dw_news: December Holiday Promotion - Points Bonus on all orders!

Denise (

denise) wrote in

dw_news,
@ 2011-12-03 05:46 pm UTC

December Holiday Promotion - Points Bonus on all orders!

It's that time of year again -- the calendar year is drawing to a close, the end-of-year holidays are nearly upon us, and Dreamwidth would like to say "thank you" to everyone who decides to give their friends (or themselves) a holiday gift of DW paid time.

From now until the end of December, all orders made in the Dreamwidth Shop will receive a 10% points bonus for future use. For instance, if you buy yourself a 12 month paid account (350 points), we'll give you 35 points to spend later when you complete your order.

This is our way of saying "thank you!" to everyone who helps to support Dreamwidth, and helps us to continue being independent, user-supported, and ad-free. Our commitment to remaining free of fiscal pressure from outside interests and 100% devoted to providing our users the best service possible is only possible because of you, and we'd like to thank everyone who supports us.

Happy holidays from Dreamwidth!

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	no subject denise 2011-12-04 01:39 pm UTC (link)
	it is correct! once you register an account, it's yours for good, even if you never touch it again. We will transfer ownership of a community, under certain circumstances, but personal accounts are always "once registered always yours". (Reply to this) (Thread from start) (Parent) (Thread) (Hide 22 comments) (Show 22 comments)

re-using account names

bens_dad
2011-12-04 07:04 pm UTC (link)

That sounds like a change of policy from August 2010:
http://dw-news.dreamwidth.org/23982.html?thread=2661550#cmt2661550
Or are you just saying that DW will never take an account away (although it *can* be given back by the owner) ?

This is a significant issue for me. I only had an OpenID account and meant to move over from LJ to a paid DW account, but your position on the OpenID issue in that thread sufficiently annoyed me that I opened a free account instead.
Thus if you really have got this sorted I'm honour bound to upgrade to a paid DW account.

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Re: re-using account names

denise
2011-12-04 07:12 pm UTC (link)

No, what's being discussed here is "someone registers an account, doesn't touch it again, but doesn't actually set the account to deleted, just leaves it idle". Some services will forcibly delete the inactive-but-still-not-deleted account in such a way that the username is then available for re-registration. (For instance, I know IJ does, and I think LJ has been discussing doing it lately but hasn't actually moved on it.)

What was being discussed in that thread you linked to was the scenario where someone deletes the account, it is removed from the service entirely, and the username is then available for re-registration. Different scenario.

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Re: re-using account names

aximili
2011-12-04 07:53 pm UTC (link)

I actually don't think IJ has been very active on that; I have an account I wouldn't mind them deleting but it has yet to be deleted. LiveJournal I wish they would because I made some accounts for an RP that never took off, but I can't remember the email and so I can't get the password together and delete them.

In general, I've always thought that warning/deleting accounts that had zero comments, entries, subscriptions, access, etc. in the last 2-5 years was perfectly reasonable. I mean, at that point, you know it's not even being used for an RP or to read another person's journal, and couldn't have had any value to the creator. After that I understand it gets debatable. It's not a particularly big deal to me personally, as I have a username I'm happy enough with, but I can see it being an issue for users in the future. On LiveJournal I've taken to searching purged usernames or using foreign languages when renaming because any other username I'm interested in often belongs to an empty account! XD

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Re: re-using account names

denise
2011-12-04 08:01 pm UTC (link)

Yeah, but with that, you always get the question of, how long is reasonable? (The example we always used when discussing internally at LJ was the Christine Problem: a beloved volunteer and heavy user of the site who went into the Peace Corps and promptly lost all internet access except for once a year tops due to where she was stationed.) And pretty much every time you bring up "okay, what about this scenario" someone goes "actually, I know somebody who'd get caught by that, and they're definitely still using the account."

So, it's just one giant mess of conflicting desires, and in that case our tendency is to default to the least disruptive to the status quo, assuming that we can't find something that works better for more people than the status quo does. Especially since we have to prioritize what we work on!

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Re: re-using account names

aximili
2011-12-04 08:29 pm UTC (link)

In your example however, she was a heavy user of the site and a volunteer. Not at all the same thing as someone who created an account and had no communities/subscription/access/entries/comments/etc.

Since I'm planning on doing PeaceCorps after college (hopefully) I know I could be gone two years and three months or so from the internet. And if I went to China to study Mandarin at some point, I'd probably be incognito for a year because I wouldn't want to be exposing myself to English unnecessarily. But I definitely have evidence of activity here.

I tried to enlist to the Navy a few years ago too (but my mother's an immigrant, which eliminated me from all the jobs I wanted, and then I have depression, so they didn't want me anyway) and even if for some reason I couldn't have accessed the internet 5, 10, 20 years, there are still clear signs that I was an active user at some point before I left on LiveJournal and DreamWidth, whereas most people are only talking about accounts that have no such signs whatsoever.

Though this actually reminds me, is there eventually going to be a 'hiatus' status? Because if I did get into PeaceCorps and couldn't get online for a year or more at a time, I would want to try to make sure my account can't get hijacked here.

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	Re: re-using account names denise 2011-12-04 08:33 pm UTC (link)
	We have a bug open for "vacation mode", yeah. (Reply to this) (Thread from start) (Parent) (Thread) (Hide 12 comments) (Show 12 comments)

	Re: re-using account names aximili 2011-12-04 08:38 pm UTC (link)
	That would be amazing. I don't know if it'd do much for security, but at least if I was gone people on my friends/friends of list would know why. (Reply to this) (Thread from start) (Parent) (Thread) (Hide 11 comments) (Show 11 comments)

	Re: re-using account names wytchcroft 2011-12-04 09:12 pm UTC (link)
	ok, this may be a really dumb question but aren't permanently inactive accounts and/or accounts with user names being optioned off significant security risks both from malicious individuals or robo-spamming? (Reply to this) (Thread from start) (Parent) (Thread) (Hide 10 comments) (Show 10 comments)

Re: re-using account names

denise
2011-12-04 09:26 pm UTC (link)

A traded or given-away account can never be secured (and that doesn't make a difference if the account was active or inactive at the time of trading), so we very very very much discourage accepting an account from anyone if you didn't create it yourself. (Selling usernames, meanwhile, is a violation of the Terms of Service, as it is an attempt to resell access to the site, which is a ToS violation.) Inactive accounts are spam risks, yes, but active accounts can be too (many people don't delete spam they receive), the default settings on a newly-created account are deliberately chosen to minimize spam risk (with, of course, people free to change them later, but still), and the site-wide antispam team does a lot of work to make sure that spammers are dealt with; there's a certain amount of "herd immunity" provided by having people who do manage their spam comments, because a spammer very, very rarely hits a single account.

Inactive accounts are an attractive nuisance, yes, but we think it's an acceptable tradeoff for not violating the principle of least surprise -- if someone comes back to an account that they registered after a long hiatus, they should be able to find it still there, and it's hard if not impossible to tell the difference between "inactive temporarily due to life circumstances" vs "inactive permanently because the person never intends to come back" -- and many, many people change their minds. (I know of a lot of people who registered a DW account when open beta hit, never used it, waited two years, and then decided that they wanted to start using the account.)

Anyway, we have no current plans to revisit our policy of not revoking someone's registered account just for appearing inactive -- as I think I said up there, every time the topic comes up, somebody points out that they know someone whose actually-being-used account would fit any proposed "inactivity" metric.

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	Re: re-using account names wytchcroft 2011-12-04 09:38 pm UTC (link)
	thank you for that - it's not an issue i've thought much about before - so this was very informative/helpful/flattery get me anywhere?/ok, carry your school bag? basically, ta muchly. (Reply to this) (Thread from start) (Parent) (Thread) (Hide 2 comments) (Show 2 comments)

	Re: re-using account names denise 2011-12-04 09:43 pm UTC (link)
	You're welcome! After doing this for as long as I have (started volunteering for LJ in 2001, heh) the one thing I've learned is that nothing is ever as simple as it seems at first glance. :) (Reply to this) (Thread from start) (Parent) (Thread) (Hide 1 comment) (Show 1 comment)

	Re: re-using account names wytchcroft 2011-12-05 03:34 am UTC (link)
	some crazy fool upped and gifted me already!!! :))) clearly, therefore, this December - Points Bonus thing was a very good idea from the DW team! yes, i approve! LOL! glee Last edited 2011-12-05 03:37 am UTC (Reply to this) (Thread from start) (Parent)

	Re: re-using account names azurelunatic 2011-12-05 12:49 am UTC (link)
	I wonder if there is any way to make crowdsourced reporting of spammers for areas with inactive administrators actually workable. Most of the ways that I could think of might be vulnerable to being gamed by an organized group with a grudge. (Reply to this) (Thread from start) (Parent) (Thread) (Hide 2 comments) (Show 2 comments)

	Re: re-using account names denise 2011-12-05 01:22 am UTC (link)
	Hnm. I've never seen a system that wasn't vulnerable to grudgey stuff unless it had massive human oversight, but then again, spamreports do have human oversight to begin with... (Reply to this) (Thread from start) (Parent) (Thread) (Hide 1 comment) (Show 1 comment)

Re: re-using account names

azurelunatic
2011-12-05 01:39 am UTC (link)

We do!

On the one hand, under normal circumstances the journal owner is the only one who can delete comments -- or the comment creator, in case of non-anonymous comments.

On the other hand, when an account is suspended, all of that account's comments go away, without the permission of the journal owner.

On the gripping hand, what the spammers are after is visibility, and screening a comment based on crowdsourced input and human antispam review, and allowing the journal owner to confirm-and-delete, or deny-and-unscreen, sounds like a case of least-possible-harm to me.

I wouldn't want the team to have to do twice the work, so my proposed workflow involves creating some sort of a "verified spam by the antispam team" flag that would be attached to the comment while it was screened and sitting there, so that when it was then deleted-as-spam by the journal owner, it would not wind up back in the queue.

*ponders*

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Re: re-using account names

aximili
2011-12-04 09:42 pm UTC (link)

I'm not really sure, to be honest, but when it comes to being inactive a set period of time I mostly would want to let my friends since 2002 know that I'm gone, why, and that I'd be coming back.

If I do get into PeaceCorps eventually, I would imagine the lack of activity would make my account more likely to be targeted in general, and it's something I have thought about. Particularly for LiveJournal, since their time limit is six months for removing the 'primary' email now. It was actually better for security initially because my registration email no longer existed and could have been signed up by anyone. But if I leave over 6 months it leaves me vulnerable for being permanently kicked out of the account, if it were hacked.

Here I'd be more worried about my registration email being hacked, though, since then I'd be unable to regain control of the account.

Last edited 2011-12-04 09:48 pm UTC

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	Re: re-using account names wytchcroft 2011-12-04 09:48 pm UTC (link)
	yeah - this thread has made rush across the net and tie up a few loose ends - or in some cases reactivate the whole damn wardrobe! thanks - you've helped get my mind a-moving. and good luck with your ambitions. :) (Reply to this) (Thread from start) (Parent) (Thread) (Hide 1 comment) (Show 1 comment)

	Re: re-using account names aximili 2011-12-04 10:29 pm UTC (link)
	Yeah, as it stands I try to make sure I have control over the registration email, and I try to have good, frequently changed passwords. But I mostly don't worry about it except the idea of longer-term absences either planned or unplanned. And thanks :P (Reply to this) (Thread from start) (Parent)

Re: re-using account names

amber
2011-12-05 12:16 pm UTC (link)

Off-topic and very drive-by! As far as I'm aware, IJ emails "inactive" journals a few weeks or months before it purges them but after setting them to deleted, encouraging the owner to log in and undelete them before it happens. So name hoarders can keep hoardingif they care enough.

(Unfortunately the email they sent me for my old personal journal, which was also my LJ backup, got lost in spam and it got purged, I'm still kinda annoyed about that.)

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	Re: re-using account names aximili 2011-12-05 04:43 pm UTC (link)
	That's really weird, because I haven't used the account I made at all! (Reply to this) (Thread from start) (Parent)

Re: re-using account names

yvonne
2011-12-05 09:54 pm UTC (link)

I confused inactive accounts with suspended ones and was about to say how last year LJ did this pretty big purge. Now I remember that over at LJ there was a lot of talking about purging inactive accounts for around 2 years now but they never did it. ij definitely did it. I know sometimes we want things we can't get but I don't think it's right to take away an inactive account. so thank you for being clear on that matter.

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Re: re-using account names

azurelunatic
2011-12-06 11:00 am UTC (link)

LJ's definition of 'inactive' for all that discussion turned out to have been (after the dust settled) not only inactive but basically unused -- containing either 0 entries or only containing the private default entry that ... is? was? ... automatically created for new users.

(I don't volunteer there anymore, but I used to, and I like trying to make sure that the discussion about stuff going on there is as accurate as possible.)

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December Holiday Promotion - Points Bonus on all orders!

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