Bonanzle, Blogs and NOT Censored!!! All is well

We are back and unsuspended on Bonanzle. Someone jumped the gun and reported this blog as soliciting charity only. Now if we had been directly asking for funds on the forums that would be a violation. However that was not the case.

Here's the final word on blogs from Bill Harding himself :  "There is no rule against posting links to blog, even if they have donation buttons. What we specifically don't allow is for users to solicit donations on Bonanzle, regardless of where they are soliciting them from. Saying "I have this great blog where you can learn more about my kitty" is fine. Saying "I have this great blog where you can donate money for X cause" is not.
The reason we have this policy is that, prior to it, we were inundated with spammers and scammers that would try to use our forums for various nefarious causes. Obviously we like Mary a lot more than those people, but we need to apply our rules consistently for them to be fair & meaningful."

Of great importance to many of us is the issue of shipping calculators that work properly. Bill suggested that we look for a third party provider that he could possibly use. Several of us found Auctioninc. When asked yesterday Bill stated : "AuctionInc looks like it will be possible. The tech lead there has been in communication with me, just a matter of finishing up my tasks in progress before I can delve into it more deeply. Stay tuned." We're counting on you guys to make this happen sooner than later :)

And back to Lucy and her band of maniacs. Either the weather change to cool or someone spiked their water..it's turned these somewhat mellow kittens into wild cats. LOL They go beyond the normal kitten play. They are body slamming each other, running and jumping off of everything, shredding every little piece of paper they can find, jumping into garbage cans, dragging around shoes, socks or even tools from the basement. About the only thing they haven't done is grab the ceiling fan and swing. I suspect that will happen any time soon.

Who would have thought such sick little kitties would rebound so fast! And growing like weeds!

 

This is Lucy and one of her boys, he looks so much like her, all the spots and almost her size. Funny to see Lucy with a bit of a tummy considering how emaciated she was!

 

and the rest of the babies

We'll end here for today. Thanks again to all our friends for the unreal support shown in the past few days. You are the best!

Kitty Kisses,

Lucy and the Babies



Bonanzle, Blogs and Censorship... A word to the wise

Well I guess the Lucy and her babies blog has now fallen to an all time low. As many of you know there was a chip in page created for Lucy and her Kittens, upon the advice of many well intentioned people. I was so very careful not to post it on Bonanzle as it is a violation of their forum policies. Throughout time, a very well meaning friend who did not know it was a violation posted it on a forum thread. The posts suddenly began being deleted. My husband not knowing the exact rules re-posted the thread. I immediately notified support at Bonanzle and I thought they might have the common sense to realize the mistakes. I am not a newbie to the rules but my husband is.

On Bonanzle we have had a lot of fun posting pictures of Joey and Lucy and all the kids. We shared so many antics all in the spirit of giving back to all those pet lovers and especially to those that showed us so much support. There is one thread that I will assume will be pulled shortly that has nothing but discussed and showed pictures of Lucy http://www.bonanzle.com/forums/10/topics/128289 it alone has had almost 6700 views and is on the 24th page. It is now in the drama section of the forums

I now find out that our blogs are censored by Bonanzle. The night before last, I responded to a new seller that I was following her and stated :

I'm following! I need something for beyond dry sensitive skin! here's my blog http://lucyslovesong.blogspot.com/

This resulted in my being dmv'd for solicitation of charity. I'm assuming there's a witch hunt of non-pet lovers that have decided to make it their mission to follow my every move. Management has decided to censor my blog citing :

"The reason why your most recent post was disemvoweled is because the link to your blog which has a donation which ties in with the thread in Drama that we have discussed before. I know that from our earlier emails about this that that was not your intent but we need to be consistent with our forum guidelines so that we can remain fair to all. "

So be advised to pick and chose your words ever so wisely. A link to my blog has cost me a one month suspension on Bonanzle.com. Granted it is only a suspension to the forums however I suspect that this will not be the end of it. I can live without a forum..it was cute and it was fun. We were some of the first people to ever join Bonanzle and have stuck by them thru thick and thru thin. Defended and offered excuses when things did not seem right. When they said they wouldn't be doing advertising, a group got to together to try and do some advertising at our own expense..my contribution was to do 7 videos advertising Bonanzle. When the shipping calculators have not worked I have stuck my neck out as an advocate of those who's sales depended on them. I could go on and on but why bother. Bonanzle wants to be the friendliest and most social e-commerce site out there..but only at their discretion as to what you can say or think even outside the walls of their site, which is so disheartening.. So that you know, this is the Bonanzle policy that in is not listed anywhere until it hits you:

"Please keep in mind that, per the Bonanzle forum policies, your forum privileges may be temporarily or permanently disabled for repeated forum violations. Number of violations in 3-month time window Consequence

1 Warning email

2 Warning email

3 Forum posting privileges removed for 24 hours*

4 Forum posting privileges removed for one week*

5+ Forum posting privileges removed for one month*

Your current count of violations in the last three months is 6. This translates to your account being disabled from forum posting through 10/13/10."

We never received an email warning, much less a 24 hour suspension or even for a week. We got slammed for a month yet they cite they are being fair? Do they read everyone's blog's? Or have we been singled out? 

I encourage any comments on this. Feel free to sign in as anonymous as I know many are afraid of voicing their feelings out of fear. I now know how that really feels. I expect this blog will only get me in further trouble with Bonanzle and will probably be told I might be happier elsewhere.

To all the special Aunts and Uncles on Bonanzle, our Facebook followers/supporters and those on Pet Finders, again we thank you from the very bottom of our hearts. You helped to give Lucy and her babies the care they so desperately needed and without you they would have been going to a shelter with a very uncertain future. We will be continuing with this blog as it has become so popular. Bonanzle doesn't want it..so be it, it's their loss.

It didn't rain, it poured !

By the end of last week all 9 cats and kittens had signs of upper respiratory infections and possibly pneumonia. So last Friday we journeyed back and forth to the vet with the 9 of them. All did have an URI and were in various stages of developing pneumonia. Apparently it is a common bug that kitties can pick up at any veterinarian hospital. $583.00 later, we were home with 9 bottles of antibiotics, each got a shot of antibiotic, each got a vitamin B shot and we came come with 2 IV's in the event someone got too dehydrated. We're hoping the mortgage company really loves cats and understands why we didn't pay this month!

Sammy the 20 yr old wasn't looking so good for a few days. This is now Monday and all have showed signs of major improvement. Between little steam bathes, cleaning snotty noses and yucky eyes, passing out meds, special diets and just holding them..we need a vacation lol. Yesterday, all of them just slept day and night. By this morning it was like someone flipped the switch back on. Woke up to a cat fight on my head, someone lunged at Sammy and scared the P actually out of her and on to me..and so life has returned. And it better last!!