I got the strangest email the other day from Blogger. The subject line read: "Your post titled "Friday Miscellanea" has been unpublished" Okaaaay. Which one? There are hundreds over the last several years. Here is some of the text of the email:
Hello,
As you may know, our Community Guidelines
(https://blogger.com/go/contentpolicy) describe the boundaries for what we
allow-- and don't allow-- on Blogger. Your post titled "Friday Miscellanea"
was flagged to us for review. We have determined that it violates our
guidelines and have unpublished the URL
http://themusicsalon.blogspot.com/2020/01/friday-miscellanea_24.html,
making it unavailable to blog readers.
Why was your blog post unpublished?
Your content has violated our Malware and Viruses policy. Please visit
our Community Guidelines page linked in this email to learn more.
Visiting their community guidelines page did not, I'm afraid, help. Apart from just text about music, the only thing you might find on a post here are music examples and YouTube links. Don't see how either could have been infected with malware and viruses. They suggest updating the content to reflect their policies, but I have no way of knowing which post was "flagged." And what does that mean, anyway? Flagged by whom?
This is disconcerting to say the least. There is no appeal, it seems, nor no way of contacting a human being as the email is from a "no-reply" account. So, there is nothing to be done.
If this happens again, or happens several times, I may have to simply reconsider continuing the blog. I have derived enormous satisfaction over the years, but if every post is to be subject to a draconian and unaccountable, not to mention unknowable, standard, then I choose not to participate.
Thanks to my readers over the years and let's hope we can continue!
9 comments:
Something similar happened to me a few months ago. One day my youtube channel suddenly disappeared. I then discovered, as you did, that there is no way to actually contact Google. After a day of fretting uselessly, I found that the channel had magically reappeared. No explanation given. Glitch? Shadow algorithms? Who knows. Like you, it almost put me off entirely. (Add to that all the times algorithms claim that, say, a 16th century piece I've recorded is actually owned by some record company, and that I have up to wait 30 days for the appeal to be completed!)
Yes, those putting up original musical content are even more vulnerable to ad hoc cancellation for unknowable reasons. This kind of technology has enormous benefits, but the downsides are shockingly poorly managed.
Google is evil.
Do not support google.
Use alternatives, for example
https://substack.com/for-bloggers?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=web&utm_content=footer
Also, register your own domain, and use it for your blog. This way you can switch to a different platform, and your readers will not need a different URL.
TheMusicSalon.com’ is taken, but ‘.org’ is available.
Or find even a better name
https://www.godaddy.com/domainsearch/find?checkAvail=1&domainToCheck=themusicsalon.com#
I can recommend Wordpress.com. I've run several small blogs there. If you're willing to pay a minimal fee, there's excellent (human) support available. Last time I checked, they can import from Blogger, too.
Thanks for all the good advice! I originally signed up on Blogger eleven years ago mainly because it was easy and I wasn't aware of potential downsides. I think Wordpress would be worth exploring because I would want to import the contents of the blog over.
I was sorry to see this-- but there have been Miscellaneas since so I suppose it wasn't the crisis it might have been. I think of the many times Althouse has had issues with Blogger and all the advice she's been given; the major issue with beginning elsewhere over there seemed be reluctance to give up the 'archive', an understandable concern after eleven years! I use your search box when unknown music terms etc cross my path (although 'Rorantists' the other day returned no result alas).
Listened earlier to the recording of Evgeny Kissin's 'Salzburg recital' (issue date September 2 i.e. yesterday, so don't know if it is from last season or this-- do the recording companies work that fast?), wondered if you had been able to go this year, and so decided to check in. Glad to see you keep the steady stream of great posts flowing!
Thanks for the kind word, Marc. Yes, there were no more incidents so I have just carried on. What is really annoying is that I have no idea what "Friday Miscellanea" was unpublished, so I have no idea what might have sparked it. Perhaps it was a glitch of some kind.
No, I have never discussed "Rorantists" who or whatever they are!
No, I didn't attend Salzburg this year. See "My Ill-fated Trip to Europe" for the story.
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