Offsite shopping apps

[YowieFreak]

I don't know much about Twitter (I don't have an account) so can
anyone suggest to me how I find out who is responsible for sending out
tweets saying "buildkiva: Nuclear Spike launches the first Kiva app
that lets you shop offsite of kiva.org! http://bit.ly/ruWG2".

It's obviously untrue (Kiva staff know that people have been using one
of the KivaFriends' API-enabled applications since late June in order
to create baskets offline), and I want to nip those sort of lies in
the bud before they spread too far!

Regards,
(an irate) Ian

P.S. I wonder if I can sue whoever sent the tweet out for slander or
something. Hmmm.

[Paul]

I'm nuclearspike and it wasn't me (I never capitalize or separate my
username). You can respond to tweets to let them know of their mistake
and give a URL to your site. Trying to squash bad information on
twitter is like trying to catch every snowflake in a blizzard. Where
did you find out about the tweet? There will be a user account
associated with it and you can respond. I just tried a quick search
and it told me "Older tweets are temporarily unavailable." so I was
not able to see it.

What I think of Twitter
http://despair.com/somevedi.html

[Paul]

I misunderstood what you'd first written, I thought the "buildkiva"
was one of the # things to identify a topic, but it was the user. Just
found it. It was posted 4 days ago and only sent me 2 hits.

[michael peachey]

Hmm, taking your PS seriously :-)

First, since the tweet is written and not spoken, you probably mean
libel, not slander.

Unfortunately however, libel is about defamation of character. If
someone tweets "Ian writes buggy code", then you start having a case.
There might be an argument in court based on the defendant trying to
show thtit's a true statement, and you proving otherwise. Then you'd
also need to argue about damages. But someone tweeting a false
statement about their own product isn't really defaming you. Maybe if
they tweeted "Nyah, nyah, Ian is a dummy and we beat him to market"
you'd have something.

What you're really looking for here is some sort of Truth in
Advertising violation. You could successfully get an injunction
against them. And that would make them stop. And, if you were
marketing your own app which was earlier to market, you could easily
show grievous harm if they were to continue to make the false claim,
and probably get relief before the hearing.

All you'd need is $50k for the lawyers.

For your first question, you'd need someone to tell you who sent the
tweet. Or, find out who owns NuclearSpike.com. The WhoIs entry is
completely unhelpful here for some reason I'm not sure I understand.
But, as demonstrated in a somewhat cheesy flash movie at
nuclearspike.com, Nuclear Spike is an anagram for Paul Ericksen.

Or, just forget about it :-)

[YowieFreak]

Yeah, the lawsuit statement was a bit tongue-in-cheek, but I was
furious at seeing someone tweet this.

I also knew that it wouldn't have been Paul who wrote the tweet - he
frequents KivaFriends and doesn't seem the type of person to make
those sort of claims.

Paul suggested to me that the tweet has come from the BuildKiva userid
itself, which leaves me wondering why Kiva staff (I *think* BuildKiva
is a Kiva staff member) would make public statements that they know to
be false.

[Paul]

> Paul suggested to me that the tweet has come from the BuildKiva userid

> itself, ...

You can see the tweet here: http://twitter.com/buildkiva

(predictably, my twitter acct is http://twitter.com/nuclearspike)

Michael, yes the Flash is a bit cheesy. :) This is just a personal
server of mine that serves (well... served) no purpose other than to
hold files for me to share with friends. I threw my Kiva app on it
because it was there. I have since bought some kiva-related domains
which is where I'll house the next incarnation of the app.

Ian, that sucks that Kiva won't acknowledge your spreadsheets, they
offer an incredible amount of detail, details I feel should be already
built into kiva's site itself. I had looked through all the apps but
it wasn't until my lending group's leader told me about kivafriends
that I found out about them. In your KF message, you said you've sent
them messages, have they ever responded to you about any of it? I
definitely understand your frustration as you produce a high-quality
product and are apparently virtually ignored by the kiva staff.

Paul

[Skylar Woodward]

Hey Ian,

Thanks for the update. We actually didn't realize the FundraisingLoans
spreadsheet was updated to support assembling baskets on Kiva! In
fact, we don't have a submission from you for the FundraisingLoans
sheet at all so it's not in the App Gallery either. We try to keep
tabs on all the apps that are submitted, or those for which we get
email updates (either on this Google Group or at build [at] kiva [dot]
org). I know you're constantly improving the spreadsheets so it would
be a lot to ask to send us a notification for each major upgrade, but
it is how we become aware of the recent changes Paul and others have
made to their apps. Also, registering your app helps:

http://kivaapps.wufoo.com/forms/kiva-app-submission/

(see also: https://developers.wiki.kiva.org/Developer-Support )

I noticed you posted a message on KivaFriends in August where you
noted you wanted to update us of the new location of the spreadsheet
in the KivaFriends forum. So, having just seen that intent, I'll be
happy to update our link. However, what would help us most is if you
could submit your preferred titles and descriptions of your
applications (preferably with the form above) and we'll make the
changes using that information. I know Halle worked with you last
summer to try to get URLs and names for your spreadsheets but I only
remember there were some issues getting that information from you, not
the specifics of the problem.

And so, I think that leaves us with the issue of the tweet and the
Twitter buildkiva account. @buildkiva is the official twitter account
of the Kiva Developer Program. Thus, sparing any account hijacking or
similar abuse, all posts to this account are by Kiva staff. The
errant tweet which has been discussed in this thread was actually
posted by me. I think at this point in the letter, I trust everyone
understands it was a unintentional mistake made in an effort to help
publicize some of the hard work that Paul putting into his Kiva app.
(To add further context to the situation, Paul asked us for feedback
and suggestions on his app and the basket capability was a specific
suggestion he implemented.) Since it's practically infeasible for any
human to know all (true) facts at a point in time, you could argue
that one should never make absolute statements such as "the first app
is X." At the same time such hypersensitivity (on our part) distracts
from our true intent which is just to get the word out about more
apps. Hopefully everyone here has seen Kiva demonstrate a desire to
respond proactively to inaccuracies in our data and in our
communication, and that you would also feel encouraged that we would
correct inaccuracies in something even as trivial as a tweet. If this
is true, then we can work together as a community to increase both
awareness and integrity. We can support each other as we uncover
mistakes rather than attack each other or allege malicious intent.

Regarding the tweet in question, it would be most accurate to say "X
is the first app we've seen thus far to offer Y" Perhaps that is
rhetoric we'd use in the future, but it doesn't solve the issue of us
knowing more about new features in your app and communicating them to
people. That's something we have to work on as a community. I will
delete the most recent tweet and update it to one more accurate. Ian,
I hope that you can help us as well by providing some official URLs
and names for your spreadsheets. Many of our computers do not have
Windows Excel installed (we're a non-profit w/ a limited budget for
proprietary software licenses!) so we may also need help from you and
others to keep us abreast of the latest updates to this particular app.

Cheers,
skylar

[YowieFreak]

Publicly, I will just make a few comments re this:

1) The request to add the KivaFriends apps to the App Gallery were
sent by email (and PM) rather than via the links you gave, simply
because the links you gave didn't exist at the time of the request.
(I must admit though that the link does appear to have existed when we
emailed through the latest request to update the App Gallery with the
most recent descriptions, etc, back at the beginning of August.) It
may be an idea to update the developer website so that there is a link
to the link you gave, rather than a link to the App Gallery itself
(which will inevitably lead people to continue sending their details
through via email).

2) It is only a few weeks since we had to correct Kiva Customer
Service staff who were saying that developers had no way to create
baskets from their apps - and we pointed out that they could, and
cited our app as one which had been doing it for some time.

3) I assume no-one checks the Kiva site logs to see what apps are
doing what, otherwise it would have been obvious that baskets were
being created by API-using apps back in June. (And, out of
curiousity, I would be interested to hear which app WAS first. There
could easily have been others doing it before ours did.)