Facebook Lets Me Back In

Just when I was about to lose it and write a crazy flaming post about facebook and how they kicked me out, I get the following email:

Hi David,

Facebook has limits in place to prevent behavior that other users may find annoying or abusive. These limits restrict the rate at which you can use certain features on the site. Unfortunately, we cannot provide you with the specific rates that have been deemed abusive.

Your account was disabled because you exceeded Facebook's limits on multiple occasions when writing notes, despite having been warned to slow down.

However, after reviewing your situation, we have reactivated your account, and you should now be able to log in. Please be aware that if your account is disabled again, we will not be able to reactivate it. Once logged in, please slow down the rate at which you write notes. We appreciate your cooperation going forward.

Thanks for your understanding,

Jackson
User Operations
Facebook

This is after I sent three different emails to them regarding the issue. The first was angry but professionally concerned, the second one was sort of a WTF?!, and the third I swallowed my pride. I said that I read their TOS and understood the (terrible) infraction that I made, but it was an innocent mistake and I'll never ever do it again. Ever never.

It appears that as long as you contact them, they wait a week, let you sweat and then bring you back. The same thing happened to Christopher Clay, the founder of Soup.io.

However, I think it is a bug and not an infraction against their terms of service. I was using the feature according their instructions. Even if facebook doesn't like the .io domain for the feed or if I previewed the feed too many times, it should not have triggered the suspension. The trigger is either set too hot or the feature is broken. Either way, it's a bug. A simple warning would have been acceptable.

The problem I have with all of this is that I was left with the real prospect of having to start over on Facebook. I had over 300 contacts, I was the founder and admin for the Oakland A's fan page, I created the Search SIG group, and I had hundreds of photos stored on the site. Let alone all the interaction and time spent between contacts and Facebook Applications. I very nearly started over because there was zero indication from Facebook that they received my email or were even considering the case. Starting over would have been a major time-suck and huge inconvenience.

I'm sure that some of you are thinking, "who cares? It's just a web site." That may be, but it's become a major communication tool for me as well as millions of others. It would be like some borg deleted your gmail, flickr, yahoo groups, friendfeed, twitter, and linkedin accounts all at once. Including all the data associated with them. Not a curse I'd wish on anyone.