Does this sound familiar?
Your StumbleUpon account has been frozen.
If not, don’t worry, you might get that email soon, because StumbleUpon is on a witch hunt.
I’ve received a lot of emails from friends and messages on Twitter from people that have been recently banned by StumbleUpon.
I too got my account frozen 3 weeks ago, and initially I did not want to make a big deal out of it. But, since it already involves too many people, and 3 weeks have passed since I’ve sent my email to Walter, StumbleUpon’s community manager and got no response yet, I decided to write this post and share my views.
Dear StumbleUpon
What you’re doing is not wrong. It’s more than wrong. It’s a stab in the backs of those that made you who you are today. Yes, I’m sure you’re going to quote the ToS again, and say that “common users” made SU what it has become, but I’ll disagree.
It was the bloggers, the internet marketers, those spreading the word about StumbleUpon and it’s benefits. And yet, you still think of them as spammers.
Even now, I did not understand why my own account was frozen, but I managed to come up with 2 theories.
1. Either the fact that my profile page contained links to Blogsessive and my other site, CreativEurope, and you considered it “promotion”.
2. Or perhaps the fact that I’ve sent and received votes to and from my network.
Either way, your way of dealing with this is wrong. If you don’t want links in profiles, turn of the HTML tags. If you don’t like people voting on friends’ stories, make that clear and then, step out of the “social websites” pack.
And to be true, even if it would have been against the ToS, I still would have voted on my friends’ submissions. That’s why they are MY FRIENDS. Because I enjoy their content. That’s why it’s called social networking. Because we make friends through it.
Spammers still rule the realm of StumbleUpon, while people using it with moderation are being hunt down, and banned. What’s even more annoying is that you don’t care enough to at least give them a personal answer.
If you’re interested in learning about advertising
on StumbleUpon, please visit this page for more
information: [link removed]
Is that why you ban people? Is StumbleUpon in such a financial mess that you start banning only to “encourage” people to pay for your “traffic”?
Ever since this witch hunt has begun, somewhere around April this year, StumbleUpon’s traffic has lowered continuously, according to both Alexa and Compete. I wonder why?
Keep that up and you’ll lose all those who promoted your website, or still do it out of their own belief. I’m not saying that you might need to put an end to it, but you might have to watch yourselves downgraded to a B-list website.
For the sake of the good times I had as a StumbleUpon user, please reconsider your attitude, or at least take time to investigate deeper. Make sure the people you’re banning are real spammers.
PS: Walter, you’ve got a 3 week old email.
The story of Ian Lurie is very similar.