Those Forced ezboard Migrations…

For a while now, the staff over in the yuku help forums [sic] have been claiming that there are no forced migrations of ezboards over to yuku and that they have to be requested by board owners.

If you recall, I mentioned this back in September.

Now you should bear in mind that:

  1. ezboard, Inc. has yet to reveal pricing for ad. removal from yuku boards; and
  2. yuku is still in beta, which is the excuse they always trot out when somebody complains that something isn’t working on yuku
  3. ezboard, Inc.’s Help Wiki still says Do I have to switch to this next version of software? No, not unless you want to.” and Do I have to move my board to yuku.com domain? No, you do not have move to yuku.com.”

Of course, being ezboard, it appears that the truth and the statements at item 3 above are mutually exclusive…

Or what about this?

Will my ezboard forum be switched over without my consent?
No, boards will need to be switched by the admin. At this stage, they will not be switched over by our system if you do not initiate the switch.”

So nothing to worry about then.

Oh dear. “ezdollar”, presumably someone working for ezboard/yuku, writes:

“My understanding is that they are now migrating some small batches of boards without the owner’s request, but, a few days before migration, those boards should display an Important Announcement at the top of the board, stating that it will soon migrate.

“If the developers had been able to write an upgrade for the ezboard program, it would have been sent out to all servers and no ezOp would have had any choice whatsoever about whether to use the new version or not or when to make the switch to the new version. The upgrade would have happened virtually (if not literally) overnight. This is really no different than a major ezboard upgrade, except that, in effect, ezOps have been able to choose to go to the new version early, and the upgrade is being done gradually instead of overnight.

“Migrating your account to Yuku has nothing to do with board migration.

“Having Gold or not having Gold has nothing to do with migration.

“As I keep saying… if you have issues with Yuku, you have to take them up with Yuku staff by posting at Yuku Support or opening a Yuku Help ticket. We may feel your pain, here, but we simply can’t help you with most Yuku related issues here.”

So that confirms that they are indeed moving boards without the owners’ say-so. And it makes no difference if they’re Gold - with no ads. - or non-Gold. I bet gold communities won’t be very happy when they start showing ads. … which is due to happen soon, no doubt, as they have recently confirmed they are finally working on yuku versions of gold communities and ezsupporter which should be ready for testing within a month or two at the latest

So there you have it: forced migrations despite what they tell you elsewhere. Forced migrations from release code (if buggy) to beta code (very buggy and incomplete). What a way to treat your long-suffering customers!

Oh and still no word on whether they plan to actually share revenues with board owners as ezboard, Inc. CEO, Robert Labatt, promised. And where is Mr. Labatt? Incredibly silent, even for him…