimed to be owned by the user?
    Deleting an account without response from Sphinn is plain annoying. Maybe they don’t have enough people to sit around a computer and make an automatic reply email to users who have had their accounts deactivated or queried about. {shrug} But the superiority of their answer makes me laugh. I can see if I were trying to sell something or do something shady with the links I added to my site. A blog is a personal website. Having news articles for a blog is something entirely different than what the mass population of users keep a blog for. Having something “off topic” is too much of a generalization. Anything goes as far as blog topics and if it’s spam they’re trying to weed out, then the focus needs to be put on those who are deliberately trying to flood Sphinn’s service with useless, marketing or even offensive site links. Those who have a blog for fun and write about every topic on the sun shouldn’t be thrown into the same category as some shameless “spammer”.

    March 19th, 2008 at 12:07 pm
11. Burgo said:

    @delores:”Those who have a blog for fun and write about every topic on the sun shouldn’t be thrown into the same category as some shameless “spammer”.”

    Agreed. But at the same time, those who write about every topic under the sun should know that submitting NON internet-marketing related posts to an EXPLICITLY internet-marketing focussed forum will be considered off-topic.

    And, under the terms, off-topic posts are frowned upon.

    March 19th, 2008 at 4:33 pm
12. SlightlyShadySEO said:

    @delores: No one has a problem with you submitting your own posts. That’s allowed. I do it all the time. You can’t submit posts that have nothing to do with internet marketing/seo. Which yours did not.

    March 19th, 2008 at 6:11 pm
13. Darren McLaughlin said:

    Oh well. Just remove your “Sphinn This” button and move on. Such is life, after all.

    March 20th, 2008 at 7:44 am
14. Matthew Henrickson said:

    I think a great point that was made here was that delores was never answered about her “spam”, but within an hour of the post being published on Sphinn, she had a very detailed response as to why her account was closed from an admin.

    On that point I don’t agree with sphinn. Being banned, closed door, with no response seems a little much for me.

    March 20th, 2008 at 9:26 am
15. deloresdefacto said:

    Thanks Matthew. 🙂

    I’m actually very astonished by Shady’s remark that I can, in fact, submit my own links. Of course Sphinn never explained that to me so you’re the only one who’s given me a straight answer about what “spam” entails.

    I tend to write posts that talk about the internet as well as entertainment, school, employment, personal opinions, etc. If Sphinn is only allowing entries that are curtailed to only internet marketing posts then they can have at it. I don’t have any posts, aside from this one ironically, that even deals with only “new worthy” or “internet marketing/SEO” topics. I’m not selling anything so I don’t need such a service for my personal blog site.

    And Darren, yes, you’re right. I’ve accepted that I can’t have a Sphinn account so I can move on now that I have some answers to my confusion.

    March 20th, 2008 at 10:00 am
16. Matthew Henrickson said:

    Delores never really had anything bad to say about Sphinn, just never got any answers.

    The obvious best thing to do was post about it, all the confusion was cleared up. This also should show new users to be careful what you submit.

    I have an upcoming post about Social Bookmarking sites etc that should serve our readers 🙂

    March 20th, 2008 at 10:52 am
17. deloresdefacto said:

    “Delores never really had anything bad to say about Sphinn.”
    Thanks again. I couldn’t say anything bad about them since I wasn’t able to use Sphinn. I’m glad to get some answers and I look forward to the Social Bookmarking post.

    March 20th, 2008 at 2:04 pm
18. Steve Patterson said:

    You are not the only one. They did it to me too.
    I am going to remove the icon from my post with my social bookmarking. I won’t support or refer people to them anymore. Thanks for this post.

    May 7th, 2008 at 6:47 am
19. deloresdefacto said:

    Thanks for commenting on this, Steve. Maybe with enough complaints, they’ll fix up their policies.

    May 12th, 2008 at 1:11 pm

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