Now I'm home again, after a nice weekend in Porjus. Since I've been in a bad shape for a while, I didn't have the energy and inspiration stay very long. Instead, I went back home directly after the birthday party yesterday night. But it was still a great night with lots of laughter and a few tears as well. There were old friends of my father, as well as neighbours and of course also family members and relatives of all ages. We all had a great dinner, heard several few of dads classic stories and just had the good time I hoped to have. Thanks everyone for a great night!
Bad shape, yes…
I will write a longer post about this in a few days, but I still want to write a few paragraphs here so that people understand why I have been hard to reach for a while - and why I may be hard to reach over the next couple of days as well.
Since the end of February, one or a few members of an interest group have been contacting me regarding a blog that they were strongly offended by. The blog was not mine, and it was written by an anonymous writer in a language that I don't understand. At first, I didn't know what the site was all about, but I could see that the site was built with WordPress and a theme that was partially based on one of my website templates. It was also obvious that this group did not agree with whatever the blog wrote, and that they thought that it was my blog since my name was listed in the design credits in the site footer.
For about three weeks now, I have tried to explain that the site is not mine - and that I have no contact information for the site owner. I have also explained that I did not even create the theme, only the original website template which the theme was based on. I have repeated the words from my contact page, writing the line "I can't answer for any other site than my own" over and over again. But the group does not accept that simple fact, and their messages have grown from being angry e-mails into being ugly and detailed threats and disturbing images and video clips. They still consider me personally responsible for the content of the blog - even though it makes no sense at all. I wrill write more about this later, for now I'm focusing on the simple background.
I tried to end the communication by explaining that I did not want them to contact me again, as it was a waste of time if they couldn't accept my explanations. But I have got more and more messages - and not only in the e-mail inbox. I have got direct threats over the instant messenger as well, and when the phone started ringing and I started getting SMS messages about that blog, then it had gone too far.
The final notice
I usually don't want to go public with misunderstandings like this, since it is not a fun topic to write about. But with this explanation I am also providing one last chance for the group to stop contacting me. If I get as much as one more message from the group, or from any of its members, or from any other people that the group have asked to e-mail me only to agree with their opinion, I will write out all the details so that all my readers will find out who these people are and how they work.
I know that they don't want that to happen, they have threatened with "punishments" if I would "declare war" (as they call it). Now, no matter what they believe about me, they get this final chance: Stop contacting me, the discussion ends here. Ok? Good.
End of discussion.
Catching up
The stress and all the worrying made me sick, and I couldn't get much work done last week. That resulted in several failed deliveries and disappointed clients, and it has seriously hurt both my reputation and myself. This means a lot of extra work, explanations, apologies, reduced income and lost projects. The next couple of weeks will be rough, no doubt about that. I need to make a number of changes to the templates, to my contact page and to my site in general to make everything even more clear. And I need to deliver the projects that are delayed.
I have no idea when I'll be back by the computer and working as usual again. Hopefully, if the group would step back now, I could be back in a few days. I also hope to get a new mobile phone during the week, and as soon as I get it I will abandon my old phone number and get a new one. I hope that I will be able to keep my e-mail address and the contact form online in the future as well, but if there are still problems with those things I will probably go for an update there too…
As promised, I will write more about this in a later post. I will not write more about the people who are responsible about this situation, unless they continue to waste my time. Don't ask about them, or about the blog. But feel free to write about your own experiences from similar misunderstandings. I know I am not the first web designer who has this problem, it is common among template designers and theme coders. Feel free to post a comment if it has happened to you, and share any tips and ideas that you may have!
Edit (March 20th): Case closed!
I did get one more message from the group, but it was a good one. I did not get any kind of apology, but atleast a promise that from now on they would "make sure to contact the site owner rather than the site designer". They are obviously still believing that I am the "site designer", but the only thing I care about right now is that they leave me out of the discussion for good. I have got their word on that, so I will leave this story behind now and put my energy on better things.
Thanks to everyone who have sent feedback, advices and shared their own experiences! It was not fun to find out that many of my friends and colleagues have experienced similar situations without ever going public with it. This needs to be discussed further to find good ways to avoid similar problems in the future…
