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Comment by natural219 | Hacker News Reader

This seems like an issue best resolved through Dropbox support, not through HN Soapbox support.

Edit: My main point is that I come here to read Hacker News, not Some Other Guy's Support Problems. Treating every dropped use case as a public relations crisis is just an exercise in getting yourself worked up for no reason. If this is a real issue that affects multiple, real users, then I'm sure Dropbox will do something about it. For now, I think it's reasonable to treat it as an oversight until we have a response from Dropbox or more information. Unless, of course, you're the type of person that just likes to get pissed off at companies. In that case, I should probably find another community to read "hacker news".

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This is not an 'issue'. This is documented behavior that is not immediately obvious to a general user. As a start-up forum where we have many of them using the 'teams' feature, I think it is relevant. Your idea of not enlightening people about a serious issue on a public forum for everyone's benefit seems scary at best.

The OP says he did that: "I tried contacting Dropbox on twitter and using their site’s support contact form, and they have not yet gotten back to me."

There is a place for public notices of foul play by companies, certainly. Normally, though, those accounts garner my sympathy when they explain the full support story and get snubbed by a represenative, usually after at least some waiting.

Not saying that the OP didn't wait plenty of time, but I would find his complaint more compelling if he would have mentioned how long ago he contacted them.

> There is a place for public notices of foul play by companies, certainly.

Why does there have to be foul play involved? Security holes largely exist because of negligence. As do poorly-implemented features. Not everything that is harmful is a result of evil manifesting itself.

I agree -- foul play was the wrong word choice.

I presume you are a dropbox employee. You seem to be staunchly defending dropbox to everyone who argues in support of this 'issue'.

I actually dislike Dropbox immensely, but thanks for presuming.

Confidential discussion with the company seems like the best option -- if you're Dropbox. To Dropbox's users, immediate and full disclosure is the best policy. The bug reporter needs to choose between these extremes based on the nature of the bug and I think you're oversimplifying matters by claiming the bug reporter should always cater to the company's interests (even if professional courtesy demands granting them some leniency).

Factors suggesting immediate disclosure is appropriate:

1) High benefit of informing users (high severity bug, easily avoided if you know about it)

2) Low impact of misinformation (most of us will check back to see how the story unfolds)

3) Bad faith on Dropbox's part (they knew about this, they knew how much their customers would benefit from disclosure, yet they failed to carry through)

This is how Dropbox supports teams. It's absolutely awful, and I hope more people are made aware of it, because they really need to fix it.

I don't have a lot of trust in Dropbox caring about the casual users. [Votebox] is filled with suggestions around 3 years old that have generally gone unaddressed. And this is probably rationalized as "Dropbox works 'good enough'".

So, I'm not convinced Dropbox will do anything unless it is a "PR crisis"/publicly handled. They have their own earnings driven goals and I don't think discontinued Team members will blip on that radar. Maybe if it significantly inconveniences Team admins, but that doesn't appear to be the case - admins don't lose their data and it seems like they only have to click a button.

However, I'm not saying that this is an issue that should have been publicly addressed. I'm just saying that if it weren't, I wouldn't expect much action to be done on it.

[Votebox]: https://www.dropbox.com/votebox/all#votebox:popular:0

Actually, I prefer this be resolved in the public arena, rather than on a case-by-case basis for everyone who encounters this problem. If the OP is accurate, then this is a problematic implementation detail that every corporate user should be aware of.

I give some leeway for problems that seem to be bugs rather than intentional features. I doubt Dropbox intended for your account to be deleted in this scenario.

You should probably read the article before speculating. It's not even that long. He says:

"In case you’re wondering, this is not a bug: it appears to be documented (sort of)."

The wording of their FAQ suggests they are aware of this. From the OP:

“If someday you leave the team, it may not be possible to convert your Teams account back to an individual account that you can access.”

Don't you think that the great majority of the problems should be solved publicly? Unless the problem has sensitive data I think there's no reason to use a one-to-one support channel.

In the OP's case, where the unexpected feature was already officially alluded to, sure. But I think there are probably some unintentional security holes in which it's probably prudent to use a private channel first, and then after it's been fixed or a reasonable amount of time, disclose the problem. The problem, IMO, is worth disclosing publicly even after it's been fixed because it may be indicative of problematic internal practices that may require public scrutiny (or humiliation) to actually fix.

Specifically, yes, but big picture, I think the interest here is that so-called cloud storage is not a silver bullet. There are real issues, problems that need solving (opportunities) and people need to be careful.

Treating every dropped use case as a public relations crisis is just an exercise in getting yourself worked up for no reason.

Whether or not it's a PR crisis, it is at a gotcha that is worth knowing about.

Unless, of course, you're the type of person that just likes to get pissed off at companies.

Reading this didn't make me pissed off. DropBox made a mistake, which I assume they will fix. In the mean time, reading this made us better informed and safer.

I come here because smart people say interesting things about some topics that I find fascinating. I try not to bring a preconceived notion of what is and isn't a legitimate topic of discussion.

Too, support boners like this one are illustrative, and can spur good back and forth about design.

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