Some of our users have raised concerns that what's happening over at mBlog could happen at DearDiary.Net. For those that don't know what's happened here's a quick synopsis.
mBlog (a blog provider I knew nothing about until today) has closed it's doors due to 'member abuse, inablity to reach agreement with Moveable Type and rising hosting costs' and are asking their members for $35 (USD) in order to retrieve an export of their blogs which could then be imported into a new blog system. It's an attempt to reclaim some of the costs of running the site, after they've closed down.
This will never happen at DearDiary.Net for a number of reasons;
So, just to re-assure everyone, DD.Net is solid, work is ongoing every day as we speak to bring in new features and extra services and even if it wasn't, I wouldn't be trying to get money out you to get hold of what is already rightfully yours. Although I might ask for donations if it ever came up ;-)
Steve
mBlog (a blog provider I knew nothing about until today) has closed it's doors due to 'member abuse, inablity to reach agreement with Moveable Type and rising hosting costs' and are asking their members for $35 (USD) in order to retrieve an export of their blogs which could then be imported into a new blog system. It's an attempt to reclaim some of the costs of running the site, after they've closed down.
This will never happen at DearDiary.Net for a number of reasons;
- DearDiary.Net is privately funded and doesn't require shareholder payments. It'd be nice if it would pay me something every once in a while to make up for the time I spend on it, but that's a different issue.
- DearDiary.Net has an Export Diary function already, which can be used to take your diary somewhere else, free of charge.
- DearDiary.Net doesn't tolerate 'Member Abuse' and we have security systems in place to ensure abusive members are removed from the system as far as possible. Certainly it is harder for an abusive member to get back onto the system than it is for us to remove them again.
- DearDiary.Net uses home grown code and some Open Source to provide this service. There does not need to be any 'agreement' with any other providers and there is no licensing issues whatsoever
- DearDiary.Net recently celebrated its 5th birthday - if it was going away it probably would have done so by now.
- In the event that DearDiary.Net did have to close for some unforeseen reason, bloggers would be given AT LEAST a month's notice to export their diaries
- Such exports would remain free of charge because although DearDiary.Net does not make any money, it does not have any 3rd party debt either, so it wouldn't be trying to get that back by extorting your own diary entries from you!
So, just to re-assure everyone, DD.Net is solid, work is ongoing every day as we speak to bring in new features and extra services and even if it wasn't, I wouldn't be trying to get money out you to get hold of what is already rightfully yours. Although I might ask for donations if it ever came up ;-)
Steve