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leafoPinned ReplyAdmin1 year ago (4 edits)

This system lets you use itch.io for free to mass-email from a source of email addresses that we have no way to verify. We do not rush these types of approvals, as it can easily be abused for spam. The standard ticket processing timeline applies.

I understand you may be in a rush, but we highly recommend getting your account configured ahead of time if you have something this critical to your project distribution, and you are on a deadline.

I’d be happy to take a closer look at your request, but you will need to provide a Ticket ID, as described in the rules of this board you agreed to before posting.

Thanks

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Katherine Stark1 year ago(+1)

To be clear this is does not actually address the problem.

"Getting things set up ahead of time" is not a thing that seems obvious or is flagged to creators before you need to start the process, and no indication is ever given on how long it might take once it's underway. In my case it was a week before the email was approved, which was not communicated at all beforehand.

Saying that it's somehow creators' fault for not submitting emails for approval ahead of time when you give zero indication of how long it will require, and don't actually act on support requests, is not in any way useful. It's not unreasonable for creators to expect to be able to actually use the feature you provided rather than be stuck in an indefinite queue with no visibility.

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leafoAdmin1 year ago (9 edits) (+1)

Sorry for the confusion, my message was not meant a solution to the poster’s problem, but rather an explanation of how the system works, and a note for future readers about the limitations of the system.

Because it’s effectively a tool for sending unsolicited emails and attaching a key to a third-party’s email, we have to be extra careful about how it’s used and who can use it. We have reputation to maintain with our email sending accounts. There will always be a human who will need to review the account before sending mass emails can be authorized. Unfortunately the approval throughput is limited to our support team’s ability. I’m sorry it took a week to get a response for your account, typically we aim for around 1 to 3 days response time, but there may be other factors that could introduce a delay. Notifying us through another channel with a ticket ID can help to get your ticket looked at sooner though.

If it helps, after performing a Kickstarter import, you can download the email -> key association as a CSV from the import page. If you have a mechanism to email your backers directly, or they are individually in touch, you can look up their access URL via their email and deliver it to them.

In the future we might explore some other options, like allowing itch.io accounts to “claim” their key assuming they have the associated email on their itch.io account. At the moment though, this import feature is used relatively infrequently so I don’t know when we might get around to an update like that.

Edit: This now exists https://itch.io/t/2881049/new-key-distribution-method-for-kickstarter-indiegogo-and-csv-imports

I can also review the docs and on-site copy to make it clear that human approval is needed from our support team before sending an email from an imported email list, including a note about anticipating the additional delay from that.

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leafoAdmin1 year ago

I’ve added a new section to our Kickstarter docs with information about the manual approval: https://itch.io/docs/creators/kickstarter#importing-by-csv/distributing-keys-through-email

I also confirmed that there’s a notice on the email edit page as well.

If there are any other areas where you think we should communicate it more clearly please share.

Thanks

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Katherine Stark1 year ago (1 edit)

I think the thing you need to communicate most clearly is the expected time to review requests.

I've worked in webdev and 100% understand the need to keep spammers from abusing your system and the issues it can cause for your other operations if you don't properly vet folks using it. The actual process of approval was never an issue, the major problem is that you don't communicate how long this will take. For example, I am used to dealing with services with response times within a day or maybe a few at the outside. That being the case the notice you've added would very much have not solved the issue for me, which was rooted in being unaware that your approval process would take (what I consider to be) an extremely long time.

At the end of the day, though, even if you were to give a pessimistic estimate it can be incorporated into scheduling and project management.  Having something is better than nothing, because regardless of whether or not you can speed up your timetables for approval, you'll always have the issue of creator being forced to guess how much time those internal processes take.

Also, this is a side issue but worth pointing out: I actually did try to contact your support team and as far as I can tell doing so did not expedite my request. Do you have any kind of triage/priority system? The impression I got was that you handled support requests chronologically, so I'm a bit unclear how contacting support helps here.

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leafoAdmin1 year ago (5 edits)

I fully understand, unfortunately it’s hard for us to give a specific timeline for a particular support message. Once again, I’m really sorry it took so long for you to get a response.

I actually did try to contact your support team and as far as I can tell doing so did not expedite my request. Do you have any kind of triage/priority system?

I’m not sure what contact you’re specifically referring to here. We do have ticket prioritization, but it’s based on an accounts history in our system. An account with limited history might be put at the same priority as a default ticket. If you have a pressing need, it could be helpful to ping us on another channel (eg. forums, discord, twitter, etc.) like the original poster did here, as it could get your request seen by someone else on our team and checked out much sooner. I recognize that’s probably not the solution you’re looking to hear, but it is an option if there’s an emergency or a deadline. We’re happy to help give someone quicker help if needed, assuming they aren’t breaking any of our community guidelines in the process.

Thanks for understanding

Edit: Just wanted to also mention, if it may help, since your account is currently verified, future emails from other pages will not need explicit approval.

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Katherine Stark1 year ago (4 edits)

Just so we're clear: I pinged itch *repeatedly* over three or four days on twitter and got no response before giving up. I memed about it to try to pump up visibility, getting quite a lot of likes/RTs, which should absolutely have showed up on the social media manager's notifications feed. I pinged you on Mastodon and got no response. I went onto Discord and asked for help and got no response. Now, to be fair these are social media channels so I didn't *expect* any response from them in the first place, but don't direct people to them when you're clearly not monitoring them.

Edit: I'm sorry if the frustration is evident in this post but I promise you I would not be posting this and engaging with you if it wasn't a genuine issue. I did read all the available stuff on the website and on several other forums when I was looking for more contextual info. I did submit a support ticket, and got in touch with your social media. All these things you're saying to do, I did, and it didn't help - if you believe they should and they aren't, this suggests there is an issue there you might need to address internally.

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leafoAdmin1 year ago(+1)

Thanks for the additional information. I was not aware of the extent you went to get in touch with us, definitely not handled well from our end. I’ll have to revisit our logs. I see the tweets you posted now, and I appreciate the effort you put into it, I’m extra sorry someone wasn’t able to respond to you from them.

Edit: I’m sorry if the frustration is evident in this post but I promise you I would not be posting this and engaging with you if it wasn’t a genuine issue

No worries, it’s fully warranted. I better understand the frustration you had. And once again, I’m sorry we weren’t able to get back to you sooner.

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leafoAdmin1 year ago (1 edit) (+1)

I’ve gone ahead and implemented the “key claim URL” featured I previously mentioned. Everything I mentioned about email approval remains the same, but this functionality should hopefully give creators some more control over distribution without having to wait for authorization. I’m assuming Kickstarter gives a mechanism to notify backers, so you would just need to paste that single link into your message within Kickstarter.

I created a post here describing how it works: https://itch.io/t/2881049/new-key-distribution-method-for-kickstarter-indiegogo-and-csv-imports

I’ve also updated all the relevant documentation and UI to mention this new feature.

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