Best Of StumbleUpon

EMPLOYEE

Currin (Official Rep)

Hi all,

I know you that have posted in this thread are upset (understatement) about the changes and are clearly offended about what you understand The Council to be.

For those that still love StumbleUpon (or want to love it despite the changes) and want to help us move forward and ahead, I encourage you to apply. If you don’t want to apply but want to be involved, please contact me on the site (username Currin).

I hope you will find that with some new features coming out soon and this year you will grow to find value in the site again. We GENUINELY NEED your help to keep this type of user-centric feedback up. I know many of you are frustrated with the progress on the new version, but I promise we are working as fast as we can.

Thank you for your patience, the love you had for what StumbleUpon used to be, the time and energy you invested in this special community, and for those of you still around, your continued support and hope.

Please feel free to message me on the site (username Currin) if you want to send me any private messages. I would appreciate the opportunity to clarify our intentions with collecting this group of users for special efforts, because we meant it to empower you and to have ways to reach out to you — regardless of what tools are on the site.

Please no more attacking on the Support staff. Even though you don’t know us like you might have CMs of the past, we fight for you everyday. Help us help you.

If you feel there are other methods CMs are not utilizing to collect your thoughts and feedback, or to engage with you on and offline, please let me know.

Currin

• anitab

  “clearly offended about what you understand ”
  …….
  smh.
• Charles

  I haven’t read any personal attacks. Paradoxically suggesting that we’re doing that *is* getting personal. Like I said, I know almost everyone here, most are friends back when SU had friends, and they have been for a long time.

  The worst possible accusation it seems to me is that through no fault of their own, the support staff are ignorant of the back story, and have to act as go betweens.

  The rest is history. SU was told the changes, the last two versions, especially the last, would alienate the core users. SU was told that losing these users would be detrimental to the overall quality of the Stumbling experience, in short the great content for the majority comes from user submissions, in the most part the best content came from these enthusiasts.
  SU was told getting rid of blogging would eliminate both personal expression and therefore interest and commitment to the community – also an important tool by which anyone could quickly assess these qualities in another user.

  In short it was akin to a Maoist cultural revolution stripping away personal expression in favour of mass uniformity.

• anitab

  there are some hidden posts here.. you can see the changelog for the reasons some were hidden. i only see one with the reason: “bullying”.
  i actually thought we were all being rather civilised.
  but, as you say, the rest is history.
• Charles

  Ani I was a little late to this party as my SU use has been patchy since last year. I see what you mean about the one post being hidden, and again that was over a week ago. One Swallow a Summer does not make, or in this case the occasional unfortunate post shouldn’t be used to characterise this civilised thread.
  I’m not upset or angry about the idea of the SU council – far from it. Bemused perhaps. As so many have said, we’ve been here done that before, more than once. The question SU has to answer – is why should *this* time be any different?

  Moreover we can’t give them new answers.
  At worst I guess we’re here saying “I told you so.”
  And I don’t get the impression this is been said gladly. The theme here is sadness, grief at something lost.

• anitab

  Yeah. I hear you Charles. I was slightly bemused and then got a little pissed off. But I think we’ve all stuck to the facts and expressed ourselves well.
  Now I really dont care. I’ve said all I needed to say… blocked the CM…and will carry on stumbling. click click.
• Charles

  Understood, and had I stuck with SU – as you have – I’d be pissed. Like they say time heals…

  And it wasn’t intentional – throw my toys out of the pram – Delete my blog kinda thang. (I’m still on SU albeit inactively)
  It was just honest drifting away. I thought I’d keep clicking & submitting – without my limited blogging, honest I did. But I didn’t. Okay I was blogging elsewhere [ can't be two places at once ] of those others Tumblr became the primary. That said I tried an number of alternatives, of them I note for eg Amplify is no more.

  I use SU to receive occasional shares, send shares, most often to family these days – & these pages aren’t adding value in the main.
  And occasional messages from old friends among the “friend me” spam.

• Elledark
  Perhaps I’ve missed something but I haven’t seen anyone ‘attacking support staff’. I’ve seen people expressing frustration at the refusal of SU’s decision-makers to listen to user feedback and I’ve seen a lot of both specific and general comments pointing out exactly why they’ve got it so seriously wrong this time.

  Ironically, one of the support staff mentions the time and energy people have ‘invested in this special community’ and that phrase perhaps gets to the real heart of the problem. It was a special community without a doubt but it’s not any more, nor is the ‘new stumbleupon’ designed in such a way as to promote human contact or community in the future. That’s the big problem you’ve got. That’s why so many of the people who made SU popular and added so much good content in the past have simply given up and left. Apart from the sheer bad design and lack of interest offered by the dysfunctional ‘new stumbleupon’ that’s the message coming through loud and clear from the overwhelmingly negative feedback on all of these threads.

  Who knows, if SU tries really hard it may be possible in the future to add back a little value and functionality to the stripped-out shell that’s left but I would bet that it’ll be too little and too late. As long as it remains as determinedly impersonal and anti-social as it is you’ll never regain or recreate the sense of community that’s been lost. Key message. People matter. Without them SU is nothing and has only a very limited appeal. That’s a truth that I genuinely don’t think has got through yet.

  Maybe SU’s bosses will understand it in time, but by then it may be too late. In the meantime though I’m sure nobody here has been trying to give any of the support staff, who simply have to relay the bad news in both directions, a hard time. Far from it. People are generously giving their time to tell you politely and in all honesty what a HUGE (pun only slightly intended) mistake Stumbleupon is making.

[Read The Full Thread on GetSatisfaction]

The new Community Managers over at SU continue attempting to redirect the actual issues using elementary tactics- this isn’t the nursery and nobody is being bullied here.

Back on February 21st, 2012, StumbleUpon announced its intention to switch all of its users to the newest reincarnation of the site. The user response to that new information is overwhelmingly negative and it goes on for 8 pages (although logged out users may only view 6 pages).

“Rated by mbhigdon on Mar 01, 5:58pm

i’m not one who typically moans and groans about changes, but everything stumbleupon changed in this “upgrade” made the experience completely dull. when it switches over completely, i’m uninstalling.”

“Reviewed by sher1lock on Mar 01, 8:35pm

New stumble sucks. it is for intelligence deprived; terminally stupid; ad obsessed; photo mad saps. really truly sad that some thing wonderful has become a debased image of itself.”

Rated by mhlayel on Mar 01, 5:18am

It’s ugly and depressing.

Reviewed by abandoned-echoes on Feb 29, 10:22pm

Tried the new version and HATED it. With so many people voicing distaste for it, why would they decide to go ahead and implement it anyways?

The users have spoken and most agree The New StumbleUpon is a Huge Fail! Still, StumbleUpon’s CEO Garrett Camp is convinced he is doing the right thing. Continuously stroking ones own ego with trivial sites like this “StumbleUpon Love” aren’t keeping certain people in close relation with reality, if you don’t mind my speculating. People had plenty of hate for that blog post as well.

All the dedicated users have spent the last year begging and pleading with StumbleUpon not to go in the devastating directions they keep choosing. Posting thread after thread in GetSatisfaction to no avail. For many the last straw was when reading these words; “StumbleUpon has announced that as of October 24, 2011, the ability to blog and add text reviews — part of the service since its origin — will be removed in an attempt to appeal to a less literate class of users“.

True to their word, on  October 24, 2011, StumbleUpon deleted years worth of user-generated content, removed HTML blogging, standalone blog posts, and photoblogging capabilities. Additionally, all previous blog posts were converted from HTML to plain text, and all photos were deleted from previous blog posts.  In the following months, many of the die-hard users deleted their accounts and moved on. Ushered by staff members to “find somewhere else to blog, like tumblr”, they did just that.

StumbleUpon vastly underestimated the value of the bloggers who left. Without the die-hard content adders, beta testers, SU cheerleaders, miscategorized site fixers that made up the “unimportant” blogger minority, the quality of content within the Stumble system has suffered greatly and continues to decline, as does the once thriving social media sites popularity. In what appears to be a somewhat desperate attempt to regain some of what it has lost StumbleUpon is practically begging for people to care again.

Feedback and Insider Knowledge:

• Give us valuable feedback on new features we’re considering developing
• Test out new features and improvements before we release them to the whole StumbleUpon community
• Provide general input about StumbleUpon and ways we can improve the service
• Meet with the StumbleUpon team and the rest of The Council in person (as well as via conference call) to discuss your perspectives

Public Love and Endeavors:

• Be a general StumbleUpon advocate in your social networks
• Promote StumbleUpon in your daily personal life
• Organize and host StumbleUpon-sponsored meet-ups in your city
• Help other Stumblers organize their own meet-ups in their towns
• Represent StumbleUpon at exclusive events and important meet-ups

And always…

• Be an advocate for all things StumbleUpon!

What do you get for all that hard work? “We’ve given this elite group the esteemed title of “The Council” …rofl

That truly does make me giggle. All the things they are reaching for were once in their clutch, given enthusiastically and freely without ever being asked. StumbleUpon spat in the face of its most dedicated volunteers and now they miss them? The entire community support staff was replaced/relocated within the company to make room for a new support staff who seem utterly clueless about everything that has happened over the last few months. Probably so they would be able to “brave face” the outraged users without full understanding of said outrage. After all, it is easier to tell a lie when you do not know that it is a lie.

What can perhaps be considered a Last Stand by some of StumbleUpon’s most dedicated users, those who loved StumbleUpon through and through and had their back all along is fizzling out in GetSatisfaction as they say their final goodbyes and pack up the last of the picket signs. The final, final straw is the newest version of SU as it is considered completely unusable (broken) and anti-social.

[via]

“That disruption isn’t good or bad, Gaiman said, “it just is. It’s a fact of life now.” And while legislators will no doubt continue to push forward with laws like SOPA and PIPA, he said, they won’t be able to turn back the clock to a time before the Internet was invented. In a video interview he recorded last year for the Open Rights Group, which is embedded below, Gaiman talked about how he was initially incensed about people pirating his work, but eventually came to the realization that they were actually promoting his work, and he was selling more in countries where his books were pirated.”

“I think people in Hollywood are convinced that people would suddenly start buying DVDs again if only they could stop all this peer-to-peer file sharing and so on. They just are fundamentally missing the point… genies don’t go back in bottles once they’re out.”
Gaiman: SOPA and PIPA are on the Wrong Side of History

In the spirit of promoting Neil Gaiman (who I absolutely adore and idolize), did you know he has a tumblr blog? Yup, neil-gaiman.tumblr.com. One truly fantastic thing about Gaiman’s tumblr blog is that he uses it to respond to fan questions, OFTEN. His tumblr blog is perhaps one of the most direct ways a fan can reach him. I enjoy reading his responses tremendously and highly recommend you follow him.

ACTA is an International agreement among volunteering nations to put new controls into place for copyright infringement on the Internet; however it’s being veiled as a way to stop counterfeit goods and generic medicines. Additionally, it’s how these new controls are imposed which creates problems including how the agreement has been negotiated which has raised a lot of concerns.

I think everyone in the world agrees that counterfeit goods, counterfeit medicines and copyright infringement is a problem, but as we just learned with SOPA and PIPA, going about fixing the problems the wrong way will get you nowhere and only creates more issues, including nationwide protests and ‘blackouts’.

Here are some of the concerns with ACTA that you should be aware of:

• Drafting and talks of ACTA has been shrouded in secrecy. Talks began back 2006 with official negotiations starting in 2008 and no public drafts have been made available until April 2011; those that were able to see copies prior to 2011 were bound by non-disclosure agreements.
• Once made public, the agreement says that it will remove legal safeguards that protect Internet Service Providers (ISPs) from liability for the actions of their users, in effect giving ISPs no option but to comply with privacy invasions and collection of data in order to police their users and conduct filtering of content.
• Also just like with SOPA, sites that host or link to infringing content would be held liable. ACTA would also facilitate privacy violations by trademark and copyright holders (MPAA, RIAA) against private citizens suspected of infringement activities without any sort of legal due process which will result in blocking of access to the Internet, fines and jail time.
• ACTA would require that existing ISPs no longer host free software that can access copyrighted media, and DRM protected media would not be legally playable with free or open source software, which would stop the ability to distribute free software via peer-to-peer networks.
• ACTA has been lobbied heavily by the Entertainment industry (MPAA, RIAA) which through experience we know that they have their own interests in mind, and not the peoples.

For an even better explanation, in video form, watch below and see just how evil ACTA really is. [via]

Nobody likes it, it’s always broken, users are leaving in unprecedented droves and the community of SU is so used to being screwed over that, at this point, they don’t even kick up a fuss about it, they just leave.

The new interface is impossible to use, even for users with IT backgrounds, no I am not exaggerating. It is also super frustrating because it’s anti-social and most of the provided functionality doesn’t actually function.

The once thriving community of StumbleUpon has clung to each other as they spread across the web and can be found, still playing in the pool together, in several fun places. The best two options are:

• Categorian (best option for people who liked the way of blogging SU once provided)
• Tumblr (best option for people who like instant gratification on their shared posts)

You can find everyone else and all their other blogs at the new forum SUCats, where everyone is hanging out these days.

”

Two days ago, you guys stepped up once again to show the world just how much we care about protecting the Internet. Together, we generated more than 140,000 calls to Senators, spent more than 4,200 hours on the phone with their staffers, and blacked out 650,000 of our blogs to make our point and inspire others to get involved. And what’s more, this was on top of the 90,000 calls we sent to members of the House of Representatives a month ago. Incredible.

It’s now becoming clear just how much impact our action is having. On January 18th, only 31 members of Congress opposed these bills. Just one day later, 101 members of Congress publicly stood with us in opposition. We are being heard.

And as of today, it looks like both the Senate PIPA and House SOPA bills have been shelved, for the moment. It seems pretty likely that the bills won’t pass as written—a big first win. We now hope that Internet companies, the creative community and the content industry join together to innovate and devise new partnerships to combat online piracy. We’re confident there are effective ways to do this without damaging the Internet or diminishing our freedoms.

You’ve made a big difference in keeping the Internet a safe and open place for creators. Thank you again.”

[via tumblr staff blog]

Like Alcohol, Cocaine, Heroine, Methamphetamine and Ketamine the Internet changes your brain chemistry once you become addicted.

Researchers in China recently conducted brain scans of 17 men and women diagnosed with Internet addiction disorder. The study revealed patterns of “abnormal white matter” in the brains of those with IAD, in comparison to the control group of 16 non-addicts. White matter areas are full of nerve fibers that help transmit signals around the brain, including information involving emotions, decision-making and self-control. Those particular parts of the brain were the ones found affected by abnormal white matter.

Wouldn’t it be more accurate to state that “addiction changes the chemistry of your brain”.  People are always so quick to blame the substance or the behavior, our brains are complex, lets not get carried away here.

The “Hacktivists” known as Anonymous have waged an all out attack on several key govenerment websites including Whitehouse.gov, the Department of Justice site and other “key players”  such as Universal Music Group, RIAA and Motion Picture Association of America.