If you’re reading this, you are probably wondering one of three things:
- Why can’t I find Public Posts?
- Why can’t I make a Public Post or comment on an existing one?
- What’s going to happen to all the Public Posts I have made in the past?
So I am going to attempt all three of those questions here.
After a lot of discussion and healthy debate, we decided to remove the Public Posts feature from TokBox. I know there has been a lot of discussion amongst the community about whether we were going to do this, as well as lots of great suggestions about what we could do to control the sometimes ‘inappropriate’ posts and comments. We considered all of those ideas, but at the end of the day we decided to focus our energy on what we’re really good at – multi-party chat.
So, as from today, you won’t be able to make any new posts or add any comments.
But, if you created a Public Post in the past (or a video comment), don’t worry there is a way to keep it. Here’s how.
Simply go to your profile, decide which of your posts you want to keep and click on “Forward”. You can then send the post as a video message to yourself, to keep forever. (If there is a particularly special video comment you want to keep, you’ll need to watch the comment and at the end there will be the option to “Forward” the post). You’ll need to do this in the next 30 days, as after that the posts will no longer be visible.
And, remember, if you do want to record a video message and send it to a group of people, you can do the same thing our with video message feature.
I look forward to chatting to you on TokBox soon.
Micky
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9 Comments
October 1, 2009 at 10:34 am
[...] Home No more Public Posts [...]
October 1, 2009 at 11:53 am
No more public posts?!
no offense but this site just went down TREMENDOUSLY! public posts made tokbox funn, and without it, its boring. no offense :[
October 4, 2009 at 9:12 am
Pffffftttt,..
October 4, 2009 at 3:32 pm
I know lots of you aren’t happy about us removing Public Posts, but we made a decision that we believe is best for the majority of our users.
October 4, 2009 at 7:16 pm
Hey Tokbox. I know that you took off public posts from new users a while back and now you have proceeded to take them off of the “old” users as well. I heard that the reason you did so was because you didn’t want to waste money on a moderator for public posts, when you are looking into a whole different area of expansion. If this is the case, you should keep a site for public posts, as well, a site for the expansion (possibly split the site when you enter it, *Public related* and *Business related*). The Public related half does not need to be moderated by any of your staff. I know plenty of people who would be glad to moderate public posts on tokbox as free voulenteers. (That would of course be doing it for the highest good) I’m not sure why you guys would turn this offer down because obviously, public posts *were* (sadly past-tense.. hopefully soon to be present again) a big part of this site, and a big way for people to express their daily emotions. The biggest part about this site was that, it gave people a way to just be them without being scared of others degrading them for who they truly are. This place was so great because it gave a home away from home. Once the public posts got shut down, I got around 45 different messages from people (coming from either text, email, or even tokbox itself) saying how upset they were and how this site truly meant something to them. This site provided a very warm and giving outlet for the daily emotions that occur (wether they are good, bad or even neutral).
Like I said, this site was truly a home away from home for many people, I don’t think you guys really understand how much it meant to many among many people and how much you can expand from the original idea you once had. Me along with many others are here to volunteer for this amazing site and we will definitely make it main stream if you give it a chance once more. Like I said before, you don’t need to waste any time and and money for moderators (on public posts) me and many others I know (who are very passionate about this site too) would be glad to watch over.
Thanks for your time, I hope to see a reply soon
Zack P
October 5, 2009 at 9:56 am
Zack, thanks for your thoughtful note and I appreciate your (and a couple of others) offers to moderate Public Posts for us. We did consider this option, along with others, as a way to retain Public Posts for the small community of people that enjoyed them.
However, as with any business question, it was not that simple and we had to weigh up a number of different issues and make the decision, that we believed was right for us as a company and right for the majority of our users, even if it meant upsetting other users.
Again, thanks for your time
Micky
October 7, 2009 at 7:07 pm
This is bullcrap! You know alot of us were on here to network to talk, to have fun ! But people abused that privelage they came on here doing nasty inappropriate stuff. And then again alot of people complained too much! And it isn’t fair that the ones that weren’t causing any trouble get booted off to network now! You guys thought wrong! You thought with your heads in your butts! I have been on tokbox since December of 2008! And you know what i enjoyed it! Now that i can’t even talk to people this is OUTRAGEOUSLY UNFAIR!!! Ya know what this isn’t a legit business you guys made this site as a social network and now your booting us out! Thats un fair! Micky you need to figure two things out!
1. Who were the ones causing the trouble, and who were the ones that you were receiving the most complaints about? (THOSE ARE THE PEOPLE WHO YOU SHOULD BE DELETING OR BANNING FROM POSTING)
2. WHY ARE YOU TREATING THE ONES THAT MADE TOKBOX GREAT LIKE CRAP! I.E. “Brick The Whine Guy”
and a few others! THIS SITE SHOULD NOT HAVE BEEN ACCESSIBLE TO LITTLE KIDS!!!!
TOKBOX should be moderating this site instead of just putting the computer down and leaving this site to do what it does without any people maintaining it and keeping it secure! Thirteen year olds and younger SHOULD NOT BE ON HERE in case you don’t know theres a “Childrens Online Privacy Protection Act”
Childrens Online Privacy Protection Act Compliance which you are supposed to be in compliance with the requirements of COPPA (Childrens Online Privacy Protection Act), where your not supposed to be collecting any information from anyone under 13 years of age. UNLESS you filled out their required paperwork!
Not only that but a HUGE Social network like this should not just be LEFT AS IS. There has to be network security specialists, people reading posts, keeping spam & Herrassment at bay, anybody herrassing can be tried by law no matter if its online or offline! You have a job to do! And your not doing it! Instead of making tokbox a place to go for people your making it a destroyed spec of what it used to be! Yes you want to fix it well trust me if you hire me and many more network specialist you can DEFINITELY BE REASSURED that anyone being herrassed or treated unfairly will be booted off! Any one sending any inappropriate videos to people will be booted off! I DON”T KNOW HOW MANY TIMES I WENT ON THE PUBLIC POSTS & ON MY INBOX and saw inappropriate videos! And a week later they were still in the Public Post Q. You guys have no rights to be running this site! I could make this site MUCH BETTER with the assistance of 2 or more network specialists HECK WITH ENOUGH TIME I COULD RUN THIS SITE ON MY OWN!
The fact is you guys cannot just THROW PEOPLE OUT that have been using your site for 2 – 3 years like me and many others! Trust me if you guys got off your butts NO i mean stayed on your butts and used your fingers more on the keyboard and mouse youd be able to find negative remarks, negative videos ALL WITHIN THE PUBLIC POSTS SECTION!!!! Theres a difference between the FREEDOM OF SPEECH and HURTING peoples feelings! AS WELL AS A DIFFERENCE BETWEEN sending a video to talk to people & SENDING NEGATIVE/PORNOGRAPHIC VIDEOS to people on a site thats MEANT FOR “JUST TALKING” so trust me if you did your job this site could be back to its original self!
October 12, 2009 at 10:18 am
Joshua
Thanks for your note. I agree that a social networking site, or a site with public content needs to make sure that they are constantly monitoring and banning people who post inappropriate content. During the time we had Public Posts we did have someone doing this role full time and we did consider other ways to moderate and “police” Public Posts. However, we decided that Public Posts was not “our job”, as you put it.
We decided that “our job” was multi-party video chat and specifically the ability for people to video chat live with people they know. As such we removed Public Posts. Our decision was a strategic one, not one based on the issues going on with Public Posts.
I know that there was a small community of people that were using Public Posts who will miss them, but we had to make a (difficult) decision that was in the best interests of the majority of our users.
Micky
October 8, 2009 at 4:12 pm
tokbox is nothing without public posts, we need them back. no one goes on here anymore because of it. this site is kinda terrible now.
we cant even comment anymore.