Phirate - Security System

2/23/08 00:47

We don't comment on the particulars of the security system, however there are a few points worth making:

1. You'd have to be inhuman to trigger the speed check. Seriously.
2. Sitehoppin and other browsers are only effective if they keep their database up to date. If they fail to do so you can end up presenting all kinds of triggers to the security system when you use them. I am going to apply an update on sunday or so which should help make it obvious when a browser is failing to keep their database up to date.

Phirate - Involvement Credits

2/20/08 21:21

We are open to ideas representing "involvement", however it is difficult to find something that:

1. Isn't trivial to cheat at
2. Generalizes easily to most blogs
3. Is technically doable

For example, one idea that has been around for a while has been credits for comments, however that fails on pretty much all of the rules above for any sufficient density of blogs.

Phirate - Entrecard vs Project Wonderful

2/21/08 22:03

Actually there are a number of reasons why more people click on Entrecard ads than PW or equivalent. I'm not saying it justifies a significant financial difference tho, just sayin:

1. Users click on an Entrecard ad because they know there will be another Entrecard widget at the other side. We call this group "Trail surfers" and a surprisingly large number of our casual users, and some users who aren't even members, like to do this.
2. Users familiar with the Entrecard widget are visually drawn to it. Since there's only one EC card on any given page, you have a greater opportunity to gain their attention and thus click.

Precisely what difference that makes regarding any other advertising method isn't something we have numbers for at the moment, but the spots are not the same.

Phirate - Feedback

2/19/08 21:58

We don't generally reply via the feedback box, and that is the preferred target for the most part.

Essentially we get a lot of stuff via the feedback box, and it gets read (every bit of it) and then collated into things like modifying our feature priorities, bugs that get forwarded on to me or specific issues that need a particular reply, adding to the feature list etc.

We hope to be able to reach the point where we can start replying to all the feedback stuff but I think we're going to need a few more people to be able to do that.

The forum gets more replies because it's a broadcast, if I answer it for one person on here, I answer it for a lot of others who will read it. But stuff coming via feedback is more likely to end up in the right place on the feature list etc.

Phirate - Forum Stickies

2/17/08 16:20

Essentially, sticky topics in the context you're talking about are a poor attempt at rescuing failure at other levels. It should not be necessary to come to the forum to ask about these things, we should have done a sufficiently good job at communicating on other pages on the site to prevent people from needing to come here and ask.

Many forums use sticky topics as a poor excuse for a knowledge base, which in turn is a poor excuse for communicating correctly in the right place, which is a poor excuse for behaving in an intuitive/correct fashion in the first place. I'd rather focus my time and effort at the top of that chain.

We'll never get everybody, there are people who claim to have read the FAQ and the help stuff etc who are asking a question answered on page one, but I have no faith those people would read sticky topics either :)

Phirate - Reciprocal Drop Rank

2/18/08 00:40

I'd have to write another page long article to explain my reasoning but the essence of it is that while reciprocal drops are good, very high % recips are counter-productive.

Eventually it trends towards a closed group of users all reading each others sites exclusively every day - a dysfunctional extreme.

As a result, while we encourage people to drop back in general, we're not likely to add any additional motivators that might flip it over into the pathological zone.

Phirate - Non-performing Shop Seller

2/17/08 07:11

While we will not, generally, refund credits, we will remove seller tokens from sellers who fail to fulfill orders or communicate with their buyers.

Phirate - Third Party Forum

2/17/08 06:35

We have stated previously that we do not intend, at this time, to switch over to a third-party forum solution. It relates to future plans and the level of integration we want to achieve.

I understand that the existing forum does not offer the full suite of features something like vbulletin does (although I admit in a number of cases this is by design), however we have limited resources at this time.

Regardless, any attempt to integrate a third-party forum would require significant development resource on an unfamiliar platform in order to integrate even to the level that the existing forum is, and then I'd have to go and switch off all the stuff I explicitly designed out of this one anyway..

Basically, at this time I do not foresee any likelihood of us moving to another forum system. I'm still open to argument on this topic, but please take the above into consideration.

Phirate - Multiple Blogs

2/16/08 03:10

While we explicitly permit multiple blogs, this does not extend to attempting to pretend you're multiple people. I'm looking into all those sites. Contact me directly if you have any further questions. I recommend removing the comments.

Phirate - Spam Reports

2/17/08 07:50

Sorry, we don't often reply to spam reports, we get a lot of them so the admins generally simply deal with the problem then move on to the next one. Every single one is read however, I can tell you that because we track them.

I hope to add some kind of resolution reply thing in the future so people can see the results of their reports, but make no mistake we do appreciate the fact that you all let us know when stuff like this happens.

Phirate - Most Recommended Category

2/17/08 07:48

I am going to remove the Most recommended category tab and replace it with a new one coming soon. Most recommended was one of the poorer decisions I made, it has seriously reduced the value of the recommendations system and resulted in mind-blowing amounts of "this isn't spam, please recommend me" messages.

Graham - Exploitative Ads

2/15/08 19:57

Hello hello, New rule: we're effectively banning "exploitative marketing" or in plain language, scantily clad females in your card UNLESS it is related to your blog in some way, which in 99% of the cases, it is not.

We feel its diminishing the quality of the network. I've been trying to hunt them all down.

So, starting today, please report members who are using underdressed supermodels as their avatars IF their site has nothing to do with bikini models and what not. Also feel free to send them a message and tell em its not allowed.

I know sex sells, but we have a reputation to build here.

Phirate - Multiple Blogs

2/14/08 21:53

While this is one of our most requested features, it also poses some serious difficulties with regard to user interface and architecture. I promise you we are taking it seriously, but there's an awful lot to do and we have limited resources. Other things, like making sure the site is stable, have recently taken priority. We hope to return to working on this and a number of other high priority issues very soon.

Phirate - Drop Timing

2/13/08 14:13

Sorting out the drop timing is high up on my list. The problem is that it's a bit inconsistent at the moment, the cookies try and prevent you from dropping again for 24 hours, but the system only cares that you don't drop a second time in the same 'day' which is not quite the same thing. Our policy used to be 24 hours between drops, but I'm now considering the EST day as the way to do it, sicne that would give people the flexibility to drop in the morning one day, and the evening another as suits their individual schedules.

Feedback welcome

Graham - Fake Entrecards

2/11/08 20:36

I sent out a couple messages to these users today. We plan to take the following action:

1.) Entrecard members should not approve ads to run on their site that mimic the Entrecard widget.

2.) Entrecard members should not design and promote advertisements for themselves that mimic the Entrecard widget.

This is a deceptive practice and members are going to have to decide if doing this is worth giving up their Entrecard membership.

Please report any sites you see doing this, and send them a message too telling them that what they're doing is de-valuing the Entrecard network and thus is in violation of our terms of service.

AND

Most likely, people thought it would be fun, effective, and didn't realize what they were doing is wrong. But it's deceptive trickery and we don't want to see it continue.

Phirate - Forum Spam

2/10/08 19:08

A solution to this problem is in the works.

Essentially, much of the stuff we're talking about as spam is only spam because it's in the wrong place. It is site promotion, and Entrecard is about helping bloggers promote their site.

The problem is that we have mechanisms for site promotion, and then we have mechanisms for community. The two are being confused, and people are trying to use community mechanisms for promotion (ie, message spam).

We intend to provide proper site promotion mechanisms to match the currently abused community ones, which will allow us to provide better tools for managing the few who continue to misbehave.

For the moment, please do just flick the URL for any post you feel is spammy into the feedback box and it will be dealt with. Sometimes we leave the post there and simply keep track of the user concerned and then remove their forum access after they have demonstrated a trend - a short term loss but long term win.

Phirate - New Forum Design

2/07/08 17:40

While I emphasize that this is not a change in our general position that the forum is not exactly core business for us (although it's pretty close, entirely because of the community), last night the version repo broke for a while so I couldn't do any core work, so I took the opportunity to see how much of the forum I could do up before it got fixed. Turned out to be a fair bit.

AND

If your browser reacts to links correctly, they should change color to a darker color when you've read a given topic/forum. They'll return to the light color when there's another post you haven't read.

This is what I see:

http://phirate.com/forums.png

If you don't get those darker colors for read topics/posts, please let me know.

AND

We are not currently considering a karma system of any kind. We haven't got a compelling use-case for it at this time.

Phirate - Drop Day Reset

2/03/08 19:09

Please note that the day cutoff is not relevant as far as drops are concerned, each drop operates on a 24hr cycle, there isn't some big "Reset" at the end of a Boston day.

AND

For the purposes of displaying the stats in your statistics page we obviously have to cut at a particular time boundary. That time boundary is midnight boston time (as above). However this has no affect on your drop limit per se.

Phirate - Ad Run

2/03/08 04:39

We run it for 24 hours because it's simple, guarrantees that you see your ad when you visit the site (if yours is running at that moment) and means you get a full day of coverage, and thus coverage over any "rush hour" the blog may have, regardless of its timezone.

Suggestions for improvement are welcome, although that aspect is pretty fundamental to our model at this time.

Phirate - Drop Ranks

1/31/08 10:01

The numbers were a bug, they've been replaced. Reload the page and you should get a phrase now. it's a non-specific indication of how much dropping a given user does. There are 5 (non-linear) levels, based on an average over 2 weeks.

The idea is to provide a rough indicator of interaction levels. This may be useful to those who prefer to advertise with members who act as part of the community.

This is very much an experiment, and may be removed if it ends up doing damage rather than being positive. It is not intended to be nasty about those who choose not to drop much or any, none of the "levels" are negative.

Feedback welcome.

Phirate - Recommendation Spam

1/29/08 05:05

We permit requesting of recommendations from your readers. This is valid.

However, as has been stated before, the messaging system is absolutely NOT a marketing system. There are almost no situations in which delivering copies of the same message to multiple individuals is acceptable. Do NOT use the message system for the purpose of requesting recommendations in volume.

Phirate - Shop Tokens

1/27/08 21:20

Essentially we are encouraging people to come up with stuff that is different, and we'd prefer to know that potential sellers have something worthwhile they want to sell. We're not overly particular about it, your best bet is to be honest and submit your request via the feedback box on the dash.
We don't sell it for $ because we don't believe we'd get a good result for the shop if we did so.

AND

The easy way to determine whether it's interesting is simply to submit the idea. We're not going to penalize you if we think it's already oversubscribed or not doable on the shop for some reason.

Phirate - Ads on New Accounts

1/25/08 23:51

To be honest, I don't see it as a serious problem. The main reason for this is that there's going to be roughly 10 days or so for a blog to hit its normal level really. During this time, something has to be displayed on the widget.

While our solution is possibly not the most optimal solution, there aren't really any serious negatives. At worst you're going to be selling under the odds for 10-15 days, but by the end of that time you'll understand the system better, have gained confidence, networked a bit, dropped around, done a bit of discovery etc, and you'll be in a good position to make your spot into what you want it to be.

If we prevent people from advertising on new users, they don't get the benefit of that experience. Nor do they get what I believe is a feeling of welcome, a sense that people noticed their arrival and are excited to see them.

Individuals seem to react to this in different ways, some look back to their initial 10 days and see credits lost, others the excitement of joining, learning, and discovering.

We're constantly watching this, and feedback is always welcome, but as it stands Ben's article isn't swaying my view a whole lot.

We do have something coming soon which will hopefully help reduce the number of undesired ads in a soft fashion, perhaps that will help some.

Phirate - New Pricing System

1/25/08 23:35

Sorry I wasn't really clear about the pricing rebalancing. We are specifically not doing this to bring "A-listers" up in the ranks.

The sole concern from our perspective is the perception of value for the spot. We have, essentially, a number of conflicting goals with the pricing system:

1. To provide an accurate gauge of the relative spot value
2. To provide an accurate gauge of the relative site value/quality (not the same thing by a long shot)
3. To avoid an unbalanced environment where new or unknown bloggers find it impossible to get off the ground.

The conflicts in these three goals are numerous. At the moment, we do the best at point #3, and we're ok at point #2. We are really quite bad at point #1 (ie, the price of a given spot is not well correlated with the overall popularity of the site, and therefore the likely number of clicks/impressions).

The objective of the pricing modification is to try and improve on point #1 without having any serious effect on #2 and #3. To do this, we intend to introduce a weighting factor from outside rating systems.

This won't instantly put popular bloggers at the top just because they've got a great alexa rank or anything like that, the major factor is still going to be drops, and thus hopefully engagement with the community. It'll simply allow some other factors to be represented as well.

That said, I am taking careful note of what's said here. I ask everyone to keep a bit of an open mind as we experiment but initially at least, the weighting factors are going to be kept very low so as to avoid any dramatic effects, so that everyone gets an opportunity to see what the likely results will be and give their opinion with a bit more information than we have available now.

Phirate - New Pricing System

1/25/08 15:44

The idea of an improved pricing system is to make Entrecard part of the blogging world as a whole, not just it's own little island. Drops are expected to remain the majority of the pricing score at any given time for precisely the reason given above - it's the communities vote. However we'd like to be able to better represent the views of a wider audience as well as Entrecard users themselves.

This is experimental, as is almost everything with Entrecard. We will be reading all the feedback etc and it will be implemented in a graduated fashion so we can resolve any issues without causing unreasonable problems for people.

Phirate - Favorites List

1/25/08 05:29

Unfortunately, every feature we turn into something that permits rankings or ratings of any kind instantly turns into a competition. In the case of drops and recommendations this was considered an acceptable compromise.

In the case of favorites we're not convinced - if people feel compelled to favorite others despite the fact that those blogs aren't in fact their favorite at all, the utility of the feature vanishes completely. I'm open to compelling arguments.

Phirate - Custom Widgets

1/25/08 15:47

Further down on the feature list is a few concepts that would allow us to experiment with, say, a distinctive shape rather than a distinctive color in order to allow the widget to fit in better with individual site designs while still being instantly recognizable. We're thinking about it but I don't expect anything will come of that for a little while yet.

Phirate - New Forum Design

1/25/08 05:26

Not precisely. There are a list of things we intend to improve on the forum, however it isn't core business right now so it'll take a little time.

I understand the motivation of those suggesting we use other packages however we have compelling reasons not to do so at this point. We may eventually be forced to because we run out of time but if we have time available, improving the usability of this system is preferable.

We won't keep everyone waiting around for a better forum forever, I promise. We're doing the best we can with the resources to hand.

Phirate - Rising Credit Inventory

1/20/08 19:10

Regarding the number of credits in the market increasing, it's a ratio question more than anything else. Number of credits in play to number of users.

If this climbs too high we have a number of mechanisms for modifying the input and output (in order of extremity):

* Adding additional sink items in the shop (like the Featured item)
* Modifying the shop and spot tax rates
* Modifying the pricing algorithm
* Modifying drop value/drop limits
* Buying or selling credits onto/off the market

Things in the first three levels happen a fair bit, we've changed the tax rate one before, and there's a pricing algorithm revamp coming up...it's not inspired by trying to modify the ec value but we keep that in mind when making changes.

We've also changed the drop limit once before.

Phirate - Scheduled Ads

1/19/08 23:53

We tried that originally, the Entrecard beta had a system allowing you to chose the day. It really didn't work, added a lot of complexity for a relatively rare requirement - the UI elements necessary to select the day are a pain to fit in the right places etc.

We have an alternative solution in the road map but it's not likely to be in any time soon, got a lot of other stuff on our plate.

Phirate - Forum Etiquette

1/18/08 23:27

We highly recommend ignoring offensive users. Private messaging can be blocked using the Block button at the bottom of any given message.

We do not in any way approve of insulting messages or forum topics. It is, sadly, a necessity to permit some degree of this on the forums to prevent chilling effects on users' willingness to post.

That said, it is all too easy for the same to be generated by overly hostile posts. Users should be aware that we can and will revoke forum posting privileges in the event that we feel a user is acting persistently in a fashion detrimental to the good of the forum.

Phirate - Paid Recommendations

1/17/08 20:29

You aren't allowed to pay or trade for recommendations. You can, for example, write a post on your blog asking people who like your site to write you a recommendation. You can't offer them 50ec or ad-space or anything in return.

Phirate - Message Spam

1/16/08 07:46

There is a Report User button on the mail inbox under each message. If you receive multiple spam, please hit it and an Admin will deal with it. We take this stuff seriously.

Phirate - Rules, Credits, Drops, Password

1/16/08 04:02

Heh.

1. Daily drops are limited, you can only drop 300 max.
2. Anyone who gives their password to some random guy to "drop for them" deserves everything they get, which is likely to be an empty balance.
3. You can buy credits cheaper than that around here if you look. We're fine with people selling credits, this is not gaming, it's trading. So long as the credits were obtained legitimately, we have no problem with it.

Please note, your password is private. Sharing it with a third party is grounds for account deletion. Third parties wishing to offer services that require user-private information should contact us with an outline of their project for API support.

Phirate - Message Spam

1/15/08 01:00

You sent 22 copies of exactly the same message to Entrecard members. This is under no uncertain terms spamming by our book.

Let me be absolutely clear on this point, the EC message system is there for the convenience of our users, for networking and social interaction. It is NOT a marketing tool. Do not attempt to use it as such.

Phirate - Ads & URL Change

1/15/08 06:58

Ads placed prior to the change willr etain their original information, including image and URL. It is necessary to prevent deceptive bait-and-switch tactics. Unfortunately it has a couple of downsides like this, but it's better than the alternative.

Phirate - Card ID Numbers, Ownership

1/14/08 17:05

The reason for the different numbers is that we need to retain your older cards in case they're still in use in an advert. As you're all aware, when you make a change to your Entrecard it only takes effect for ads you get from then on, not for ads currently running. The way we do this is by assigning each uploaded card (image or not) a new id, and keeping reference to the old ID for existing ads.

This also allows us to maintain an audit trail for complaints, for example if you uploaded something pornographic so that it'd get front-page on the categories, and then switch it back again 10 minutes later, we'd still be able to review the original in the event of a complaint.

Regarding owning the logos you upload, we don't. The wording is "non-exclusive license to reproduce, modify, adapt and publish". You own it, you grant us the right to use it.

With regard to the reasoning behind having a statement that does not restrict the use of the images to the promotion of Entrecard, I can't make any authoritative comment - ianal.

We will make sure that during the next ToS review with a lawyer that the issue is considered.

Phirate - Click Thru Rate

1/14/08 06:52

Re the "Highest Click Thru Rate", we can't do that. Click throughs are simply impossible for us to secure at this time, and far too susceptible to manipulation.

Phirate - Card Dropping Limits

1/13/08 06:27

A few questions for everyone:

1. A while back when we implemented the original drop cap we nearly had a revolt on our hands when we tried to make it lower than 300. Have peoples opinions on this changed over the last couple of months?
2. Question for the current chain droppers. Do you believe you would be more inclined to read a given site if you only had 50 drops allowed rather than 300?

We have considered a number of "solutions" to chain dropping, including lower limits and delay timers, but thus far we haven't been able to convince ourselves than any of them would actually improve the quality of the traffic, as opposed to simply generating a more acceptable semblance at the cost of wasting peoples time and irritating those who enjoy it.

Phirate - Popularity

1/12/08 08:20

As others have said, your popularity is your popularity among Entrecard users, not the public at large. Most of those who are now in the top 3 in the popular categories have been relatively aggressive both at getting their readers on-board, and heavily active within the community itself - both actions which lead to more drops and thus an increase in their drop rating/popularity.

To be quite honest, at the moment I believe "chain droppers" are disproportionately represented in the popularity statistics. If you end up on their drop list you're basically guaranteed a drop a day. As the site matures this is likely to level out as users move from their initial addiction to a more sustainable level of interaction and larger numbers of users bring it more in line with "the public".

But that said, it is likely to always be true that those who interact heavily on Entrecard will see the most gains from it. It's not necessary to do so, merely being present appears to convey a reasonable benefit, but you do get what you put in.

Phirate - New Zealand

1/12/08 08:02

We're not even in the same country. I live in Wellington, New Zealand :)

http://www.wellingtonnz.com/

Anyone who happens to be passing through on their way to the antarctic drop me a message, we can meet up for polar bear dodging tips.

Phirate - Busted

1/09/08 06:41

It's obviously not possible for the system to determine precisely what caused the patterns it detects, so there's no reason to assume guilty just because someone hits the Busted sign.

The automated system is there for two reasons:

1. To provide an immediate counter-measure in the event of abuse, it does this via the busted sign and the automatic penalities.
2. To warn us so that we can review recent behaviour to determine whether the situation was an accident, experiment, or deliberate abuse, and take appropriate action.

Obviously the account is still in play, so it's safe to assume it wasn't anything serious :) I believe this just lets him into the Entrecard Busted Club.

Phirate - Wrong Category

1/08/08 21:53

Broadly speaking we try not to interfere too much with how people categorize their site. If someone believes their site is about money and finance, that's good enough for us.

That said, we do request that people change their category if we receive a report that the site is clearly in a given category as a manipulation, and if they fail to do so we can lock them in a category of our choice.

If you see a site you believe is clearly in the wrong category, please use the Report button on their details page.

Phirate - No Follow

1/09/08 01:59

The presence of a blog on Entrecard doesn't say anything about it, it is not more relevant, more popular or more insightful than a blog without an Entrecard. The only thing that can be said about it is that the blog owner is smart ;)

As a result, we use the nofollow to communicate to search engines that the links are user-submitted and we can't really say anything about whether they'd provide someone searching for something with better information than any other site.

In a sense it's a bit sad, in that I believe many Entrecarders have great sites that would be a good search result, but it's important for us to be a good net citizens and part of that is doing our best to provide search engines with accurate information so that they can provide the best search results for all of us. Doing anything other than nofollow on the links would provide a recommendation that simply isn't accurate.

At some point I expect the presence or otherwise of nofollow will no longer be an issue - algorithms in the relevance area have been getting better in leaps and bounds and manual hints like that are rather crude, but until then we just have to help where we can.

Phirate - Category Rank

1/07/08 20:40

We do our best to prevent gaming of, for example, the category ranking. Your rank is defined by your rate, and your rate is defined by how many people dropped on you, not how much you dropped.

In theory this would simply equate to popularity. In practice it's not that clear cut, but it still seems to be one of the best measures we have. Chain dropping should almost never impact on the category rank - chain droppers simply raise the baseline, with a mild bias towards older users (because they're more likely to be in peoples bookmarks etc).

Phirate - Spam Blogs

1/04/08 18:12

With regard to spam blogs etc, yes we absolutely have a policy against those for Entrecards. For stuff that's linked in the forum things are a little more nebulous - the link has to have relevance to Entrecard and be reasonably likely to be of interest to the users, as well as being placed in roughly the right forum. Beyond that, we don't tend to interfere.

Phirate - Recommendations

1/03/08 22:54

We do not permit the selling of recommendations under any circumstances, no matter how honest they are :)

Phirate - Widget "Get One" message

12/30/07 03:54

At this time the solution we recommend is to log out of entrecard, then back in. If this does not solve the problem, please ensure you are permitting cookies from entrecard.com on your browser.

Phirate - Link Grid

12/27/07 17:51

It is certainly possible that copying the grid over and over again across the web could result in the sites that have made copies getting identified as link farms, but to be honest, I suspect it's not all that likely.

The fact is that google et al deal with these things on a statistical level that make a thousand links in one article a mere blip in the system. It's unlikely to do anything to anyones rank anywhere.

At worst, those sites running a copy of the grid are going to find their PR or something dropped a bit, but unless their site consists of nothing but the grid, chances are good that any reasonable blogger has a thousand links on their blog over the past few months anyway.

To be honest I believe attempts like this to manipulate rankings are much more likely to simply fail to work - any of the places where you really care about your rank have at least a small team dedicated to making sure stuff like this doesn't affect the viability of their ranking system, and the grid is as trivial an example as you could imagine, simple to filter out.

I created the grid purely for fun, to give myself and others an idea of what we've achieved, and who we are, after a month or two of operation.

I don't encourage people to duplicate the grid for a much more practical reason: it'll get out of date fast :) If you really do want to have it on your site for some reason, go ahead, but add the nofollow directive to the links (find and replace should do it easily) and make everyones life, including the search engine ranking teams, easier.

Phirate - Account Removal

12/27/07 22:26

As a general rule, without good reason, we will not interfere with an account on the basis of what they may or may not have done outside of Entrecard. This is for three reasons:

1. We believe site owners should be able to exercise free speech, and we do not wish to become a chilling effect unless it is unavoidable.
2. We cannot verify information supplied from outside Entrecard.
3. We do not wish to find ourselves in a position where we are easily able to filter the membership of Entrecard based on a moral position rather than a technical one.

It is necessary for us to retain the ability to make judgement calls due to the infinite variety of blogs and situations, however we certainly try and avoid removing accounts unless we feel we have to. Even within those limits we've had some real headscratchers.

I don't know whether we'll do anything in this particular case, but before demanding action please spare a thought for your own blog, and the implications it would have if we started intervening wholesale based on content or assertions of poor behaviour.

Phirate - Missing Widgets

12/26/07 16:26

If there's a widget on there, the drop yours button should appear. If you find a widget without the drop yours button, please report it in the Feedback box on your dashboard.

If you find sites without a widget at all, that's simply their choice. There's a bit of software that regularly checks the sites and makes sure they have the widget, but:

* It is not necessary to have the widget in order to drop a card
* It is possible to remove the widget during the window between scans

So it isn't entirely impossible that you may encounter a site without a widget, it's just not likely to happen that often.

Phirate - Sale of Credits

12/21/07 20:05

We explicitly permit the sale of Entrecard credits. It was part of the plan from day 1. We are watching all of this closely to ensure that things don't unbalance, and if they do some changes may need to be made, but overall we believe entrecard credits have real value, and thus dollar value. Exactly what that value is isn't clear at this time although we have our own internal valuation.

Phirate - Shop Items

12/20/07 17:15

Consider the yellow box thingie to be the first in a wide variety of things. The intention is to diversify the market, at the moment the only thing you can buy is ad space or attention (ie, run a competition with your credits). We are providing a mechanism for people to do more with their credits.

While I understand that the limited stock numbers for the yellow box thingie have caused some consternation it is in fact simply equivalent to an ad spot being full.

At the moment, anyone who drops regularly can buy anything that is available - even the most expensive item or spot is within the reach of a single day of dropping.

We have simply introduced more choice - you can get that ad on JC's blog or you can surround your icon with a pee-color and get more attention on the Entrecard category. Neither one in and of itself creates any elitism, it's simply a choice in how you spend your credits. Unlike an ad spot however, you can actually buy a pee-colored border off someone who already has it.

If it aint broke don't fix it only applies to things in stasis, a rapidly growing community is a constant state of change, it is necessary for us to change things not just to deal with existing problems, but also head off larger problems we foresee in the future. The shop deals with a number of possible future issues in one shot.

I understand your frustration regarding problems that exist right now, unfortunately the logistics of software development make it inefficient to resolve existing problems during a "spike" of new development, so I have been unable to fix things up over the last few days. I have a long list of simple fixes that need to be done that I'll be going through as soon as I can make some space.

Phirate - Fast Pass

12/20/07 17:29

If you have a fast pass in your account, and you go to request an advert, you will be asked whether you want to use up your fast pass on this advert request.

If you tick the box for yes, your ad will be submitted as normal. If approved by the site owner, it will leap the queue to become the next ad to display (ie, it will not dislodge the one currently running, but it'll be next in line).

The fast pass is one-shot, once it has been used you can't use it again. If your advert is rejected, the fast pass will be returned to you so you don't lose it.

Phirate - Security System

12/16/07 09:00

We will not, under any circumstances, discuss details of the currently operational security systems that guard the drop system. This is necessary, there is no "perfect solution", and thus the set of tactics we use for determining the use of scripts must remain a secret.

That said, various people seem to believe that just because the system doesn't call them on it immediately, that it hasn't guessed what they're doing. Underestimating the anti-script gear is the fastest way to lose credits.

Unfortunately for Sam he not only fell afoul of it, but he is also now an object lesson on Rule #2:

You do not talk about the security systems.

The only appropriate venue for reports about security is the Feedback box on your dashboard. While we may not censor security-related posts (depends on our assessment of the threat to Entrecard itself), posting on the forum is a guaranteed way to have us assume you were attempting to break the system for personal gain.

Under these circumstances, we have no choice but to take you seriously, regardless of whether it was some curious tinkering or an active attempt to subvert the security systems. In this case, since the scripted drop system caught Sam in the act anyway, I see no need to impose additional punishment.

Let me be utterly crystal clear on this: The security system is not a toy to play with. We must take any attempts to subvert it with complete seriousness, and at best you will find yourself losing credits fast. Just don't go there.

Phirate - Ad Cost Penalties

12/11/07 05:22

We don't ever penalize advertising cost. It is purely calculated by the rolling 5 day drop average. It is likely to be normal for there to be some fluctuation as your blog appears and disappears from the various top-n listings. For example if you turn up in "Least wait", you'll get extra attention and therefore extra drops for a short time, but it won't last, and when those drops roll off the end of the 5 day period your price will drop slightly.

Phirate - Ad Rejections

12/10/07 13:57

Now, the problem you have with new users is that they always start off at the bottom of the cost chart - ie, their price is never going to drop lower than it is now, so if you're ever going to buy an ad on their spot, you may as well do so when they're new. This leads to what i termed the "warm welcome" - new users often get swarmed with buyers looking for a bargain.

Those new users who are discerning advertisers anyway may well reject a number of the initial swarm on the basis of site-compatibility, others will simply accept them all. At this point they sometimes realize the pricing issue that has been pointed out here and wonder whether they shouldn't have accepted all their ad spots at the low price.

To be honest, I think there are a number of compelling reasons to avoid the "reject 'em all" approach.

* Rejecting accepted ads does bad things to your approval stats, others will be less likely to advertise with you later
* Running an ad for someone generates goodwill, it's a networking effect, they are more likely to accept your ad in return, and more likely to visit your site, drop their card etc.
* Acting in a "anti-social" manner has a feedback effect on the site itself. While I personally don't care what you do, if enough of our users find a given activity irritating or frustrating we may well take corrective action. While this will never punish you in retrospect, you may find yourself without any of the positives left.

So in summary, there are no rules against mass rejection of your adverts - there can't be, one of our founding principles is that every user has complete, unrestricted control of what appears on their site.

Phirate - Entrecard Revenue

12/10/07 14:04

We are slowly folding in features that allow us to make revenue. You are correct of course, this is a business not a charity. The key thing we're working through with each revenue feature is how to bring in something that is a benefit to both us and our users at the same time, rather than simply splattering the place with irrelevant banner ads or whatever.

You'll see the first set of revenue stuff over the next week, and we'll be looking for feedback when it's out.

Phirate - Transferring Credits Between Multiple Blogs

12/10/07 14:16

We have no problem with that. The credits have been earned somehow by that person, if they want to use the credits they've earned from one blog to help bootstrap a second blog it seems entirely reasonable.

If you can think of a reason why we shouldn't permit it, by all means I'm interested :)

Phirate - Entrecard Spot Price

12/08/07 03:11

Your spot price is determined by:

The average number of card drops on your widget over the last 5 days, multiplied by 2

To increase your spot price, encourage others to drop their card on your site.

Phirate - Entrecard Vision

12/07/07 02:19

The fundamental concept is well understood. Sorry, the question was not "what is Entrecard doing?", we know what we're doing and we've got plenty to do. What we're interested in is "What are Entrecards users doing?".

As even the recent history of this forum will show, one of the things our users have been good at is finding unexpected uses for Entrecard. It is part of our mandate not just to shove our vision of Entrecard down your throats, but to support our users in what they're trying to achieve. We believe that successful internet companies we want to model consistently display respect for their users opinions and needs, and work to support them.

This doesn't mean we'll derail our vision for Entrecard regardless of popular opinion, but at the very least we'll listen, and as often as possible, where the dev time is minor, we'll change things to make it easier for you.

Phirate - Code for Entrecard sans Widget

12/02/07 03:29

Cool idea. If you decide you want to use their actual card, you can do so like this:





Where you replace 7 with the ID number from the card details page (ie, when you click on their card, in the URL there's a number at the end, copy that in place).

This should smoothly integrate the card, including click-through tracking and everything - just no "widget" around it.

Graham - Spottt

2/12/08 14:27

Yeah, well the thing with Spottt is they're going to have the same problem Blogrush had.

IE, your power comes from how big your website already is. So the guys at the top who do all the impressions reap all the rewards, and a blog with no visitors is still left helpless.

We flipped it around, and created a system whereby you can go out and do something to become a member with more weight, other than sit around and wait for your page to get loaded more times.

Graham - Card Dropping

2/05/08 12:12

My personal thoughts are that people are who they are.

Some people are only going to drop to earn credits, and this is ok because YOU earn credits from them too, and some people are going to take the time, read a post, leave a comment, because its the right thing to do, or because they're just interested and interactive.

Another idea I've been kicking around is phasing out entirely the credits you receive from dropping, and double the credits you receive from receiving. But this too is a bad idea, I think, because I think that little 1 credit motivation gets a lot of people visiting a lot of blogs.

Phirate - Entrecard Browsers

2/02/08 17:05

These frame-based browsers are fine, as long as the complete blog is displayed, and the header bar is not overly distracting.

Any attempt to show only the widget or anything less than the complete blog in an attempt to "optimize" the drop is not permitted.

Phirate - Entrecard Credits

1/11/08 17:08

Regarding the statement that we can just make credits up out of nowhere. it's true, we can. We have not done so since the first day on Entrecard - I know, I'm the only one who can do it (There's no user-friendly interface for it :)

The total number of vapour-generated credits on Entrecard is something like 200ec, and most of those have been consumed by tax at this point.

We have no need to create credits out of nowhere to provide liquidity, the Entrecard economy doesn't have a debt system. As a consequence inflation by admin intervention is very unlikely.

We work hard to ensure that any credits that the Entrecard system provides are the result of someone working for them, for example anything I spend is the result of drops or purchases from the shop.

Phirate - Entrecard Rules

12/19/07 04:50

The basic truth is that we don't have a set of rules about that kind of stuff because we would much prefer that we all to behave like rational, sensible human beings and simply get along to everyones benefit.

I can't speak for Graham, but it is my personal opinion that for every Rule, there is a loophole, and thus by a strange twist of logic, the only way to have no loopholes, is to have no rules.

Instead, we replace it with an expectation. We expect you to behave sensibly, to act in a manner that is rational and social, and to avoid behavior that is counter-productive to the network as a whole.

The punishment for failing to do so is, for the most part, not even in our hands. A classic example is that of late rejections - it became a problem, however rather than create a Rule, or even a technical solution, we instead implemented a system that allowed those acting in that manner to be easily identified.

In essence, we enabled the community to act to display tangible disapproval of certain behaviors.

Some things, we have created a "Rule" about, but it's almost a joke in a sense. While I'm totally serious about not talking about the forum on the forum, you'll never lose your account or find yourself penalized for it. I have plenty of non-penalty mechanisms for dealing with people who break that kind of rule, simple things like closing the conversations - consider it part of the terrain.

There are a few areas where this "laxity" does not apply - anything to do with the "infrastructure" of the system the code and the security mechanisms - but other than that we will, where-ever possible, create mechanisms for the community to make its own judgments, rather than imposing rules from above.

This does add an element of uncertainty to everyones life, but hopefully everyone has come to trust that we are not power-mad capricious admins. We maintain the lightest touch be believe we can while still having a smooth-running, functional site.

If rather than this essay, you were simply asking what you can Report people for, the answer is, report them for anything you seriously believe is inappropriate. We'll make a judgment call based on the situation and act accordingly. Usually, where possible, this involves dialog with the accused party until an acceptable resolution is reached, and may include unilateral action to correct the issue (poor category choice for example).