No more free hosting for Wikispaces users.

I have been a user of Wikispaces for three years now. Wikispaces is a free wiki hosting site that lets you create your own wikis and share them with the public. And I have my own wikis on the site.My latest one about Windows software and the upcoming Windows 8.Which I have put a lot of hard work into.

But when I logged into my account on Wikispaces this morning,I saw a message saying.

"Wikispaces Message-

Public wikis now require account verification. Please verify your account."

At first I though they meant verify my account with my email address.But when I clicked on the verify account link.It said that all Wikispaces users who want their wikis to remain set to public view, have to verify their account by either making a donation of $1. Or upgrading to a paid account, otherwise public wikis will be set to private view only.

And when I went onto their site Wikispaces blog this is what it said.

"Wikispaces blog.

Verifying Accounts.

So what does this mean for you?

If you are a Wikispaces Private Label customer, you won’t see any difference. These changes only affects public wikis on Wikispaces.com.
If you don’t want or need any of your wikis to be publicly viewable, then you don’t need your account to be verified.

If you already have a publicly viewable wiki, or you plan to make one in the future, you may already be verified. Visit your publicly viewable wiki. If you do not see a warning at the top of the page your account is already verified.

If your account is not verified and you would like to have publicly viewable wikis, you’ll see a prompt when you try to make a wiki Public asking you to verify your account. This will require you to pay $1. The $1 is one-time only and covers your user account and all the wikis you create. It’s the easiest and most effective way for us to identify you as not being a spammer."

See Wikispaces blog here-http://blog.wikispaces.com/2012/07/taking-a-stand-against-spam.html

So what this means is that all Wikispaces users,even those who have had public wikis on Wikispaces for many years.Will now have to make a donation or upgrade to a paid account. In order for their wikis to remain set to public view on the web.

If Wikispaces users do not make a donation,then their wiki will be restricted to private view only. And this means that your wikis will not be public on the web. And the search engines will not be able to index them. And nobody will else will be able to read them,except you when you log into your account.

I am very angry about this because I have put a lot of time,hard work and effort into my wikis. And they have been read by many people on the web. But now no
one will be able to see them. Unless I pay to upgrade or make a donation to Wikispaces.

I have never heard of this before.I can understand them wanting to prevent spam, but there are other ways to verify an account.

For a start when you join Wikispaces or any other site,you fill in the form,give your name,date of birth and your email address. And you are then asked to verify your email address. By clicking the link they send you in the email.

And some sites ask you to verify with a security question or phone or mobile phone number. Which is fair enough.

But to ask you to verify your account by making a donation,which means that you have to give them your debit or credit card details is OUTRAGEOUS.

And I and other Wikispaces users are already members of the site. We are not new users. So why all of this now?

No user old or new user should have to give their credit or debit card details to post public wikis.

It is only $1 they are asking for, but it is not the point. I do not want to give my debit card details online to someone I don't know. And a lot of people feel this way.

And I don't see why I should have to pay, or give Wikispaces my debit card details to have my wikis hosted public. When there are other wiki sites that do not make you do this.

True, I host my websites, including this one, on a custom domain. But I could switch back to Blogspot.com and host my blog for free anytime I want. Blogging sites like Blogger and Wordpress,for example, give you a choice.You can host your blog for free on Blogspot or Wordpress.com. Or buy a domain for a small fee and have your own domain name.

But if you host for free you can set your Blogger or Wordpress blog to public view or private view. You have a choice.

But Wikispaces now, will not let you host your wikis public, unless you give them you make a donation or upgrade to a paid account. And that's wrong.

Well I have made up my mind what I am going to do. I am NOT going to pay or give my card details to Wikispaces.

I have now deleted my Wikispaces account in disgust at their policy. And I am not sorry about it.

If that's the way Wikispaces want to be. They can stick it. And I will go and find another wiki site. And I think that other Wikispaces users should do the same thing.