Lee.org

2 weeks ago I found a CMS system called Pligg. Before using it, I took a look at the blog on the site. I noted what looked like an overly emotional post about Dreamhost and a billing problem they had recently.

The line was crossed not when they billed me prematurely for two years of service, but rather when they issued an apology email and blog post which felt unapologetic and insincere.

Dreamhost’s blog post opened “Um, Whoops” and had an image of Homer Simpson holding up his finger, an arrow pointing to his finger saying “fat finger”. The post was in Dreamhost’s usual overly plucky tone. If you’ve ever gotten one of their monthly updates, you’d know what I’m talking about. Every one is a parody of itself it’s so plucky… It’s their shtick.

I wrote on Pligg’s blog a comment describing what I thought about Pligg’s criticism. The comment didn’t show up immediately, the system said it had entered moderation, which is a common spam filtering method. I was very surprised when I came back a week later and my comment hadn’t been posted. So I posted it again. A week later, still nothing. Apparently, moderation isn’t just for spam but for differing opinions as well.

My comment was mostly a response to Eric “Yankidank” Heikkinen’s followup comment to his post

January 17th, 2008 at 2:24 pm

Transparent about the whole thing? You mean admitting to charging users $7.5 million that they don’t owe? Dreamhost is a host I have supported for a long time, but their friendly/amateur approach to everything isn’t something that I’m comfortable with in situations like yesterdays debacle. I am especially upset when I feel that a sincere apology is due and they take their usual playful route “oops, we have a fat finger that caused some users to be billed for thousands of dollars”. Granted the charges were reversed within 24 hours…

Here is the comment I was trying to leave on the Pligg blog. Admittedly, it’s a bit sarcastic, but I welcome comments about it (unlike Mr Heikkinen)

>but rather when they issued an apology email and blog post which felt
>unapologetic and insincere

Would the insincere part be the part where they explained exactly what went wrong, why it went wrong, how the problem was fixed, and how they made sure it wouldn’t happen again? Or is it the part about how this problem was discovered and remedied within hours? Maybe it was the part about taking full responsibility for the problem and then doing something about it. Any way you slice it, I see what you mean. I wouldn’t trust Dreamhost after this either.

>Dreamhost has lost our endorsement

And Pligg has lost mine. He he. Pretty funny, huh?