Stolen Orkut Forums, And Ways To Get Them Back

Note: Thanks to Ajay Choudhary for reminding me to post this.



So lets say you started a forum on Orkut, and to your surprise, many people are not only joining your community, but inviting their friends as well. Your forum blossoms into the thousands, which you continue to monitor and promote.

Then one day to your horror, you discover that somehow someone else has taken over your forum. What do you do?

There are two methods that of securing your Orkut forum (actually there are three but the third involves hacking which I WILL NOT discuss here, so don't ask). I have witnessed others using both of these, and I suggest users give them a try to see whether or not they are effective.

<-----------------Method One----------------->

Since everyone loves stories (at least I do which is why I like movies) I'll retell this event that I saw online. Note: Names have been changed in order to protect the innocent guilty those involved.

<---Story Time!--->

A girl names Shekut started a community called The Fun Forum (not its real name, but you get the idea). Shekut ran the forum for awhile, but the community grew too large for her to manage.

She then passed on Admin powers to Hekut, who took over The Fun Forum, while Shekut retreated back to the real world as Orkut was taking up way too much time.

Later on when Shekut returned to her community, she discovered it in the hands of Hackut. Now Hackut had through "brute force" acquired the forum from Hekut, claiming he was saving it from deletion by Hekut.

Hekut disagreed and claimed that Hackut was a liar (as well as a loser) and decided with the help of several friends to use their hacking powers to reclaim the forum by force. Unfortunately Google was in another round of purging hackers from Orkut, and Hekut and his gang were booted from the system.

Shekut and other members of the forum were upset about this, and tried to appeal to Google for help. Unfortunately since Shekut originally gave the forum away to Hekut (who was now banned), Hackut's authority of the forum ran unchallenged.

Darkut (that would be me) was contacted regarding this situation, but since Darkut did not work for Google, there was nothing Darkut could do legally.

Shekut then began to contact members of The Fun Forum to petition Hackut to return the forum back to Shekut. Members contacted Hackut through his scrapbook, his email and within the forum and (to my surprise) Hackut decided to give back the forum to Shekut, resulting in much celebration within The Fun Forum.

<-----------------End of Method One----------------->

As you saw in the above example, you can sometimes reason with the person who took over the forum to return the community back. In this case, that was the only alternative Shekut had, although others have used it to retrieve stolen forums, and it the person has a kind heart this method doesn't take too long.

But lets say the person who stole the forum is Jerkut, instead of Hackut, and he doesn't care for whatever particular reason. Here is a second (and faster) way of getting your forum back.

<-----------------Method Two----------------->

If your community has been hacked, and the person who dethroned you is unwilling to give it back, here are some necessary steps that should help speed up the process of reclaiming your forum.

1. Contact Google: You need to alert Google about this situation, by contacting them over here.
   
   Make sure you include as much information as possible, such as the date you started (or began administrating) the forum, the date you think it was stolen from you, and what the forum description was about.



2. Contact Forum Members: Send them an email asking them to report the illegal take over as well (with the same amount of detail mentioned above).
   
   DO NOT scrap all of your friends regarding this (as that would alert the thief) and do not ask your Orkut friends to report this on your behalf, unless they are members of the forum (as Google is more likely to believe a member than an outsider).



3. Be patient: Google employees (to my knowledge) do not spend all of their time reading trouble tickets. Most engineers (if not all) spend a large portion of their time making their pet projects better, of which the same holds true for Orkut.
   
   The good news is that if you are able to contact a Google employee fairly quickly, they will have the ability to help you out with your problem and understand your dilemma. The bad news is that due to the number of trouble tickets that they receive, you will probably not get a response back unless they need more info.


4. Secure Thy Internet: After getting back your forum (although I would recommend doing this while waiting) you should change your password on your Google account, not to mention delete any cookies, temporary internet files and cache.
   
   Also I would recommend finding a secure browser such as Opera, Firefox or Internet Explorer with security extentions.

According to Orkut Guide, (a Googler on the Orkut Help google group) Google is in the process of setting up a special forum for stolen communities.

Until then, I would recommend the methods above, as they will help "speed up" the process towards you reclaiming your forums.

Note: If anyone else has any other suggestions, feel free to post them below.

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