MyBlogLog knock out four (count em', FOUR) points to spiritual nirvana

On Monday, we posted a list of ways that we were going to cut down on a variety of spam-like issues on the MyBlogLog.  We finished off one of the solutions yesterday and I am super excited to report that we are releasing four more today!

The first point was releasing a Terms of Service, which is now listed at the bottom of the each page on MyBlogLog.   It's a standard legal-type document (but comparatively easy to read) that basically boils down to "everyone wins when we're nice to each other."

The second point, by default you only see messages from your own contacts, was launched yesterday.  See two posts down.

Next up, you can now view the contents of messages left on your profile and community, in the email alert we send to you, along with links to reply to and / or delete the message on the site.  If you switch your message setting to "show contacts from everyone" then we'll send you notification when anyone posts you a note, but with message management built right into the email, that might be pretty cool.

Points four and five are actually a triple threat.  In order to reduce the practice of making contacts and joining communities just to spread their face around, we've instituted a limit of 15 community joins , 15 new contacts and 5 co-author requests in a day.  Straight up, this is a quick-and-dirty approach and these numbers may not be the optimal numbers.  We're going to rely on you to help us tweak these over time so that it maintains a balance of usefulness to members while keeping people from trying to game the system to everyone's detriment.

Lastly, and this wasn't part of the original plan, we patched a stupid cookie hole that allowed people to impersonate other members.  While you couldn't use this exploit to gain access to other members' accounts, you could show up on other sites as someone else.  And that ain't cool.

So this week, hard as it was, ends up being pretty positive for everyone.  The team busted their butts and made a bunch of significant improvements to the service.  Can't wait to see what next week brings...

Comments

[HART (1-800-HART)]

I'm not happy at all with this 15 limit to join communities and sites around the 'net. That's silly.

HART aka PetLvr

[Thomas Hawk]

I quit MyBlogLog, I never really used any of the widgets or anything but I'd joined.

You should let that blogger back in that you kicked out.

See here's the thing. He's obviously emotionally invested in your service and community. Emotionally invested enough to actually blog about it and poke around it and yes even do damaging things sometimes.

But he still used the site and I'm sure told many people about it. And the exploit was legitimate even if he used it to grandstand.

At Flickr where I've hung out for a few years there have been tons of people who have behaved badly. Sometimes that's just what makes the drama and the humor of it all.

My good friend Mr. Chalk has been banned many times. One of his trolls was once banned for impersonating me on the site. Shhexy Corin who now is an admin of one of Flickr's more prominent groups has been banned before. But they are let back in and in the end it kind of just all works out.

The point is though that as much as these people may have been banned they still cared about the place and just had a slightly more chaotic view of it all... which is actually refreshing.

So the best thing to do is to make up with this blogger and eat crow. You'll have other problems in your community in the future, but consider that you've slapped him on the hand make it temporary and invite him back in. Your community will be better because of it.

Interesting communities sometimes include bad behavior.

If you persist on holding some kind of moral line with the Shoemonkey character then you just end up looking like a prick in the end.

Nobody died in all this and after all it's only the internet. Best to nip this in the bud and make nice with the blogger and this will likely all blow over.

[ilker]

I'm not happy at all with this 15 limit to add contacts.. THAT is silly!

Does anyone look into each others' contacts to feel a "spread their face around" effect?

If so, Eric should be banned! Hehe..just kidding :P

[HART (1-800-HART)]

So!

Can you remove my 15 community joining limit PLEASE??

Thanks in advance.
HART (1-800-HART)
aka PetLvr

[BillyWarhol]

yeah the 15 limit needs to be increased*

i dunno maybe to 50 or something*

Jeff Calcanis was on TalkShoe the other day talking about how he has over 2200 contacts on Twitter - asked Why? - he said cuz I thought it's the NICE thing to do*

U never know who U meet on a Web20 Social Networking site & 6 months or a Year later U hook up on something*

;))