Today is the 10th national Safer Internet Day. Celebrated in more than 90 countries worldwide, the day promotes safe, responsible use of Internet by children and young people. This year the theme of the day is online rights and responsibilities with the slogan “Connect with respect”.

That is a good rule to remember for adults too, especially in online communities such as WOT, where people of different age, background and cultures meet. To make it pleasant for all to work together for safer Internet, treating others with respect is very important.

What could “Connect with respect” mean in the context of WOT? Here are some ideas:

When rating sites

• Your ratings help other users stay safe on the web. Rate all sites that you use and know well, especially if the site does not have a reputation yet, or if the confidence of its reputation is low.
• Keep in mind that a poor rating can be very damaging to the site owner. Stand behind your ratings, and do not give them on a light basis.
• If you have the mass rating tool in your use, make sure to use it with careful consideration, and verify the sites you rate.
• Take part in discussions on the Site evaluations forum to help site owners solve problems with their sites’ reputations.

When taking part in the forum discussions and leaving comments

• Use polite language and maintain a friendly tone, even when disagreeing with someone.
• If you have a question, please respect others time by looking for the answer in the WOT Wiki or in the Support section before posting on the forum.
• Do not spam. Spamming is simply annoying.

Check the forum guidelines for more useful advises.

If you are a site owner and post a site evaluation request

• When you post the request, be polite and stay on topic, even if you are upset about your site’s reputation. If you have recently made improvements to your site, make sure to let the community know about them and why you think your site now deserves a better reputation.
• The WOT community is volunteering their time and effort to respond to you request and giving you valuable feedback. Appreciate it by taking part in the discussion and answering questions they might have.

Do you have other suggestions on what “Connect with respect” could mean in the context of WOT? Please share them on the comments!




Happy Safer Internet Day to all!




“Respect is a two-way street, if you want to get it, you've got to give it.”
― R. G. Risch

Noticed anything interesting on our front page? Not…? Look again!

The counter just passed 60 million downloads!!!!

A year ago about this same time we reached 30 million downloads, so in twelve months WOT has doubled its downloads.

Users come from everywhere. Some time ago we made a poll and asked you to guess where you think WOT would NOT have any users. Most of you guessed North Korea, but that was incorrect. WOT does have users in North Korea, in East Timor, in Nauru, as well as in the Vatican. One of the very few places without any WOT users is Tuvalu, a small Polynesian island nation located in the Pacific Ocean. So, if any of you know anyone in Tuvalu, please ask them to download WOT. We want Tuvaluan people in the community too!

Earlier this month WOT also reached another important milestone: 40 million rated sites. That means a lot of work for the community. 40 million rated sites is a great achievement and please keep up the work: rate sites that don’t have a rating yet, and also sites that do have a rating to increase the confidence of their reputation. Your ratings helps other people from landing on an untrustworthy sites and get the best out of the World Wide Web.

Thank you, dear community, for helping achieve these two important milestones!

Also read the press release Web of Trust Hits 60 Million Downloads Milestone.

Dear community,

It is time to announce the recipient of the User Awards 2012!

We thank you all who submitted your vote for the Member of the Year category. Also, we thank you all for your contribution for the Safer Web during 2012. Please note that these awards are to keep up the good spirit, and are not to be taken too seriously. All community members are equally appreciated!

The first three categories were based on activities on the forum. The competition was strict – many of you would have deserved an award. You are all winners, but only one receives an award in each category.

The Most Active award goes to the user that has started most forum discussions – brought new online threats to light and maintained an active discussion within the community. The award goes to evilfantasy.
The Problem Solver award goes to the user that has replied most to site evaluation requests – helped site owners to deal with problems with their site’s reputation. The award goes to shazza.
The Techie award goes to the user that has been active on the support forum – helped other users with technical issues. The award goes to c۞g.

The winner of the fourth category, Member of the Year, was based on your votes. Each registered user had one vote.

The award went to the person that you thought deserved it for being active, helpful, and respectful to others, and helping the community work together with a positive attitude. The award goes to c۞g.

Several community members received votes, but we do believe the person who finally got most of them does fill the criteria very well. Thank you all who submitted your vote!

Warm congratulations to the winners, and thank you once again for taking part!

We are getting a massive amount of user-generated content in different languages. The versatility of languages is richness, but they are a bit tricky to understand if you don’t happen to speak the language in question. Therefore, we have added a new feature to help our users communicate with each other.

The new feature translates scorecard comments, forum discussions, and board messages from French, German, Italian, Polish, Spanish, and Turkish into Russian or English, which are the languages that our site is currently translated to. You can also use it to translate from Russian to English and vice versa. Simply press Translate and it will show the text in the language you are using the site.

The feature is provided by Yandex Translate. Спасибо!

Question: If you were to learn another language, which language would it be?

We have heard reports of some site owners receiving emails promising a good reputation in exchange for money after posting a review request on the WOT forum. These emails are a scam, and have not been sent by WOT.

WOT never sends promotional email after you request reviews, and does not sell reputations. Each website has to earn their reputation, which is determined by user ratings and trusted third-party sources. WOT Trust Seals are only available to sites that have already earned their good reputation.

We are currently investigating the source of these emails. At the moment, it looks like they originate from Ukraine, and the motivation is either to scam unsuspecting site owners, or to tarnish WOT’s reputation. The latter is also known as joe jobbing.

Note: The people sending these emails find the site owner's contact information from their websites. Nobody has access to the email address in your WOT profile.

Here's an example of a fake email that was reported on the WOT forum:

[name], congratulations on becoming a member of the Web of Trust community! We noticed that your current rating can be improved. By installing one of our Trust Badges on your website, you can improve your reputation and get the good rating that your web site deserves. The cost is only 1600 Euros for one year.

Just follow this link to get your Web of Trust badge:

Sign Up for Web of Trust Badge

Sincerely,
Michel Suome, WOT Services

If you receive an email offering to improve your reputation, please send us the full email, including headers (or post it to the forum), and ignore it. Never pay anyone to “fix” a reputation!

How to recognize the scam email

• The email suggests it’s possible to pay to improve a reputation. This is not possible under any circumstances.
• The From address is not from mywot.com. Note that this is easy to fake, so the sender address should not be relied upon, but a non-mywot address is an obvious sign of foul play.
• The email is sent to a different address than the one you used to create your WOT account, or was posted through your website’s contact form. It also may not mention the name of your WOT account.
• There are links in the email that do not point to mywot.com. Never give your personal information or credit card number to these sites.

More advanced users can also look at the email headers to find out from where it originates. If you are unsure about the authenticity of the email, ignore it.