Be Careful Where You Drop

I went back to dropping Entrecards last weekend. I kinda stopped dropping for a few weeks. Well, there’s no particular reason why I stopped dropping, I just kinda did. I guess I was occupied with other things besides dropping Entrecards everyday can be boring and tiresome. LOL! The time off kinda made me miss Entrecard and its community.

Last weekend, I started dropping once again and I just used my Drop Inbox to reciprocate the drops made by other members on my Entrecard widget. Now, as I was dropping my cards I encountered a new Entrecard widget message. You see, instead of getting Thanks, Wicked, Alright, etc. I got a message that tells me that the member no longer exist, sorry if I forgot the exact message.

As I went on with my dropping, I found a blog that was banned from Entrecard for dropping, a particular number of times, on an already non-existing Entrecard blog. I’m talking about this blog, Something From Some Unfamous Body.

I got interested because I just unknowingly dropped my Entrecard on an already non-existing Entrecard blog. Why unknowingly? Well, because there was no indication that the blog was already deleted or removed from Entrecard and I was just, you know, reciprocating.

This find made me check Entrecard Forums and, in one of the thread, I found a post from PhiRatE which states, “Using low-update, externally-provided lists is dangerous really – it’s all too easy to hit a sequence of deleted blogs that have left their widget up and end up on the bad side of the security system.”

I PMed him about it and suggested that deleted blogs should not be able to display the widget anymore since they’re already deleted. My concern was, people (like me) might accidentally drop their cards on those deleted members’ Entrecard widgets which might trigger some security thingy within Entrecard’s system and be punished for cheating.

For example, today I encountered another one but I got suspicious and checked the blog first if it’s still in Entrecard before dropping my card on its widget. Good thing I did, because the blog was already deleted from Entrecard. The blog I’m talking about is Jesse Stark.

I’m betting that there are many blogs that are like Jesse Stark. Deleted but not after them dropping their cards on your Entrecard widget and if you are the reciprocating type then the chance of you dropping on their Entrecard widget is quite high.

Anyway, my point is that if a blog was already removed from Entrecard then those blogs should no longer be able to display the widget so that members won’t accidentally drop their cards on them. They can also like change the default “DROP” text on the widget to something like “DELETED BLOG” or “DOES NOT EXIST” or “NOT A MEMBER” for deleted, banned or removed Entrecard member blogs.