Webmail Privilege Requirements via the Reputation System
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To whom it may concern.
I have an issue related to a new sign-up and first use of Vivaldi's webmail.
I have read about the so-called reputation system, though which a new member must first "graduate" before being granted the required privilege's to actually being able to make use of webmail.
Here is my problem viz. I am an old timer, who simply seeks to make use of Vivaldi's webmail service for both privacy and security reasons. My needs are basic and simple.
The Vivaldi requirements are : A new member "have to participate in Forum discussions, interact with others on Vivaldi Social, share their browser themes, post on their blog and/or sync their browser data to collect “points”."
I find these requirements both onerous, and definitely discouraging to any new member who like myself, do NOT have any desire or inclination to act in a sociable manner !
Does this mean that Vivaldi's webmail service is ONLY available to those select persons who are happy to be sociable ?
Is there really no alternative manner to validate a new applicant's bona-fides other than through this reputation system ?
I simply don't have the time, skill, and desire to pass such nonsensical tests.
Vivaldi's policy and approach regarding this new means of validation could do with a review in my opinion.
PS. Guess I have to forget about Vivaldi webmail service, as I do not wish to comply with the stated "social requirements", especially as the specific nature, extent, degree and duration is completely undefined. Gaining the required reputational points, can take forever, and may not even happen ! -
You can also just use the browser and the sync feature. Takes longer than posting on the forums or writing blog posts I guess (nobody knows) but apparently with time just using the browser and being logged into the sync system is enough. No need to interact with any of us. But since Vivaldi's business model depends to a large degree on having a strong amd dedicated community, people that contribute more are rewarded with a free webmail account.
If you are looking for a privacy centric webmail service, you have plenty of options - most other service providers charge money. Vivaldi's fee is being part of a community, even if it is somewhat remote just by using the browser.
Usually on Win11 running Vivaldi Snapshot builds. Opinionated about working efficiently with email. Folders are evil | Mail workflow: receive, read, reply, mark as read, done.
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It is definitely a way in reducing potential spam to abuse the service which I totally understand.
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@grovem Contrary to what you just said, I think it is an amazing way of getting an account and a novel one. Most other email hosting services need you to give a number phone or give another email. Nevertheless, such systems that ask your for an email most of the time need a Gmail or Hotmail account, and you cannot use an alias, as for example a Simplelogin alias. But you can get a Vivaldi account (not mail in the start) with Simplelogin.
Vivaldi isn't a mail hosting focused solution, as it is the case with Tutanota, Proton or Mailbox. Email hosting focused solutions charge their users for hosting. If they have a lot of users (like 70 million as Proton, if i remember well) they can pay a very costly anti spam system, like a captcha created by the mail hosting provider or an AI, etc. Nevertheless, Vivaldi gives it free to users without any charge, while having a high grade of security, privacy, and very good company reputation. There's no reason to be obligated to invest on costly antispam systems such as AI or (only) on manual reviewed accounts. Even if a company invest a giant amount of money to finance an AI, that isn't exact in 100% and there are some reports of false positives that have damaged people's digital life severely. Proton, for example, have invested in such systems: they have created their own Captcha. How they got they money? Charging users $5-20 dollars per month.
Vivaldi is sustained in a very privacy-friendly way. They give those services of Mail and Calendar as a donation (if you want to call it that way) to its users. Vivaldi are not required not obligated to do that.
So, put easily: if someone wants a Vivaldi mail, the very least they must do is install Vivaldi to help them pay the mail. Nevertheless, even in that case, you can contribute to forum, create blogs, and navigate Vivaldi social from other browsers! Vivaldi is a very good company that is sustainable and is giving users a lot of good things.
Finally, i think they antispam system is very very great. No one knows how to beat it. It is very time and effort consuming for spammers. And it is easy:
just enjoy Vivaldi! -
@securely4024 said in Webmail Privilege Requirements via the Reputation System:
So, put easily: if someone wants a Vivaldi mail, the very least they must do is install Vivaldi to help them pay the mail.
Well said, and very clearly explained in detail. I am proud to advertise this browser with every email that I send. I could manage fine without a Vivaldi.net address, but it is a nice bonus for being a long-term member of this community.
@securely4024 You should apply to become an Ambassador for Vivaldi.
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@securely4024 While it is surely an effective way to prevent spammers setting up accounts, I think @grovem has a valid point. You need a certain degree of patience if you want access to a Vivaldi webmail account. Having gone the distance myself, I wonder how many potential users / customers simply give up due to the current reputation system...
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@Hausarzt Vivaldi is about the browser and the community. People who want a free webmail service without the willingness to go the distance are welcome to choose a different service.
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I wonder how many potential users / customers simply give up due to the current reputation system...
To put this more bluntly than @WildEnte: Vivaldi gains nothing from people using their webmail service, it only has the potential to make money from its browser users. Therefore it doesn’t matter whether someone gives up. Vivaldi doesn’t have customers, all the services are free so far (might change with the recent Invisv development). In any case, Vivaldi still provided “unlimited” webmail access for years and only the overhead of dealing with spammers stopped that.
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@Hausarzt said in Webmail Privilege Requirements via the Reputation System:
I wonder how many potential users / customers simply give up due to the current reputation system...
I wonder about users who complain not getting a gift immediately. Webmail account is a gift
from Vivaldi company, not a paid service they can complain on like customers when not delivered._bug hunter · Volunteer helper · Sopranos tester · Language DE,EN · ♀👵
Known old dragon lady: Gwen aka Dr. Gwen Agon aka GwenDragon aka DoctorGTesting
Linux Debian 12 KDE X11 / Windows 11 Pro
Intel i5-7400 / NVidia GT 710 -
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@WildEnte @DoctorG @luetage I get the point -- and you're probably right... I just felt a little sympathy for an elderly user ("an old timer" @grovem).
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I do have to say that the fact that there's not really any way to know how close you are to being able to use the webmail, at least as far as I'm aware, is a bit annoying, personally I've downloaded the browser and will be trying it out so I'll probably get it at some point. However I'm also in need of an email address that's more privacy focused, preferably sooner rather than later, as another service I have an account on has on old hotmail address on it that's been on life support for half a decade just for that one account, and every other privacy based option have just not been accepted.
Do users get any kind of notification whenever they're eligible for a webmail address, or do you just have to check whether or not you're able to log in every once in a while?
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@viirax Get ddg email protection ☛ https://duckduckgo.com/email/. Use it with your current email then switch to whatever (e.g. Vivaldi email), the duck address will stay the same.
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@luetage Forgot to mention they've also said they have issues with various forwarding options that I've mentioned as well.
Edit: Seems I have gained access to the webmail as I checked again after posting this comment, I still do feel like it'd be nice to have some kind of indication for how far off you are from gaining access though.
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@DoctorG The problem here is that Vivaldi is holding steadfast to a rigid adherence to the rule. As someone who has participated in the Vivaldi forums previously, I should be able to have access to an email if I delete a previous account. Currently there is no grey area in which to utilize one's basic analytical skills to choose an outcome that fits the situation. All or nothing solutions like this alienate people, regardless of how you feel about the issue.
Don't participate in a culture where it's ride or die "get out if you don't like it then," closed-minded thought.
I don't think any of the actual responses to this, in this thread, were responding in good faith and it clearly shows as each seem to be defending the decision like it were how their forefather's did it and their forefather's before them. The approach of the feedback giver will never matter if their isn't good faith exchange that ensues. No one is attacking your beloved Vivaldi and certainly no one is asking for them to risk an issue with getting overloaded with spam, but it's fair to discuss this as it's a very specific message that is being sent to us users, regardless of length as a user. (I've been using Vivaldi since about 2018?ish?) And the message doesn't feel like it fits with the image of Vivaldi itself.
I'm interested to understand more about how this is the only way to handle this and how the team envisions this fitting with the mission statement as imaged here in the screenshot. Specifically I'd like to understand how this reactionary and discussion stifling culture adheres to the last line in the mission statement.
"...And they want to be heard."
You can disagree here, you don't have to want change, but the rhetoric I've been seeing (being forced, now, to interact with you) is that anyone with negative feedback should be shut down. I do not enjoy communities like that, and I can't imagine anyone on the other end of that, like OP here, would feel good about it. I refuse to believe that any one here hasn't had that experience. It sours one on a product/brand, and it is hard to recover from that. I hope none of you takes this person's write-up as anything but feedback as you go off and have your private thoughts on this, mulling it over and ultimately deciding on your opinion. But, OP doesn't sound like they needs to hear the same thing over and over again. I'm sure they understand the impetus of this, but like me seems to be unable to reconcile this anti-user decision with the image that Vivaldi wants to present.
Again, this is just something that should be taken as feedback and under consideration as your user base is (hopefully) going to grow with the amount of backlash large companies are taking for their terrible handling of user data and privacy.
There are some options that could even benefit the company.
In the end, having a nebulous points tracking system that we only know about but can't see, interact with, or what-have-you... seems a lot like someone over there is just deciding to flip a switch once they've decided they like you.
As someone who has donated, purchased gear, and participated in prior bug reporting and troubleshooting in the past, I don't think that this black and white system is beneficial to the overall health of the product.
I want to use Vivaldi and I want to rep it with my email, but if this continues down a road of stifling user feedback then I don't know how much longer Vivaldi deserves to have the public's trust and backing.
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This clearly explains why access to the privilege is now based on a reputation system.
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@heymtj If you have a better way to prevent Vivaldi WebMail from being used as a spam factory (thereby destroying the utility of the service), you are welcome to propose it.
The system to earn webmail has literally nothing at all to do with the popularity (or lack thereof) of a user's posts. (there are things like sync, blogging, participating in Vivaldi Social) that contribute to your earning webmail irrespective of whether anything you post in the forums will be construed as "negative" or "positive" feedback. There are users here who have earned webmail and whose input is almost purely negative. Practically all they do is complain, slag and insult Vivaldi and and point out how the devs are doing it wrong, everyone else is doing it better, yet here they are.
You can't get webmail instantly with a new user profile essentially because there's no way to prove it's you without management themselves violating Vivaldi's privacy policies.
Webmail at this point amounts to an insider perk. If a person can't be bothered to invest a few hours participating as a Vivaldi community member, yet they simply MUST have webmail, then they'll have to turn to one of the several free webmail offerings on the web - offerings from companies that are using user's webmail accounts to generate income, unlike Vivaldi, for whom providing webmail service is a pure economic loss.
Volunteer Mod and tester on Windows 11 Home X64, i7-13700 @ 5.4 GHz turbo; Intel UHD 770 graphics; 1TB NV2 PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSD; 32 GB DDR4-3200 RAM. Community Code of Conduct
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@luetage i wouldnt use it for important mails tho: https://duckduckgo.com/duckduckgo-help-pages/email-protection/troubleshooting/lost-access-to-forwarding-account/
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@securely4024 That’s not an argument. Your forwarding address is the address you use with your email provider. If you lose access to it, you would lose access to it without ddg too.
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I can see both sides of the argument. On the one hand it is frustrating to not know how long it will take to get the webmail, on the other if it had targets that could be hit it could easily be gamed, and we would potentially see a lot more bot style posts spammed on here or mastodon (or wherever the targets indicates) which would be a huge backfire IMO
