PSA -- open beta payment problems

[piranha]

there were several problematic bugs:

people who tried paying by credit card without having a paypal account were unable to.

people who had no account yet couldn't buy an account at all.

people logged in with openID couldn't buy an account.

if you tried to buy an account and got an error of any kind preventing you, open a support request in category: account payments.
if the problems prevented you from buying a seed account, this will be taken into consideration.

also, there are now extra sales offered for seed accounts because of the problems. see http://dw-news.dreamwidth.org/5202.html.

Comments

[ckd]

Bleh. I've already cut a check instead (did that before I saw this); I'd rather do that than deal with PayPal, and I won't have good connectivity for tomorrow morning's sale.

Eh. Shit happens.

Re: PSA -- open beta payment problems

[piranha]

yeah, that was a bummer. damn.

but rah will make up for it:
http://dw-news.dreamwidth.org/5202.html

Re: PSA -- open beta payment problems

[ckd]

At this point I've done my bit and it's in the hands of my bank (competent), the US Postal Service (er...) and Dreamwidth (probably capable of opening, cashing, and correctly attributing a check which has my order number on it in three places: the account number field, the address, and the memo field).

As I said, shit happens; in competent organizations it gets fixed (which they are doing) and any customer difficulties handled well (the additional account sale next week qualifies to me). I don't particularly hold this against them, but I'll be watching for future "incomplete testing" problems just in case.

I just posted this elsewhere

[kore]

Actually, I was expecting at least SOME borkage on their opening day, given the sheer volume of people who want in, and they were absolutely on top of it, handled it v transparently and professionally, and were on it with both feet. I'm v impressed, particularly by them setting up another sale of Seed accounts and how fast and consistently that was announced. None of this "we didn't screw up, who are you gonna believe, me or your lying eyes" bullshit, just, "Yeah, this was borked, now we fixed it, let us know if anything else is fucked." Kudos.

Re: I just posted this elsewhere

[piranha]

yeah, i thought that showed really well that the talk about transparency and communication isn't just cheap lip service.

we had a whirlwind of volunteer support in the IRC channel, splitting out the work on comms, support requestrs, and twitter. it was awesome. :)

[hobbitbabe]

And it's really not fair for someone who didn't buy a seed account today because I haven't enough money to think "Oh! If I have more money by next week I bet I could squeeze in!" But I am certainly tempted.

seed accounts

[piranha]

*heh*. well, yeah. but paid premium gives you all the same features, and is cheaper, at least for 5 years. and 5 years is a long time. really, seed accounts are not all that good either for the site or the user. rah wrote a long post on that a while ago, which i'd link you to if i had a brain left.

Re: seed accounts

[hobbitbabe]

Ah, good point. I can feel virtuous about continuing to support them. (I bought a year's worth of ordinary, to start with.)

Re: seed accounts

[piranha]

yes you can. it takes both starting capital, and continuing support for a site like this to be able to run well.

Re: seed accounts

[djm4]

"wrote a long post on that a while ago"

Darn. Wish I'd read that before I got seed accounts for sashajwolf and myself.

Re: seed accounts

[piranha]

it's not like the seed accounts aren't welcome at this point; they're necessary to provide the running capital for this next year -- you should have seen the squeeing last night when denise and mark realized that people really did believe in them in and their concept in great enough numbers to want to seriously support the new company.

it's one thing to imagine you can make a go at it, and another to see it happen for real.

so exciting! :)