I Wish to Register a Complaint
Mon., July 24, 11:37 AM
Even though I have often been annoyed with Diaryland, I have tried not to complain too much. After all, it was my entrée to online journaling, and many of its problems simply grew out of its success. That is, it became so popular that Andrew often had difficulty controlling it. No wonder a lot of us moved our pages to Livejournal or Typepad or whatever. It should have made life easier for D’land, but I guess it didn’t.
I even figured out why recently diaries often opened in the wrong window. Just because I can’t write the code myself doesn’t mean I can’t figure out how it works. Irritating, but I can deal.
Many of us became aware that Sign My Guestbook, which is hosted by D’land, was getting a lot of spam hits. I don’t know how to apply a filter, but I was sure that the problem would eventually be resolved. And then I noticed that my comments were going off into limbo. Without explanation or warning, someone was deleting what I wrote. Was the Guestbook not working? Oh, yes, it does work; I could save a comment if I signed in with another name/e-mail address. So I knew that this was a little personal.
Then I received a standard message that someone had signed my guestbook, but the message contained the following:
Before the normal message, please note that we are aware that a lot of guestbooks have had a lot of advertisement messages added to them lately, and we are working on filters to block these. Already, we have put one filter in place that should block most ads, and we are working on more that will do an even better job of blocking them! We have also erased a large number of these garbage messages from our database, however they may still show up on guestbooks until someone adds a new entry, so if you have another guestbook or your friend does, and you still see ads, they may disappear once it is updated! Thanks for your patience, [signed] andrew at SignMyGuestbook
It was a simple guest comment. Nothing threatening. This is progress? I don’t see it that way, but it seems to be the answer. I faithfully maintain an account at D’land, even though it’s mostly to keep track of my buddies and to direct people to my new page. Nevertheless, I’m considered spam. (Y’know, I don’t even post banners any more.)
Meanwhile, some of my buddies who use Notify lists are updating without my being notified. They couldn’t all have forgotten. I saw the red names on my buddy list. It does not seem to be a problem with writers from other sites.
NotifyList.com is another site hosted by Diaryland. Is the filter removing its own affiliates? Can’t you people get your act together?
I figure I’m really gonna get kicked off Diaryland forever with this one, so you’d better sign up with my notify list if you want to stay in touch. In the meantime, I believe I’ll write an ad. I invite the Evil Eye Filter to catch it.
I recently participated in the production of a little book called Home. 
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Here’s a short review. I even got the author interviewed on the radio this morning.
