Is Vivaldi.net Really that Friendly Community Advertised?

deneban

Hi Folks, I am a Vivaldi user from the get-go and was an avid Opera user in decade 2000. I reside a about 80 kilometers south of the Magnolia homestead.

I must protest how my account was taken offline sometime between Jan 2 and the 14th. It was locked without notification, nor what arena it was attributed to (i.e. what terms were supposedly violated). I only realized it when I saw my android was no longer syncing with my desktop.

The Vivaldi message to the world is that aside from the ultra browsers, it is a "friendly community" where one can express themself, as Jon expresses in one of the introductory site videos. In stark contrast to this, users are treated with the utmost disrespect when they are cut off from their account without notification, rational, or attempt at remediation.

It took four days to get unlocked and I still do not know what the issue was. Perhaps it was superfluous, because no corrective actions were recited to me.

I saw that my blog was marked as spam for some reason. The only thing my blog does is connects folks to my streaming ambient radio station, which has no ads and no commercial potential whatsoever. It uses no Vivaldi.net resources and does not drive traffic away from it. Of course, I could have been asked those questions before some silent anonymous moderator took it out.

I believe all Vivaldi users should at least be given the respect of an email message with a warning that identifies the problem and the immediate corrective action required of the user rather than an unannounced account ban. After all, this is supposedly a friendly community, not a totalitarian host. - deneban 18/1/24.

Coming back around to consolidate and summarize the endpoint findings for the question posed in this topic....

It is possible a user can be banned without notification or rational to their recovery account.
It is possible a user's blog can be banned as a "false positive" and without an adverse report.
The Support Team can take up to 4 days to investigate and un-ban an account.
Even though the user has not violated the Terms of Service, the Support Team's "un-ban" email will reiterate the Terms rather than report their results or apologizing for an accident.

Obviously there is currently discordance between how accounts are administered and the advertized "user friendly community" environment.

mib2berlin

@deneban
Hi, please contact the Vivaldi support for account issues.
There is a button to send them a message.

https://help.vivaldi.com/services/account/locked-vivaldi-account/#:~:text=Need help with your Vivaldi account%3F

deneban

@mib2berlin Hi mib, as I said the problem is past me now (albeit taking all too long to resolve ), please read again to understand what I am pointing out. If Vivaldi advertises being a friendly open community, it has to be administered as such.

I didn't even know there was a problem to resolve to push that "button".

mib2berlin

@deneban
Ah OK, read to fast, sorry.
As this is a user forum nobody from the Vivaldi team notice your post, I fear.
Maybe another user have experience why you don't get any message from the team.
No idea about the block but I know accounts are disabled if the user not login for some time but this is several month of inactivity.

Cheers, mib

deneban

@mib2berlin said in Being Taken Offline:

@deneban
Ah OK, read to fast, sorry.
....
No idea about the block but I know accounts are disabled if the user not login for some time but this is several month of inactivity.

Cheers, mib

I am syncing everyday am I not? I am getting mail everyday.
If you look at my profile, my last post was 21 days ago, 15 before the "mishap".

Pesala

@deneban said in Being Taken Offline:

It was locked without notification, nor what arena it was attributed to (i.e. what terms were supposedly violated).

I think you would receive an email. Have you checked the email account that you assigned for recovery? That is not your vivaldi.net account. Maybe the message was marked as spam?

deneban

@Pesala

Hi Pesala, not a peep in my recovery account, not in spam, junk, or deleted. I didn't even know it happened. The support team did not say such an email was sent when I discovered the ban.

If there was a legitimate reason, I still need to know what it is so I can correct the problem. The second email from support unlocking the account still did not cite a specific rational. It all seems rather unfounded and without a trace and anonymous.

Everything is signed as"the Vivaldi Team" so as to promote non-accountability.

mib2berlin

@deneban
Maybe @marialeal can help here.

Cheers, mib

Ayespy

Do you know what day your account went down?

Ayespy

@deneban I've checked all traffic I have any access to from Jan 2 to Jan 14. Your name or your account are not mentioned. No one has reported you and apparently no one has taken any conscious action relative to you. There have been (very rare) instances where a user's account has become locked for no reason that any moderator or admin can figure out. That may be what happened here. On Jan 4, there were some problems with some of the servers, but it didn't seem to affect anyone's accounts - at least not that the admins saw.

So it may actually be as much a mystery to the admins, as it is to us, what actually happened to your account. @marialeal is probably best equipped to investigate it, but it does not appear to have anything to do with the rules or procedures of the community.

jane.n

Hi Deneban,

We're sorry for the experience you've had with Vivaldi. Your blog being marked as spam, resulting in your account getting locked was a false positive and has now been corrected. Why your blog was considered spam in the first place has been explained to you in the email conversation with our Support team.

When an account gets blocked, you're notified, in some cases, via email, but in all cases during your next login. Normally, Sync also displays notifications in the browser when it has lost connection, prompting you to look into the issue.

TravellinBob

I'm sorry you had the problem, deneban, and would probably feel the same way were it to happen to my account and/or blog.

However, I would defend the Forum and the folks who moderate it, the administrators and ambassadors who share their expert knowledge when there is a problem, and ordinary Forum member like you and I who typically offer their help and suggestions. I've been using the browser as my daily driver for the past year and a bit, and on the few times I've had a problem or a question that I've posted, I have always been treated with respect and helped within hours, and always to my satisfaction. I think it's a case of, in this instance, you being unlucky rather than my being lucky for 15 months!

As an aside, prior to using Vivaldi, I've used IE, Edge, Chrome (who hasn't!), Firefox and for a couple of days Opera, and not one of them as far as I could tell offered anything like the Community Support system that this browser does. It's THE great USP, as far as I'm concerned, it sets Vivaldi apart from pretty much anything on the market right now.

deneban

HI Folks,

Anybody having sync issues at this time or does the above ordeal require I change my password? I was syncing fine last night. [ 6.5.3206.55 (Stable channel) (64-bit) ]

After logging cycle:

Android sync went inactive:

DoctorG

@deneban ⇒ https://forum.vivaldi.net/topic/94428/is-the-sync-server-down/

Aaron

https://forum.vivaldi.net/topic/94428/is-the-sync-server-down

deneban

I must have broken it when I resynced after my ordeal, ban my account...

DoctorG

@deneban You are a joker
I think now yo’ are banned by me for 100 millisec.
You DeneDown'ed the Sync? So baaaäääd u r.

Aaron

@deneban I guess it was just an accident. No one is specifically targeting you.

deneban

@DoctorG said in Is Vivaldi.net Really that Friend Community Advertised?:

@deneban You are a joker
I think now yo’ are banned by me for 100 millisec.
You DeneDown'ed the Sync? So baaaäääd u r.

Damn straight, and I have the software here to prove it:

When the trackbar gets to 0:00 KAPLUEY!

deneban

@Ayespy said in Is Vivaldi.net Really that Friend Community Advertised?:

Do you know what day your account went down?

Like I said I didn't even know what week it was, it was unannounced; the little sync cloud icon does not warrant periodic checking.

@Ayespy said in Is Vivaldi.net Really that Friend Community Advertised?:

@deneban I've checked all traffic I have any access to from Jan 2 to Jan 14. Your name or your account are not mentioned. No one has reported you and apparently no one has taken any conscious action relative to you. ...
...
So it may actually be as much a mystery to the admins, as it is to us, what actually happened to your account. @marialeal is probably best equipped to investigate it, but it does not appear to have anything to do with the rules or procedures of the community.

Maybe the blog module has an auto built-in periodic sweep bot that self-interprets spam for which it can then do the account ban in the background?

@jane-n said in Is Vivaldi.net Really that Friend Community Advertised?:

Hi Deneban,
We're sorry for the experience you've had with Vivaldi. Your blog being marked as spam, resulting in your account getting locked was a false positive and has now been corrected. Why your blog was considered spam in the first place has been explained to you in the email conversation with our Support team.

Hi Jane, Absolutely not: There was merely a recitation of the spam rules, none of which coincided with the blog's condition, nor was a specific violation cited. To date it remains a mystery.

When an account gets blocked, you're notified, in some cases, via email,

As a minimum, it should always be accompanied by an email because Vivaldi.net is advertized as a user friendly community. Only a totalitarian host would not send an account ban email.

but in all cases during your next login. Normally, Sync also displays notifications in the browser when it has lost connection, prompting you to look into the issue.

The background login failures the browser does for mail etc.. are silent and do not present dialog boxes to the user, while the sync icon change is very inconspicuous to notice. Its was the blog and forum failures that brought it to my attention last Sunday. Then it took from Sunday to Thursday to unban the "false positive" The whole affair from ban to unban was up to two weeks long.

@TravellinBob said in Is Vivaldi.net Really that Friend Community Advertised?:

I'm sorry you had the problem, deneban, and would probably feel the same way were it to happen to my account and/or blog.

Thanks for the empathy, it's an awful feeling, the only way to communicate is click on the aforementioned help page button and hope for a response someday.

As an aside, prior to using Vivaldi, I've used IE, Edge, Chrome..., Firefox ... Opera, and not one of them ... offered anything like the Community Support system that this browser does. It's THE great USP, as far as I'm concerned, it sets Vivaldi apart from pretty much anything on the market right now.

All things made equal, I never had my Microsoft, Chrome or Mozilla accounts or blogs banned. I just wish that heralded support got to me sooner than 3 emails and 4 days later.