Is Active Rain Censoring Accounts?
January 9th, 2009 by AnnaI am subscribed to get Google Alerts for the term “real estate websites”. I saw a post in the list about not wasting time on certain types of sites and blogging that involved sub domains as the main website address, and how these are not SEO friendly (we are not debating that in this post for now). When I clicked to view it the account was disabled.
That struck me as odd because the alert was from 11:41 AM yesterday. I did some searching and found the web designer / VA who made the post. I noticed their blog had info about their experience with Active Rain. So, I contacted the blogger about this and they alleged that Active Rain deactivated their account for citing their personal objections to Active Rain pricing for the blogging product.
Active Rain, I would like to know if you are deactivating accounts for people who do not agree with your pricing or structure. Or did the blogger on Active Rain violate a snippet of the Terms of Service?
I am not adding links to the sources or additional information until I hear from Active Rain (if they would like to respond). Advanced Access is neutral here, I just want to know about this part of the terms of using Active Rain.
Agents: do you read the fine print? Always know the terms of service for any site you use.
Twitter Comment by @advancedaccess (advancedaccess)…
Is Active Rain (Real Estate niche blogging/social media platform) censoring accounts? [link to post] – http://twitter.com/advancedaccess/statuses/1108040295 – Posted using Chat Catcher …
advancedaccess
January 9th, 2009
No we did not censor this person. They violated one of our community guidelines and their account was suspended.
If you hang around ActiveRain for even a day you will see that our members are always disagreeing with choices we make in running our business. We embrace those dissenting opinions because they help us make better choices. Thank you for your concern and I hope my comment helps clarify.
Bob Stewart
ActiveRain
Bob Stewart
January 11th, 2009
The web designer in question was not suspended because they objected to anything. Actually, we welcome and encourage differing views, even when they are critical of our platform. This company was suspended for 2 weeks for committing a violation of our Community Guidelines. We would never deactivate a member’s account simply because they did not agree with us over some aspect of our network. We expect all of our members to act and behave in a manner that is consistent with being a professional.
Rich Jacobson
January 12th, 2009
I highly doubt you are going to get anyone from Active Rain to respond to this blog question…It’s not like they are going to say yeah we censored his blog article because he put into question our business model which might hurt our business so we removed him.
Tony Sena
January 12th, 2009
Thank you Bob and Rich! I exchanged emails with the designer and was curious about this situation. This is why I did not publish links, emails, etc. Thank you for stopping by.
Anna
January 12th, 2009
Tony, it looks like Active Rain is right on top of things
Anna
January 12th, 2009
I tend to lean towards Activerain. I’ve seen several accounts banned and every time there was just cause. Bottom line with any free service, its a priviledge to be able to participate, not a right. So complaining about a free service that also provides a usage based service is beating a dead horse. Its those fee based services that pay for the free ones.
Charles
January 15th, 2009
I can vouch for what Rich and Bob have stated here in the comments. When the fee structure came out I posted a blog entry in ActiveRain with some skepticism towards some aspects of the added fees. The staff not only allowed the blog entry, but participated in the discussion. Apparently, there are so few accounts being terminated/suspended in ActiveRain that I was unaware of this until now. We are very involved in other communities online and feel ActiveRain among he best, if not the best community to participate in.
Colleen Lane
January 15th, 2009
Imoria was the cause of this blog and active rain is lying, it’s hilarious and I have proof!
imoria
January 16th, 2009
***Copy of email:
Message to TheRealEstateWebmasters.com
You’ve received a contact message from your Contact Form on the ActiveRain network.
Message details:
From: Rich Jacobson ~ ActiveRain Community Builder
Email: rich@activerain.com
Subject: Account Deletion (Sent via Activerain)
You know, Word of Mouth drives social media, and you guys are totally blowing any chance you might have had for success, at least on this platform.
We (AR and our valued members) have worked very hard to create an awesome community to offers significant benefits to its members.
Your involvement here is a negative distraction. It is counterproductive, and your smear tactics are extremely unprofessional.
Please find other networks to play on.
Rich Jacobson
ActiveRain Community Builder
***end of email copy
imoria
January 18th, 2009
Hi Charles and Colleen, I appreciate your comments and also feel that Active Rain is an amazing community. In all fairness, I have published new comments from the designed that I exchanged emails with.
@Imoria – I understand your perspective. I still wonder if we just don’t know what really prompted the deletion of your account. These are strong words from Rich – if he did send this to you, I can’t imagine it was out of nowhere.
Feel free to discuss.
Anna
January 21st, 2009
Wow…Night and Day
“”The web designer in question was not suspended because they objected to anything. Actually, we welcome and encourage differing views, even when they are critical of our platform.” VS. “Your involvement here is a negative distraction. It is counterproductive, and your smear tactics are extremely unprofessional.”
Brian Rubadue
January 21st, 2009
All one has to do is look at imoria’s website (therealestatewebmasters.com) for answers to some of your questions Anna. [complete with copied Real Estate Webmasters logo]
I would bet this discussion would have a different flavor if imoria’s website url was theadvancedaccess.com, had posted smear blogs on ActiveRain toward AdvancedAccess, and consequently ActiveRain deleted their account. The title of this blog entry would then read something like, “Applauding ActiveRain For Policing Unprofessional Behavior”
Colleen
January 25th, 2009
Colleen, this post was in no way an attack on Active Rain. I was asking Active Rain a question, they answered, and I have followed up in the comments expressing my appreciation for the clarification.
I could not title the post “Applauding ActiveRain For Policing Unprofessional Behavior” as the post I was looking for was gone, and I had never seen any previous posts by the author. I did not know what happened. Just as I could not (and never would) title the post something like, “Why is AR censoring accounts” or something more attacking. It seems clear there was a TOS violation and I think everyone was satisfied with AR’s remarks here.
As a side note, I do not censor negative info about Advanced Access, but I do (of course) do my best to follow up on posts that are negative when and where it is appropriate.
Thank you for your comments.
Anna
January 26th, 2009
I apologize to the rest of you if the comments I made in a private email to Imoria come across as being rather ‘strong.’ It was just one in a long string of emails where I was trying to help Mark (Imoria) understand our Community Guidelines, and explain the basis for their suspension.
Rich Jacobson
January 26th, 2009
Rich, I thank you again for your comments, and feel this question has been more than adequately answered by you. It is important that we ask questions and not jump to any conclusions when we are unsure about something.
Anna
January 28th, 2009