Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Taylor of Hoops of Creation on February 19, 2011 at 12:56am

Wow that's interesting stuff. I believe you are right about it being ning. I feel like when hoop city had difficulties and shut down I remember it saying ning on the page. But that could just be me creating that memory off your post.

 

Anywho hope this site doesn't shut down:(

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Domini on February 19, 2011 at 3:40am

Hoop City is a Ning site.  My computer shows various things in the status bar like "transferring from ning.com" when opening the Hoop City site. But, at least that article is from early 2009, so it doesn't seem to have shut down in the meantime.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Caroleeena of Circles of Joy on February 19, 2011 at 8:59am

Yeah, I'm not really worried about them shutting down. That would be cutting off their nose to spite their face. I am more concerned about them selling out our profiles in an attempt to make a new social networking site. I hope that doesn't happen.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Rachel Bond on February 19, 2011 at 12:06pm

isn't this a social networking site?

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Caroleeena of Circles of Joy on February 19, 2011 at 2:08pm

It is but we chose to all network together. If Ning takes all the sites like this on Ning and combine them, suddenly all our information will be on another site, a site we did not choose and with people we might not necessarily want to network with or to have access to our information, especially when it comes to marketing to us.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Rachel Bond on February 19, 2011 at 2:56pm

I'm sure there are privacy laws, and things like that won't happen without our knowledge. As for marketing to us, like facebook, I don't see much of a problem for this. When you use something for free, I don't blame them for wanting to try to get some money out of you. As long as things are done with knowledge and choice.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Caroleeena of Circles of Joy on February 19, 2011 at 3:12pm

It's the lack of choice and knowledge that concerns me. Ning would not be the first site to do these things without any permission. The thing is, if this site is paying them NOT do do that, then that's their income stream, not marketing to us and/or selling our information, which is what seems to be happening on some other sites.

 

 

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Bearclaw Manufacturing - Tedward on February 19, 2011 at 3:46pm

We have a shock-jock talk-show host out here that occasionally says some profound things. One of his more famous goes something like "If you don't want nude pictures of yourself floating around on the internet... don't take any nude pictures."

I'm please to say that the most they're gonna get from me in the "private info" area will be a unique address I made specifically for hoop city. (I do this so that I can track spam actions like Ning's theoretical upcoming action.

But take a look at the original article... it's almost 2 years old. When is this supposed to happen?

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Bearclaw Manufacturing - Tedward on February 19, 2011 at 4:12pm

Here's something a bit more recent...

http://etcjournal.com/2010/09/23/locked-ning-networks-access-copyri...

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Caroleeena of Circles of Joy on February 19, 2011 at 4:53pm

Thank you for this Ted. It makes my head hurt trying to understand it but it looks like it's all about pay structure and if people don't pay (presumably Sandra) their sites might be locked down where we can't use the links, etc. Weird. I dunno. I just don't want my profile and info ending up on some Friendster-like site that I didn't join so that I start getting emails from people who are not in my community, not to mention spam. You were smart to set up an email just for this site. I may go back and do that.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Bearclaw Manufacturing - Tedward on February 19, 2011 at 5:31pm

If you have your own web domain.

1) Set one address as a catch-all account, or be ready to go back in regualrly and set up new accounts/aliases.

2) Whenever you have to give an email to a site, use [that site]@[yourdomain.com]

3) Then, if you ever have a falling out with them, you can always turn off that address.  Additionally, if they give away your address for any reason, you're know it was them.  For example if you get letters from a toy company to hoop.city@crazyhooper.com, you'll know that ning or hoop city are somehow involved.

 

If you don't have a domain,

1) You can still create multiple addresses at gmail, hotmail, etc by using something like [some random nickname not attachable to you][some large number][site name]@gmail.com

2) If you don't change the first two, you get approximately the same effect and can easily check mutiple accounts. 

Examples

I-got-ur-number.867-5309.hoop-city@gmail...

I-got-ur-number.867-5309.ning@gmail...

I-got-ur-number.867-5309.facebook@gmail...

etc

3) this also allows tracking, and you can close individual accounts if they get hit by spam.  Often, you can forward these to your main account (jenny309@gmail) without giving away the whole game.

 

NOBODY has the address my internet provider gave to me.  All the addresses I give out are aliases to more and more private addresses.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Dreena of Cirque-ular Hoops* on February 19, 2011 at 9:03pm

I had a ning site for awhile for a different endeavour and then they changed their structure from free to pay for usage. I know there were different types of accounts but nothing I wanted to upgrade to/pay for.  SO they did lock the access until I chose one of their plans.  Anyone who was 'educational' which Safire is, was exempt from this (if I recall correctly).  So the change over already happened about  a year ago and things seem to be fine here.  Was there another, more recent change that I'm missing?   Safire is pretty on top of things!

• ▶ Reply