StumbleUpon – why has thou forsaken me?

StumbleUpon_IconLast Tuesday, January 27, 2009, I received an email informing me that my StumbleUpon account had been frozen.  If you don’t know what StumbleUpon is – from Wikipedia,

StumbleUpon is an Internet community that allows its users to discover and rate Web pages, photos, and videos. It is a personalized recommendation engine which uses peer and social-networking principles.

At first, I thought my account was banned.  Upon re-reading the email I realized my account is just frozen.  They say my SU account is under review.  I guess this does make me feel slightly better.

Although, now that it has been a week, I’m beginning to think my account is going to be in a perpetual state of limbo.

When I first read the email, I quite honestly was mad.  They say that my account is frozen and placed under review for breaching their Term of Service – that I either used my personal account for the promotion of a business, product or service, and/or also with regard to the sending of ‘spam’ messages to other members.

Okay, I unequivocally, with 100% certainty know it was not for self promotion.  I have never discovered my own site.  As for sending messages using the StumbleUpon tool bar to my friends, when I stumbled upon a site I liked… well I guess I’m guilty.

In my defense, I thought that was what the send to your friends was for.  I also feel that I did not overuse this feature of the StumbleUpon toolbar. 

Well I’ve moved beyond mad to kind of sad.  I have ‘stumbled upon’ some truly awesome blogs this week that I really wish I could have discovered or thumbed up and reviewed them.

So I’ve decided to write a blog post every Friday devoted to my favorite 5 blogs of the week.  So be sure to check back or better yet subscribe to my blog, because you never know when your blog may be featured.  But I digress …

StumbleUpon has every right to freeze accounts or even ban users for abuse of their TOS; all I ask StumbleUpon, is to be kind enough to tell me exactly what it is I have allegedly done wrong.  See I am a big proponent of natural consequences – if I’ve made a bad choice or decision… then I have to face the consequences of that choice or decision. 

However, I am also a big proponent in learning from my mistakes.  If I don’t know what I’ve done wrong how can I learn from it and not make the same mistake again?

I do hope to hear from the ‘Powers That Be’ at StumbleUpon.  I do hope that they will unfreeze my account.  Even more so, I hope they will give me a reason for the freeze to begin with; even if my account is unfrozen I really need to know what prompted the action of freezing my account.

If you have had a similar problem, I would love to hear about it; so leave a comment and share it with us.

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  1. I have never heard of anybody that had their SU account frozen that ever got a more specific reason for it than that they breached StumbleUpon’s TOC. It is hard to argue back when you don’t know exactly what you did. I also haven’t heard of anyone getting their account unfrozen. Right now they must have enough users that they don’t care.

  2. Bridget: I hope so too. I really do want to know the reason behind it though. The only thing I can do is wait … and hope they let me know.

  3. Deborah: thank you for your comment! I will follow through with SU till I’ve exhausted all avenues – I’m stubborn that way. 🙂 I have heard from others as well that have had their accounts frozen around the same time as mine. All I know is I never consciously and/or with ill intent tried to spam or game SU. I’m disappointed that they cannot be more forthcoming with me as to what I may have done wrong.

    Thanks again for taking the time to comment and as for using the toolbar to request reviews/thumb ups – I got those all the time and never thought anything of it. Not sure why it is in the toolbar then?! 🙂

  4. @Manz – I love SU… this is why it was upsetting to me. I just wanted an explanation as to why they froze my account. I truly want to know what I (if anything) did wrong.

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