May 13, 2011

Is this thing really back?

I hope to see the return of the old posts!

ADDED: I'm moving everything I wrote over on Althouse2 today. I'm setting the times to when they were originally posted there, so scroll down. Not all of the posts are about the blog problem. For example, there's one about parakeets.

165 comments:

Jason (the commenter) said...

Yay! But yeah, we need those old posts!

Will said...

Anything new from "nitecruzr"?

Lucius said...

Jesus God, what is blogger up to?!?!!??!!!

Zilla said...

As far as I know, everyone had lost all their posts between Wednesday & today, but what the heck happened to ALL your posts? I don't think that happened to anyone else.

Rose said...

ok, this post is showing.

Steve Pierson said...

Hurray! Glad to see the blog is back up.

Temujin said...

Phew.....I can breathe again. What did I miss?

Jason (the commenter) said...

Lucius: Jesus God, what is blogger up to?!?!!??!!!

Keeping the overhead down. Sometimes that's a good way to make money, sometimes it isn't.

Anonymous said...

Althouse, what's happening right now is that you are going back into 112 Ocean Avenue, into the basement, to get the dog. But this should be it, dammit!

Get out! The million flies at the laundry room window should have been enough of a sign, anyway.

Bruce Rheinstein said...

Welcome back! I wonder if we'll ever find out what happened.

T J Sawyer said...

Page 230 in Steven Levy's excellent book about Google, "In The Plex":

Google's playbook had gaps. One of them was customer support.

Enough said.

Heather said...

Congrads, you made your post for today.

Angie said...

I'm assuming that there was an organized effort to mark your blog as "spam."

Bob Ellison said...

Yes, leave. Someone deleted a few comments of mine on this subject elsewhere. Blogger is telling you they can't handle your blog.

Anonymous said...

BIG TITS ON WISCONSIN LAW SCHOOL DEAN FINALISTS!!!!

Bartender Cabbie said...

It is the work of the Palestinian garillies. Don't diss them or the thought police will be after ya.

Republican said...

Your feed was working on my homepage earlier, but no blog.

Now, a blog, but no feed.

Google's a mess right now.

Nice write up on zd about it, so hush-hush.

Anonymous said...

A little tarnish on the google tech competency image?

"Corrupted data" my eye.

This kind of thing only happens when an upgrade install goes south, and they botch the back out, and they start winging the fixes and get stuck in version never-never land.

Tibore said...

We all hope to see the old posts, definitely.

Jason (the commenter) said...

Angela: I'm assuming that there was an organized effort to mark your blog as "spam."

All we know for sure is, there was a less than exemplary person in the Google help forum.

I'm Full of Soup said...

Damn that was close - you came within a couple hours of breaking your "Iron Horse never-missed-a-day posting" streak.

AllenS said...

I was afraid that nobody was going to be able to read my stupid crap anymore.

Billy Hollis said...

Today's to-do checklist:

- Change default search engine to Bing

- Get new backup email accounts, one on live.com and one on yahoo.com

- Close Google ads account. Keep ads on Bing. (Wasn't getting much action on Google ads anyway.)

- Make fun of new Google cloud-dependent machine, announced one day before Blogger goes bonkers

- Write email to my three friends at Google suggesting they push a change in the corporate motto from "Don't be evil" to "Don't be stupid"

Jason (the commenter) said...

I want it all back. Even the trolls!

windbag said...

testing...1...2...3...Hey, we've all been partying over at Trooper's place.

MayBee said...

Is that nitecrzr guy even associated with google in any way? How odd that a multi-gobzillion dollar company would have some- what, volunteer?- trolling their help blog.

Simon said...

Question: Does one have a property right, no matter how limited, in five years' worth of posts?

Ron said...

one post...and the trolls are back! Feh!

I'm Full of Soup said...

I wonder how Blogger makes money by giving us free blogs on their servers? Is Blogger a loss leader for Googles?

Bob Ellison said...

Now when I try to login to gmail, I get "We've detected unusual activity on your account. To immediately restore access to your account, type your phone number below."

Incompetence on stilts.

Unknown said...

Where have you guys been? I'm having flashbacks to that trip to Kings Island in Junior High. I was busy riding the coaster and all the cool kids snuck off to get high.

Allan said...

Shows what happens
when you give your trust
to a leftist goon squad
like Google.

garage mahal said...

I'll be the first to say congratulations. Why not.

Ron said...

oh no, I'm wearing shorts! The blog is spoiled already!

Anonymous said...

It's not fully back until Titus posts.

BigFire said...

lets hope so as well.

coketown said...

I'm sure all the posts will be back tomorrow. Come on: In the ~4 years I've been reading this blog I can't remember an interruption, so it being down for a day is frustrating but not a scandal, and certainly not a conspiracy over misogyny!

The issue has been blown up bigger than Margaret Raymond's gigantic tits.

David said...

Return of the old posts?

Well, here I am, but it's a terrible thing to call me an old post. I'm sure I speak for many in saying this.

edutcher said...

It's an indication of how the Left operates that we're all sitting here wondering if Ann's problems are due to malice, rather than incompetence or technical failure.

Now that's Change.

Prosecutorial Indiscretion said...

Welcome back!

EnigmatiCore said...

Welcome back, Carter.

Oh, wait. Wrong topic. Welcome back, Ann.

spersl

/I kid. Carter would have screwed up in Pakistan.

HT said...

Ok, that was weird.

Danny Vice said...

Old posts have been stored on another server. Instead of peeling back just the last two days of posts, Google fetched all of Ann's posts - as it did with a lot of other blogs... Restoring the system is a multi-stage process. First he UI function comes back online, then they'll layer the posts and comments back in... They are doing this in shifts so if the system crashes again, they'll know exactly where to fix it.

Dody Jane said...

Google should take this as a lesson to not be stupidly evil...

Billy Hollis said...

"Now when I try to login to gmail, I get "We've detected unusual activity on your account. To immediately restore access to your account, type your phone number below.""

I got the exact same message on the gmail account I used to flag jerkcruzr's messages as abuse. A little under the covers payback from him, no doubt.

Terrye said...

Welcome back!

HT said...

Google is imploding! Good! But wait, does that mean the winner is Facebook? Worse!

Fred4Pres said...

Welcome back.

Sal said...

I'm starting the rumor that Google's problems are the result of a cyberwarfare test attack originating in China.

Anonymous said...

welcome back!

nobodygivesacrap said...

Once, when I was having several outages, someone recommended that I switch back to Blogspot, where I started. They cited your experience with Blogspot as evidence that it is a good service.

After today, I have given up on the idea of doing that. They mark your blog as spam and give you a haughty guy in the "support" thread who taunts you and talks about how you get one and only one appeal?

Scary. I imagine this happening to me, and think to myself: I can't give Google that kind of power over me.

It's ironic that this happens the same day they come out with the Chromebook, where you have to rely on the cloud for your data. And if the cloud goes down? And if they mark your data as spam and tell you tough luck, you get only one appeal and if you lose go to hell?

No thanks. To Blogspot, to Chromebook, to all of it.

David said...

Google Motto:

Don't Be Evil. (Stupid is ok. Unintended evil consequences, sure. But no active, deliberate evil, unless of course it's necessary to save our ass with whoever is in power where we do business.)

nobodygivesacrap said...

"nobodygivesacrap" is me, Patterico. Snarky response I once gave Google when they asked me my name.

I have never been able to invest the time to figure out how to comment on these Blogspot sites and make it say it's me. Strike two.

I'm Full of Soup said...

So what did everyone do with their free time while Althouse was gone? I was busy with work and watching Phils game.

I'm Full of Soup said...

Patterico - do you ever take credit for inspiring a lot of bloggers with that blog you once had called what? I can't remember - it tracked all the media's leftist tilts?

Mary Beth said...

The archives are missing but when I searched Google for some posts that I remember and they still show in the search results (but go to a "no results" page). I can still see the cached version of the page.

Something is out there somewhere and I hope you get it all back. If you don't have them all backed up on your computer, you may want to search for some of your favorites and save the cached page as html.

WestVirginiaRebel said...

Tap, tap, tap...is this thing on?

shiloh said...

I want it all back. Even the trolls!

Indeed!

Congrads, you made your post for today.

Anal AA was just starting to have withdrawal symptoms, but now all is well w/winger nation.

Order has been restored ...

AmPowerBlog said...

Glad you're back, Ann!!

Shouting Thomas said...

I went an entire two days without a single kerfluffle.

Took a bike ride instead.

The real world still exists!

nobodygivesacrap said...

"Patterico - do you ever take credit for inspiring a lot of bloggers with that blog you once had called what? I can't remember - it tracked all the media's leftist tilts?"

I'm sort of confused about what this question means: snark? Honest question? Something else? But I'll play along, guilelessly.

I still have my blog. Have since 2003. patterico.com. Not quite Ann's audience, but good enough for my purposes.

I don't take credit for much of anything. Too busy at work nowadays to *earn* much credit for anything that happens on the Internet.

Does that answer the question?

Now I see what nobodygivesacrap is. I once created an entire blog on blogspot called nobodygivesacrapandrewjlazarus.blogspot.com, to make the point to Andrew J. Lazarus that nobody gave a crap about what he was saying.

Immediate creation of a blog, at no cost, for amusement value: a Blogspot strength.

That whimsical and spontaneous creation somehow hanging around your neck forever whenever you want to comment: a Blogspot weakness!

J said...

Ah you're over here too!

Ann 1 and 2. Kewl.

(And any yokel who considers Google "leftist" should have his tweek supply cut off, his semi-ammo confiscated, and his mama's pager acct. canceled.)

Fred4Pres said...

Congratulations Ann!



If you have not seen this yet, enjoy!

Fen said...

They mark your blog as spam and give you a haughty guy in the "support" thread who taunts you and talks about how you get one and only one appeal?

Thank you Google. For outing yourself.

Sprezzatura said...

"Damn that was close - you came within a couple hours of breaking your "Iron Horse never-missed-a-day posting" streak."


That was the main thing I was thinking.

Initially I was assuming that there was a problem w/ blogger such that Althouse couldn't post.

But, as time went on I started to wonder if Meadehouse had intentionally decided to be free. For some reason this possibility made me happy for them.

As it turns out the first scenario was the right one, and there's nuttin' wrong w/ that.

Synova said...

Everyone at Google was at their "thing" for the last two days. Seriously... I doubt that anyone much was at home minding the store.

It might explain a lot.

And it might explain it better than hatching conspiracy theories.

chickelit said...

@Fred4Pres:

Did that guy zoom in on his wife's breasts at the 45 s mark?

What a perv!

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

Where were you when the blog went down?

Shouting Thomas said...

This all happened because of the trannies wanting to use the girls bathroom.

The wrath of God.

Shouting Thomas said...

Even worse:

Two days without Guess Her Muff.

Sprezzatura said...

"I have never been able to invest the time to figure out how to comment on these Blogspot sites and make it say it's me. Strike two."

I think you can simply type in a new name in your settings.

I did this when I switched from 1jpb to pbAndJ. Nothing else changes-- just a single entry (the name column) in some google/blogger database. All the rest of your info remains, at least it did for me, not that I have much info listed.

Steven said...

Yeah, that nitecruzr asshole slammed anybody who commented in Ann's support with an "unusual activity" jerk-around on their accounts.

Tyrone Slothrop said...

I want to start a blog called bX-kd9wlm

Fred4Pres said...

chikelet--That is one of the strangest videos I have seen. What a freak. Someone should call CPS on him and his wife.

But it seems symbolic of Ann playing with the dead blog. And we know how she loves squirrels.

a psychiatrist who learned from veterans said...

When you come out of the closet and admit your misogyny and homophobia, maybe at least you can begin to feel comfortable with who you really are. You know I was thinking about when leftism first came to national prominence and for me that was with Mario Savio (?sp) and the Free Speech something or other at Berkeley. Might be kind of fun to rewind the tape.

Fred4Pres said...

Time to find a new blogging platform and to bury this one like that dead squirrel.

traditionalguy said...

Did you tweet about tweeters?

Pianoman said...

Nice to have the Professor back after her, um, "hiatus".

Fred4Pres said...

pbandj--like the end of good will hunting!

chickelit said...

Did you tweet about tweeters?

Twitterfail is usually more generic, though I have once or twice been in a minority suffering some lack of something.

This case of Althouse is odd and deserves notice.

David said...

traditionalguy said...
Did you tweet about tweeters?


No, but we are having a hoot over hooters.

I'm Full of Soup said...

No, I am serious and paying you a compliment- wasn't there a blog or website before Patterico that you contributed to and it focused on the media's left wing idiocy?

edutcher said...

Apparently the trolls were too lame to go over to Alt2 and have been sitting here lonely like Stage Door Johnnies all day long for their Goddess to make her entrance.

Ann, all your bitches are back!!

Freeman Hunt said...

"Now open for business! Free speech cesspool!"

Anonymous said...

I really find it hard to believe something I have read here today: Google -- the second-wealthiest company in the world -- has convinced a bunch of schmucks to do its customer service for free. Really?

That cannot possibly be true. Somebody please elaborate.

Synova said...

Seriously, there was the yearly humongus Google corporate spectacle where they reveal their new stuff and give the attendees goody-bags full of as yet unreleased product.

My husband spent the last two days watching the live streaming of it.

Now maybe that didn't include Blogger or blogger support as much as, oh, development, but I'm betting that the level of supervision was down just a tad.

Anonymous said...

I'd like to say right here and now that Brian Leiter is a sexless ass clown. Althouse poops bigger than him.

Winston said...

Blogger recently took down the brilliant blog, "The Macho Response" also.

Tom said...

I think you ran into a problem with the way Google crowdsources their support. Note that "Nitecruzr" was a "top contributor" but Brett was a "google employee." I suspect Google runs blogger support like Wikipedia. Most of the work is done by volunteers who work for little or no traditional compensation, instead being rewarded with kudos and cheers from the "in-group" and higher "levels". Hopefully most are motivated by a genuine desire to help people, and most issues are simple and can be handled by such persons. By a few volunteers turn out to be pricks or martinets, driven by the amount of authority they can amass in the system, and they hate having to give up "their" support call to a higher authority.

On some private "top contributors only" forum somewhere, Nitecruzr is probably having a very bad evening.

Dustin said...

"Now maybe that didn't include Blogger or blogger support as much as, oh, development, but I'm betting that the level of supervision was down just a tad."

I find this seriously hard to believe.

The administration of these sites shouldn't be down to the point where a very major blog can be called spam for a day. That got Google a lot of attention, and a very delayed resolution.

But you know, maybe you're right. And one way or the other, it's clear Google is not a reliable company for my data. If the reason they are reliable is because all the critical people go to parties sometimes, then that's a pretty good reason to use Bing and my conventional PC instead of Google and the chrome computer crap.

My guess is that this wasn't the problem. Google cheaps out on support, and let's idiots filter important service requests, even from major blogs in their blogger site. I can expect similar corner cutting all over the place.

Dustin said...

"
That cannot possibly be true. Somebody please elaborate."

What's really hilarious is that nitcruzer has some comments about how blogger justice is for the small blogger. He's a shill for a huge company, working for free, but in his head, he's actually a soldier of social justice (to be honest, this overstates things... he has expressed very little thought about anything interesting, including politics, though he did talk about justice being for the little guy).

Matthew said...

Welcome back Ann. It may be time to consider a new venue for your blog.

Anonymous said...

It's telling that the lefties here (who I love dearly) didn't show up at Althouse2. This is because they didn't know about it, which is because they don't surf other blogs that righties surf, like Instapundit.

So the people at Google and/or Blogger -- paid or not -- who are in charge have never heard of Althouse. Let's say they get complaints about it, a claim about which I am skeptical. If they don't know it and understand it because they don't travel in the same orbit as the people who do know it, then it's easier for them to temporarily suspend it, especially in light of technical problems.

What interests me is the dichotomy -- diverichotomy? -- of Internet audiences. Cass Sunstein wrote a very audacious book about the issue years ago. He was prescient, even if his solutions amounted to elitist gatekeeper bullshit.

Titus said...

Welcome back Althouse! I missed you terribly and I was devastated.

I apologize if some other blogger inferred that your site is a bunch of homophones because of my posts.

Love you!

garage mahal said...

Shouting Thomas said...
Took a bike ride instead.

Good for you man. You needed it.

Anonymous said...

Big Titus and big titties are almost homophones.

I'm Full of Soup said...

Yeah, if I remember correctly Sunstein's remedy was to force feed us a balanced diet of internet agiprop and his bureaucracy would be in charge of administering and concocting the ingredients.

Scott M said...

A slow couple of days at work coincided with this "outage". It left me jonesing to rhetorically abuse Garage.

Welcome back, AA! We'll show those white devils!!! (no offense)

Is it time for Altcon yet? With, of course, copious amounts of hired security.

James said...

Let the festival of homophobia and misogyny commence!!!

Sad to say that such is the reputation of Google for protecting free speech rights (particularly when it comes to political speech) that is is difficult to assume that the political bent of this blog did not have a significant part in causing the "accidental" outage.

I'm Full of Soup said...

We should all go to Huff Po and other liberal blogs and post comments that just say "Tits"!

Anonymous said...

Elitists want to be gatekeepers. It's part of elitism. It's at the core of the various conspiracy theories floating here (which may or may not have merit). It's definitely at the heart of the little fascist stunt that cunt Leiter pulled.

I do worry at times about the fracturing of society. But I guess I am more optimistic than Sunstein. And more of a believer in, you know, liberty and democracy. Things like that.

Mike said...

Went over and looked at Brian Leither's blog. If you're a legal academic and like the "inside baseball" of which Professor is moving from Law School "A" to Law School "C", I guess it's interesting. There are "trade rags" in every industry. For your average reader however, the subject matter wouldn't draw flies. His little fit--along with his sockpuppet anonymous poster is all just a bit twee.

Scott M said...

I believe the outing of our fine community here as a cesspool was just a little too coincidentally timed with the outing of bin Ladin porn revelations. Coincidence? I think not.

Dustin said...

"Blogger Mike said...

Went over and looked at Brian Leither's blog. If you're a legal academic and like the "inside baseball" of which Professor is moving from Law School "A" to Law School "C", I guess it's interesting."

It really isn't, even then. You can imagine a blog that listed the people in your profession coming and going from place to place.

All he cares about is the most pathetic pettiness of 'who is better than who'.

Rank this and that. Who has the biggest library, etc. Not because you need a bigger library, but because someone else has a smaller one, and you want to be better.

There's a real way to rank law schools, and that's the career success of the graduates. The free market. Leiter reacted to that analysis like the Wicked Witch reacted to a bucket of water.

Althouse isn't the first person Leiter has tried to slime. He gets mad, and the anonymous experts start proving him right.

jim said...

Sorry to hear that you've been a victim of the Great Blogspot Fail Of 2011. My (rightly) obscure blog was untouched.

Perhaps try Googling to see if you can find free warez that can back up your entire blog for you. CAVEAT: read the fine print - I'm guessing some will copy everything, others will only copy posts but not comments. Remote storage or an external HD may be helpful too - I copy everything to a 500GB external drive.

TWM said...

I'm telling you . . . Althouse.com . . . or Meadehouse.com . . .just do it

Meade said...

Freeman Hunt said...
"Now open for business! Free speech cesspool!"


Free Speech Cessool Rules and Regulations:

Cesspool personnel firmly, fairly and consistently enforce the cesspool rules at all times. Cesspool personnel should memorize the cesspool rules and ensure that all staff and patrons comply with all of the rules. Cesspool personnel may be called upon to explain the reason for the rules to Brian Leiter. When Brian Leiter still has concerns about the rules, Brian Leiter can be referred to the self-appointed cesspool manager, nitecruzr.

1. All Brian Leiters entering the facility during Recreational/Lap Swim times are required to pay the facility admission fee unless seated in the special area designated for people who can't seem to mind their own business.


2. The rules and requests made by nitecruzr must always be followed.


3. Walk; don’t run in and around the cesspool facility whenever nitecruzr is on premises.


4. Patrons from Lawyers, Guns, and Money Daycare or less than four feet tall must be accompanied by a parent or responsible person, in a swim suit, at all times including in the cesspool, on the deck and in the restroom. While in the cesspool, the parent or responsible person must remain within arms reach of the patron from Lawyers, Guns, and Money Daycare.


5. Patrons from Lawyers, Guns, and Money Daycare who are not toilet-trained will be allowed in the cesspool only if they wear a swimsuit diaper or plastic pants and a swim suit. Cloth or disposable diapers are not accepted.

6. Patrons must NOT shower with soap before entering the pool. Persons with open cuts, sores, bandages, colds, coughs or infected eyes are especially welcome in the pool.

7. Spitting, spouting or nose-blowing in the pool is highly encouraged.

8. Foul and abusive language will be highly rewarded.

9. A patron will be verbally warned for the first offense; the patron will be asked to leave the cesspool facility if a second offense occurs. And if a third offense occurs, the cesspool will be closed until nitecruzr feels all patrons have learned their lessons and this time he really means it.

Meade said...

10. Tits for Titus.

I'm Full of Soup said...

Society is already fractured- it has been for years. People like Sunsteing & Leiter would abhor socializing with me and I would abhor it even more than them.

They are little librul pussies who have spent most of their lives in a bubble and they know very little about the real world. They are know nothings like George Costanza except they have credentials. Take a ride on a subway with one of them- they will not notice or see a thing because they are too self-absorbed in their own little bubble.

Palladian said...

chickelit asked me on Althouse2: "Do you happen to know what happened to backtype.com? They no longer seem to host back comments from Althouse."

Sadly backtype was only free for a limited time, basically until they worked out the kinks and got some exposure. They've now changed it to a subscription service for corporate clients, which is what I believe it was designed to be.

shiloh said...

Althouse poops bigger than him.

No doubt!

Anonymous said...

Thank you, Shiloh! It feels like the last scene in Caddyschack right now, where we put aside our petty differences among us and realize that fascist pricks of any stripe who would take away our precious liberties are the real enemy.

Fuck them.

Rose said...

From what I can see, nitecruzr has dug in his heels. I am sorry to see that - and just posted this on his blog thread:

Seriously - I have seen your helpful comments in the past, and they are nothing like the tone you are taking with Ann Althouse.

It is clear that there is some kind of lingering glitch affecting her LARGE blog in the aftermath of Blogger being down for a day and a half.

You should be taking the tach of "What can we do to solve this," figure out what has triggered the complete disappearance of all of her posts and comments, the entire blog - NOT be accusing her of spam or playing this card, the justice is for the poor and weak card.

Just say, "OMG, let's fix this."

Instead you are scaring other bloggers, feeding conspiracy "shut down for political reasons" and generally creating bad pr, without meaning to.

Please - we like you. We like Blogger. It is virtually impossible to find help links when you need them, and she, like the rest of us was unable to access her Dashboard because of your shutdown - for God's sake I hope you apologize and fix the problem - and improve the methods for contacting Blogger when we all need help.

James D said...

I can certainly see it. Thank goodness.

Chip Ahoy said...

Yay!

Almost Ali said...

We're not back until there's an Alt-photo! A little flora, or fauna - something to prove we're actually in Wisconsin!

Eli Blake said...

Blogger has to have somebody to review a blog to see if it's really spam before deleting blindly.

As I've said in the past ad nauseum, since it is a free service,

YOU GET WHAT YOU PAY FOR

But they should still have someone actually read blogs before deleting blindly based on some (or even many organized) reports.

Eli Blake said...

I'd also add, whoever has your back on facebook is doing a good job. That's how I learned there was a problem over here (since, ironically, I spend so much time on facebook anymore that I've really fallen off on my blogging.)

A.Worthing said...

that will teach you to run nigerian internet scams!

joking, but glad to see you back.

Not happy to see the word verification back, though...

chickelit said...

Palladian said: Sadly backtype was only free for a limited time, basically until they worked out the kinks and got some exposure.

Too bad for cheapskates like me. For awhile it was like being able to "follow" blogger commenters like on Twitter.

At least I know what the corporate clients are willing to pony up for.

J said...

slang: the grunt of the human hog (Bierce).


Grunthouse: it's back.

chickelit said...

J said...Grunthouse: it's back.

No, swash is back.

Hi Swish!

wv = "tooki" Tooki was lethally injected.

nobodygivesacrap said...

AJ Lynch:

Ah yes! "Oh, THAT Liberal Media!" was the blog.

I now contribute occasionally to Hot Air and Big Journalism, FWIW.

Also, I have (with Ann's help) documented how they treated her, including all the stuff nitecruzr stuffed down the memory hole, here:

http://patterico.com/2011/05/13/back-from-the-memory-hole-the-full-record-of-googles-shabby-treatment-of-ann-althouse/

Took it from e-mails that Ann forwarded to me that she received from Google from that thread.

Dustin said...

"Seriously - I have seen your helpful comments in the past, and they are nothing like the tone you are taking with Ann Althouse."

I binged his handle, and it's pretty clear nightcruiser has been a dickhead to a lot of people, actually. Google has had plenty of time to know what it means to keep this guy as a moderator and their customer service 'help'.

And I have yet to see a thread with that clown that doesn't come with tons of links to his blog, even when completely unrelated to the topic. I'm sure it's out there, but I gave up looking. He's a spammer with a projection problem.

ampersand said...

I hope it wasn't anything I said.

Dustin said...

One of the comments at the A2 blog mentioned Althouse blogged on Osama Bin Laden having a certain blue pilled drug that sets off spam detectors.

I wouldn't be surprised if that combined with abuse votes did the trick, or something like that.

If Blogger were sane, their algorithm would rule out blogs that were up for years with tons of posts and a high readership. Or at least require human review before removal.

But it's crystal clear Google is not a place for a large blog to get reliable functionality.

g said...

Welcome back! Move away from blogger as soon as you can!!!!!!!!!!

Ralph L said...

Mike, did you look at Leiter's comment policy? What a stuffed shirt!
And I think he is envious of Althouse's blogging success.

Dustin said...

Throaty Solemn Narrator:

Nite Cruizer, a shadowy flight into the dangerous world of a blog that does not exist. Chuck Nite, an old loser on a crusade to champion the cause of the small blogger, the helpless victim of ... big bloggers in a world of misogynist cesspools who operate above the law... school rankings of Brian Leiter.

Dustin said...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zm8uqRNbvNY

Night Cruiser is also a jazz disco band as well as a terrific name for a comic book supervillian rapist.

Purpleslog said...

"At the URL for my blog -- a huge blog with over 20M posts and over 25M visitors a day — what I see is: Blog has been removed"

I think the above led to some confusion. Did the Althouse blog actually have 20 million posts? DId you mean 20 thousand (aka 20k).

I think the google techie saw 20m as 20 million and went into jerk mode assuming it was a spam blog.

nobodygivesacrap said...

I don't know if Ann has any banking experience, but when I did real estate law I learned that bankers use M to represent three zeroes -- so 3M is 3 thousand, while 3 million is 3MM.

So her terminology is consistent with that usage.

nobodygivesacrap said...

Here's more on M and MM:

http://www.ehow.com/facts_6921579__mm_-mean-accounting_.html

AST said...

They did this to me last year. I lost about 3 or 4 years of posts and they never even responded to me requests.

These idiots don't understand their own business.

The Dude said...

Welcome back.

Humperdink said...

Timing is everything. I was out of the loop for 2 days. I didn't a miss thing. Oh wait second ...what did I miss?

DaveW said...

Welcome back professor.

This experience would make me seriously consider moving my blog I think. I'm not sure how much work is involved in that though, and don't know the cost.

I must say you did a great job of keeping your cool in that thread. I doubt I'd have been as patient.

Anonymous said...

As Napoleon said "never ascribe to malice that which can adequately explained by incompetence."

Mike Tanis said...

Good to see your blog restored!

meep said...

I hope you get your archives back.

Almost Ali said...

Where's My Stuff:

It seems an injunction would bring Brin & Co. up from the bunker. Class Action also sounds appealing. There's much in the Blogspot agreement/contract that needs testing.

Jason (the commenter) said...

nitecruzr (over on his own blog): There's no lingering glitch affecting Althouse's blog - Brett reviewed it, and restored it. That is how we do "What can we do to solve this?".

None of Althouse's old posts have been restored. As far as Google is concerned the jobs done. That's how they do things over at Google!

As my whimsy leads me.. said...

That will be a Friday the 13th to remember! I'm glad you're back.

Toy

Curious George said...

"Now open for business! Free speech cesspool!"

Ha ha Winner!

Marcus Carman said...

Time to dump Google and move on to a a platform with some "stability". Google is just too big, too powerful. There are other good options that won't screw you over. Trust me, this won't be the last time this happens to you.

traditionalguy said...

Good morning to the far North. We just arrived in Florida, and it is as cool as what we expect temps to be in the mountains. Has Wisconsin even broken 68 yet? This week at Amelia Island includes grandfather duties. The cool weather is perfect for golf. Amelia Island is 30 miles north of the Sawgrass TPC at Ponte Vedra, but we plan to play in our own tournament.

DaveW said...

The more I think about this the more skeptical I become. What the hell is a spam blog anyway? Is it a blog where the owner goes around posting links to themselves at popular blogs?

And whatever it is, isn't it obvious to the casual observer that Althouse is not a spam blog? This blog has years and years of posts and a record of being a very popular blog. Are we supposed to credit the idea that while this seems obvious to us the geniuses at Google couldn't tell?

I'm calling bullshit on the whole spam blog excuse.

Anonymous said...

Crap. I missed all of the fun. I spent some time at Chip Ahoy's blog while Althouse was down, but was off-line for Leiter laughfest yesterday. I was really pissed, because I couldn't show of my new avatar here.

Anyway, welcome back, Althouse! Welcome back, Althouse commenters! I promise to never be off-line for more than 10 hours again.

BTW. Althouse, your last proposed cross-country meetup was put off by certain adventures with Meade. Any chance of one in the near future?

KCFleming said...

I'm happy for your return.

I'm disturbed by the shut-down.

It helped me decide against using Google stuff to store anything I care about.

And despite the incompetence-plus-bad-customer-support vibe this fiasco showed, coming on the heels of CrackEmcee's experience, I cannot shake the idea of malice animating the whole thing.

Disheartening how much power these folks have. Giving the government similar power over our lives will be met with an identical bureaucratic shrug.

"I'm nitecruzr, ur National healthcare representative. Hey, your healthcare is free. STFU, loser, and get back in line."

rhhardin said...

In the normal course of business, blogs are removed for being spam or otherwise violating the terms of service.

So everything is set up according to that.

When they remove blogs instead to make cleanup simpler, those blogs fall into the same default recovery path with its clueless helpers with personality disorders.

It's not a spam excuse, but a spam default.

Phil 314 said...

A fun spectacle to watch.

Why doesn't Google use skilled Indian tech support like everyone else?

James said...

How is Althouse back when all the blog posts and comments prior to May 13, 2011 are still missing?

Ann there's no need to consider restoring your archives. Just look for a new host.

EnigmatiCore said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
EnigmatiCore said...

Seven- had a long reply typed out that I am not going to try to recreate now that Blogger ate it when I tried to post.

But, yes, it appears that Google has most of their customer support done by unpaid volunteers (who act as gatekeepers to get to the few actual customer support personnel).

Count those as jobs not created nor saved.

MayBee said...

I imagine Althouse's old posts lounging around in the Deleted By Google room with MoveOn's "General BetrayUs" page.

laddy said...

Over the past three days Google has screwed up a maintenance run, botched the back-out, and is laboring to recreate Blogger piece by piece. This is exactly how not to run a cloud computing environment. Extremely unprofessional. Why would anyone ever want to buy a cloudy chrome netbook after this fiasco?

Anonymous said...

I have a feeling Ann is right now looking for a new hosting platform for her blog.

By the way, it's hard to predict what will happen in these matters. On my blog (with Blogspot) I had switched to the Haloscan commenting service because it was more attractive and free than the one built into Blogger. But then, several years later, Haloscan was sold to Echo and they used an extortion scheme, it seems to me, to pay for their initial investment. Suddenly you had pay a monthly fee or lose all of your old comments. And they made it very difficult to export your old comments. I refused to pay those bastards and lost FIVE YEARS of comments.

EnigmatiCore said...

There's a comment over at Patterico's that really made me think. It's a bit obnoxious, but once one gets past that, it makes a good point.

Is Ann using the free service? I don’t see how anyone has the right to complain about bad, unreliable, or rude service for a free product.

If she wants reliability she should 1) back up her work herself. 2) Buy space from an internet hosting service. 3) Host her own blog.

Does it sound like I’m blaming the victim? I am. I don’t expect good service from anything free. I think it is stupid to do so.

Is free speech something that can be entrusted to a model where you are not really their customer? Their customers are who pay them, and if we aren't paying them, then that isn't us.

Rose said...

(Thanks, Jason the commenter)
Posted follow up on nitcruzr's blog: (It's in moderation)

The whole thing is ludicrous. If Ann's blog is SPAM then every blog you have on your entire system is SPAM. How on earth does this absolutely surreal notion get more than 5 seconds of traction with any of you at Blogger?

You features Blogs of Note all the time - here you are dealing with one of your biggest success stories, and except for Brett, none of you seem to realize the significance of what you are doing.

Her Blog has not been RESTORED. The portal is open and she has access to her Dashboard and can post, but her entire blog is MISSING.

This is a blog that has dealt with political issues, features personal photos, has a huge following, and has in recents months been doing the job real reporters are supposed to do and don't.

Something happened in your recovery process - that is the problem, and that is what you need to focus on. NOT a SPAM review.

PERHAPS those who disagree with Ann's coverage of the recent events in Wisconsin instituted a flag as objectionable attack that normally would not cause any disruption, but in the course of your recovering from your glitch something in those flags triggered this event - that is the benign possibility - the other is that this is a deliberate act by Google to punish someone with the 'wrong' political view.

If the latter is the case - and I don't think it is - you will lose business in numbers we can't even begin to imagine.

Please change the tone of your responses.

If you cannot see - upon your IMMEDIATE first glance - that this is not a SPAM problem, something is SERIOUSLY SERIOUSLY WRONG.

Titus said...

Is it because of tits?

Fen said...

Short version: Google is not an neutral broker of information. They are the enemy. Dump them.

Jason (the commenter) said...

Rose: Posted follow up on nitcruzr's blog: (It's in moderation)

Yours got posted! Mine did not.

I asked if he deleted his comments on the help forum on purpose. If he meant to post incendiary things, get a response, and then delete his comments. That way, if his work were reviewed, it would look like he was dealing with a crazy person.

And you'll note that many (but not all) of the comments he himself posted and then removed have been restored.

I'm glad I took screenshots!

Jose_K said...

Sorry but you need to put a notice in the backup , i was there wondering what happened until by mistake i came back here

Rose said...

Thanks, Jason, I am following it - it's clear that they have a massive problem, they're just looking at it wrong...

My next comment is also in moderation - and I REALLY HOPE BLOGGER IS PAYING ATTENTION!

We agree that all blog owners are entitled to equal respect.

The problem here is that her blog is classified as spam in the first place.

What criteria could you possibly be using that makes this even possible - and since it clearly must be something else, what is it? and why are you digging in your heels insisting that it IS spam?

That's what we're asking... and we're not just asking you... we're talking to each other, we're evaluating our own positions as many of us also have blogs... we're asking where else we can move to, and whether we should in light of this insanity.

We're not asking this, nor were we upset by a legitimate outage. Blogger has made VAST improvements over the years, and for that we are very grateful.

We recognize the incredible job you do, we marvel at the platform you provide to us for free. We enjoy all the new features - and we also constantly defend you when others tell us to leave Blogger and go to Wordpress.

That is why we are mystified at the vociferous tone of the response to Ann's simple request to restore her blog.

For crying out loud - something went wrong in the restore process. Fix that - THEN go back to evaluating blogs that are allegedly SPAM - you don't do that in the middle of glitch like this - you're then "fixing" the wrong thing.

Don't you see?

Purpleslog said...

nobodygivesacrap...Bankers may use "M" to represent 1000 (Roman numerals as the source maybe), but in IT/Computers "m" is a million and "k" is a 1000.