Crazy busy with new members today

Today has been a very hectic day… On and off throughout the day, we’ve experienced the visit of new members, a couple of which went beyond what was stated on the terms of use.

One of them (American Diabetes Wholesale), initially contacted me asking for permission to “set up a page on the site”, to which I replied:
“We are currently working on defining precisely how to handle cases like this one, so as to make sure that it is done in a way that preserves the spirit of the community while offering members with a valuable benefit.”

I also asked them to give me a couple of weeks, to be in a position to talk to them and see if there was anything that we could do. Within minutes their page went up almost like a tent with branding all over the place and they started sending friend requests to many of you.

Honestly, I am not sure how we will be dealing with these cases (there may be opportunities coming down the road, which may prove to be of value to the community and I don’t want to close the door on them), but in the meantime I have gone ahead and updated the Terms of Use, addressing the case of members that represent companies and network marketers:
http://tudiabetes.com/profiles/blog/show?id=583967%3ABlogPost%3A7988

As a result, you may notice that we have a few less members around: that is because 4 of the members were banned based on the new TOU.

Last, the Terms of Use were updated last night to address a few more areas (privacy, content licensing, acceptance of terms and updates, etc.)

Thanks to all of you who contacted me promptly about today’s events. We continue to work to keep this as a great community that you can feel comfortable in.

Thank you for posting. I was trying to find this particular person under members as I had a request to be a friend, and I was not finding any information. Now I know why. I don’t blindly accept new friends. Thank you.

Thanks for the update. I wasn’t going to accept the request anyway, since it looked sketchy.

Como una comunidad. Cuidandonos las espaldas.

I was one who was asked to be on thier friends list, and I did accept, as I have experience with this company for about two years now and have always received excellent service. I have never recieved any spam from them. However, I do occasionally recieve a newsletter, related to Diabetes issues (much like the one DLife sends out), in my email from them. [Lord have mercy, I sound like a commercial! LOL]

Though, I’m sure thier reasons for joining up here, are mostly to drum up more business, I do think they did “jump the gun” here. Instead of waiting for your approval, they took it upon themselves to just go ahead with it! That’s not the proper way to go about things!

I completely understand your stand on this issue Manny! Thank you for being here to “protect” us! ;0)

I accepted the request because it came from this site. I have not had a chance to sit down and talk about any thing for the longest. I like the way the site has been. I like getting to know people. I enjoy seeing every ones pictures and I like talking to everyone.

If I get stuff from you guys, I dont mind. But I am at the end of my rope with junk mail in my email. So Manny , go fot it. Do what you need to do.

Thanks, Manny. In the moment this site becomes a front for a bunch of marketing, I’m out – and I’m sure many others feel the same.

Best,
AmyT