Vloggerheads Update

[SydTheSkeptic]

For those few of you who also frequent Vloggerheads, I figured I'd give you an update (or at least communicate what little I know).

A couple of days ago, members were signing on only to find that they were entered into someone else's account, even to the degree that they could see their inbox (remind you of something...?) so Tom, the owner, took it offline and sent a query to Ning. It appears that only a few members were affected (whoever was online at the time) and that it took about an hour from the time the glitch was noticed (or blogged about) to the moment it was taken offline.

Now, for those of you who don't know, VH had a unique code that allowed for video replies and tiered commenting. It was set up by volunteer programmers when VH first started a couple of years ago, but soon after, Ning dropped its "open source" policy due to some disagreements they were having with one of their third-party developers so the programmers could no longer get in there, nor could they tweak it anytime Ning updated their stuff and added new features. So, basically, VH has been frozen in time and has never been updated.

The thing is, no one really wanted to drop the unique coding in favor of the new features- it was what distinguised it from other video-sharing Ning sites. The downside to it, though, was that every time there was an update, VH would come out of it being more glitchy. Emails alerting people to comments on their vids disappeared altogether and then comments started posting out of order, making "discussions" jagged and nonsensical.

So, needless to say, this recent glitch was a very serious event compared to earlier ones. As far as I've heard, the owner (TomGuarriello) has been in contact with people at Ning and it's very likely VH will return without its unique coding. No content will be lost, however, and video comments will no longer be there. Who knows what comment strands will look like, but I can't imagine why anyone would spend time going over old comment strands, so...

That's the latest, anyway.

I've been checking in at TheChatterheads and Limapolooza to keep up.
Links to both those sites can be found on the Ark's link bar at the bottom of the page.

On a happier note (for me, anyway), today was my last day of school, so expect a video update this weekend (long overdue). There's some Ning stuff we need to figure out and I'm also hoping to find some time to dance for LtAdams. Hopefully. A promise is a promise, damn it. Damn those ideas, too, that I think up and then never have the time to be a part of!!! And damn Pypermarru, who's just as full of shit ideas as I am and has also been too busy to make videos (although now she's at least got a public service award to show for her busy-ness...)

[NatureJunkie]

Verrrrry interesting! When I was looking at Vloggerheads the other day, I wasn't even signed in myself, I was just viewing it like any non-member of the general public could. (Okay, I was lurking.) Yet I found myself in someone else's account. When I clicked on "Sign Out," I found myself in yet another account. This happened three times with three accounts before I closed my window, re-opened it, signed in and deleted all my own email.

I hope it's all fixed soon. I'm sure the controversy this will generate among the hot head types will have keyboards clacking for days. Thanks for the inside scoop, Syd!

[SydTheSkeptic]

Wow NJ! Yeah, it seems there were a few names that were most effected- Geoff and Helen are two that I kept hearing were compromised. I'm not sure if I was logged in or not, but someone else said that didn't even matter anyway, so who knows.

Those of us from LiveVideo know all too well how "private" never really means private, huh.

[Jim]

I heard about this -- thanks for filling me in on the details, Syd.

[LtAdams2247]

Vloggerwho?