Happens to the best of us--My Blogspot was marked spam shortly after I started it. I wasn't locked out, but I had to do a Captcha to post on my own blog. Asked for a human review, and they fixed it, despite gun content.
Apparently, if someone complains to Google that a blog is a spam blog, their default action is to lock it up. They'll only do a human review if the owner complains.
Apparently, lefties have been taking advantage of this "feature" (I would call it a bug) to shut down blogs they don't like.
Remember, it's a free blog. don't expect much. If they didn't think they could leverage the content you generate, they probably wouldn't offer free blogs.
Here's a post I did a bit ago about the expense it cost me to pay for my own blog. The synopsis is that it costs me about $25 per year total. That includes owning my own domain name and a bit extra for privacy service. If you don't want your own domain then the cost drops to about half.
If you're a bit more popular than me, every gig of bandwidth is about a buck more. I use about $3 per year right now.
If you're pro-RKBA, and I've seen you before around on the Interwebz, I'd be willing to setup WordPress for you. You get no design work (take a look at my blog), but at least you don't have to hope that blogspot, haloscan, and photobucket are all working and still willing to give you free services.
Your out of pocket costs just to see if this is the right thing for you should be less than $2, maybe even free
I'll put a post up over on my blog within 24 hours with a few more details and an email address. If you can't wait, just leave me a comment on my blog.
Thanks for the offer, but there's five years of archives here, and there are a lot of links to those archives out in the blogosphere. Plus over 14,000 Haloscan comments.
Blogger works just fine. I understand the last release of WordPress wasn't all that wonderful. Nothing's perfect. But until Google forces me off, I'm staying.
It's about ownership. All those inter-relating posts, comments and links are exactly the point. They're data and they're not your data until you control them. Migration from BlogSpot to a freestanding WordPress site would be a big project - but do-able. Many have already done exactly that so there's plenty of info around on the process and planning. Also, you could keep BlogSpot as an archive and fallback. As to the last version of WordPress, my younger son and I are now in the process of upgrading from 2.2 to 2.6 and we don't see any real problems with the version. I've been using WordPress since 1.5 and it has done nothing but steadily improve.
Kevin, you might want to look at WordPress further. Don't take it from me, as I know diddly about administering blogs. But I did read this. It could be that a complete migration to WordPress is easy. Apparently it's safe and free to find out.
That link would be to a blog hosted at WordPress.com - a free service with extra features available for a price. WordPress.org is where you get the free software to run your own freestanding blog on your own domain. The first is a pretty good deal and works well - certainly better than BlogSpot IMHO, BUT has the same problem with control of data I mentioned above. The second has costs for domain and hosting but is much more flexible and powerful. My site is run on WordPress but not as a blog but more like a content management system and front end for an estore. We'll probably be taking the updated site design on WordPress version 2.6 live in about 2 weeks.
Note:
All avatars and any images or other media embedded in comments were hosted on the JS-Kit website and have been lost;
references to haloscan comments have been partially automatically remapped, but accuracy is not guaranteed and corrections are solicited.
If you notice any problems with this page or wish to have your home page link updated, please contact John Hardin <jhardin@impsec.org>
JS-Kit/Echo comments for article at http://smallestminority.blogspot.com/2008/08/dont-be-evil.html (12 comments)
Tentative mapping of comments to original article, corrections solicited.
Happens to the best of us--My Blogspot was marked spam shortly after I started it. I wasn't locked out, but I had to do a Captcha to post on my own blog. Asked for a human review, and they fixed it, despite gun content.
Apparently, if someone complains to Google that a blog is a spam blog, their default action is to lock it up. They'll only do a human review if the owner complains.
Apparently, lefties have been taking advantage of this "feature" (I would call it a bug) to shut down blogs they don't like.
Bubblehead at The Stupid Shall Be Punished also got locked out. Same deal--needs a human review. And his posters report similar occurences as well.
Thanks for mentioning this.
Seems I am in good company as "The War on Guns" is also locked out.
Sounds like more of the the Tolerance®, Love of Diversity©, and Reasoned Discourse™ the Left is so well known for.
UPDATE: Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity. It would appear that Google's FU is equal-opportunity.
(Maybe Silent America has had enough of the partisanship of both sides?)
It's not just political blogs. Mommy blogs, knitting blogs, sports blogs...
Google probably just uploaded new Splog-finder software and it's run amok.
Conspiracies are more fun, tho'...
I moved from Blogger to WordPress in June and never looked back. Blogger is a good place to start, but it's still rife with bugs in my opinion.
Remember, it's a free blog. don't expect much. If they didn't think they could leverage the content you generate, they probably wouldn't offer free blogs.
Here's a post I did a bit ago about the expense it cost me to pay for my own blog. The synopsis is that it costs me about $25 per year total. That includes owning my own domain name and a bit extra for privacy service. If you don't want your own domain then the cost drops to about half.
If you're a bit more popular than me, every gig of bandwidth is about a buck more. I use about $3 per year right now.
If you're pro-RKBA, and I've seen you before around on the Interwebz, I'd be willing to setup WordPress for you. You get no design work (take a look at my blog), but at least you don't have to hope that blogspot, haloscan, and photobucket are all working and still willing to give you free services.
Your out of pocket costs just to see if this is the right thing for you should be less than $2, maybe even free
I'll put a post up over on my blog within 24 hours with a few more details and an email address. If you can't wait, just leave me a comment on my blog.
Thanks for the offer, but there's five years of archives here, and there are a lot of links to those archives out in the blogosphere. Plus over 14,000 Haloscan comments.
Blogger works just fine. I understand the last release of WordPress wasn't all that wonderful. Nothing's perfect. But until Google forces me off, I'm staying.
It's about ownership. All those inter-relating posts, comments and links are exactly the point. They're data and they're not your data until you control them. Migration from BlogSpot to a freestanding WordPress site would be a big project - but do-able. Many have already done exactly that so there's plenty of info around on the process and planning. Also, you could keep BlogSpot as an archive and fallback. As to the last version of WordPress, my younger son and I are now in the process of upgrading from 2.2 to 2.6 and we don't see any real problems with the version. I've been using WordPress since 1.5 and it has done nothing but steadily improve.
Kevin, you might want to look at WordPress further. Don't take it from me, as I know diddly about administering blogs. But I did read this. It could be that a complete migration to WordPress is easy. Apparently it's safe and free to find out.
Y'all have fun now, y'hear?
That link would be to a blog hosted at WordPress.com - a free service with extra features available for a price. WordPress.org is where you get the free software to run your own freestanding blog on your own domain. The first is a pretty good deal and works well - certainly better than BlogSpot IMHO, BUT has the same problem with control of data I mentioned above. The second has costs for domain and hosting but is much more flexible and powerful. My site is run on WordPress but not as a blog but more like a content management system and front end for an estore. We'll probably be taking the updated site design on WordPress version 2.6 live in about 2 weeks.
Note: All avatars and any images or other media embedded in comments were hosted on the JS-Kit website and have been lost; references to haloscan comments have been partially automatically remapped, but accuracy is not guaranteed and corrections are solicited.
If you notice any problems with this page or wish to have your home page link updated, please contact John Hardin <jhardin@impsec.org>