Saturday, May 28, 2011

Cloning is Immoral & Illegal. And our site recognizes this.

Hey, everyone! Simon Rafe, Senior Platform Architect, here. In order to make like the unshaven hero in old John Wayne movies, I shall be heading a question off at the pass as it were.

The question I think people will be asking is; what has happened with the site? When I go to sign up for an account, I get told my email is already in use? What's that about?

Recently, I became concerned by the number of "clone accounts" on the site - that is, multiple accounts registered to the same email address. This is not much of a problem for free users - because the accounts are free - although it does slow the site down a little bit. But if someone has two premium accounts registered to the same email address ... well, you're paying twice. And no-one wants that.

(Obviously, this doesn't apply to people who are buying a subscription for themselves and one for a friend or family member; this is for people who have subscribed twice for themselves, with a clone account or two.)

So, I changed the site this morning while sitting on the sofa watching that video with the hugging kitty; now you CANNOT create an account with an existing email address. The site won't let you.

What should you do if you try to create an account and you get told this?

Firstly, the site will tell you the name of the account registered to that email address, and give you a link to be reminded of the username and password. Click that link to learn your logon details.

Secondly, if you are wanting to sign in, you should make sure you are using the sign in, not the sign UP (register) link. There is a difference!

Thirdly, if you are attempting to upgrade to premium, you should first sign in to your account and then UPGRADE it, rather than register for a new account.

There are links to do all these things on the page which tells you you have attempted to create a clone account.

You can, of course, contact me in order to, I dunno, learn more, ask more questions, or get more videos of anthropomorphized felines.

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