www.blogsome.com

jkangasv · Joined: 01 Jun 2009 Posts: 6

My blog, jatulintarha.blogsome.com seems to have been vanished. The browser just says: "jatulintarha.blogsome.com not on this server. The blog jatulintarha.blogsome.com does not exist on this server; it was probably deleted recently. If you believe there is a problem, you may wish to report it on the forums."

I myself have definitely not deleted my blog. So what has happened?

I have two other blogs on blogsome (valvatintarha.blogsome.com and matkapaivakirja1963.blogsome.com), and I have been extremely satisfied with blogsome. I started my first blog, Jatulintarha (the one just vanished), in autumn 2006 and have had no problems whatsoever before this.

I'm sure it's just a glitch, but what kind of glitch and how long would it take to solve?

Best regards,
Jenny

matthiku · Joined: 12 Apr 2009 Posts: 73 Location: Ireland

Hi Jenny,

You need to get hold of the Admins of Blogsome a.s.a.p. It seems that your blog has disappeared completely - it's not registered any more and available again for re-registration!

Unfortunately, there is little or no attendance by the Admins or the Site Owner in this forum, but you might be able to send an email to The Uvular R, whos email address you can find in the fourms.

If you don't have a backup of your blog, use Google cache to retain as much as possible. Something like this: http://bit.ly/71JMg

Matthy
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EEC Blog

The Uvular R · Site Admin Joined: 15 Jul 2005 Posts: 753

The blog was intentionally deleted by an administrator yesterday. It seems that a complaint was received about it, but I don't have any details of the complaint.
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jkangasv · Joined: 01 Jun 2009 Posts: 6

matthiku · Joined: 12 Apr 2009 Posts: 73 Location: Ireland

You should rather send an email to Uvular R about this...
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EEC Blog

jaakkome · Joined: 03 Jun 2009 Posts: 2

Just to get facts straight before this hits slashdot and Finnish blogs:

An user got her blog deleted intentionally and based on one complaint without any attempt from Blogsome to contact her before making the decision and without her ever being informed of the nature of the complaint or even the removal of her blog afterwards. The blog in question was written in Finnish by a well-known Finnish feminist researcher and sexual minority rights activist and it contained, in addition to personal reflection, texts about Finnish academia and her research on pornography and sexual minority issues, with the tag "porno" being used. Neither the administration or the person who made the complaint have read the blog, since they are unable to read Finnish. No comment implying any concern or cause of complaint against the blog was ever left on it. The administration does not want to comment their decision beyond

swirlwind · Joined: 04 Jun 2009 Posts: 3

I have to say, this is outrageous. Blogsome has been my preferred blog host for more than four years, but this incident makes me seriously consider moving my blogs somewhere else. It's not so much that you deleted Jenny's blog, even if you did it without any notification, since that is what we agree to when accepting the terms of service, but the fact that you are offering no explanation whatsoever to justify treating your customer so poorly. What guarantees do any of us have that you won't one day decide to delete any of our blogs, no questions asked?

I am glad you did the right thing and returned Jenny's blog. However, she (and everyone else following this case) is still expecting an explanation. Do the smart thing here and take responsibility for your actions. An apology might actually go a long way.

Also, in the future it might be prudent not to delete any blog based on a single complaint without even contacting the blog owner. That's just good customer service, which is important even for a free service provider.

matthiku · Joined: 12 Apr 2009 Posts: 73 Location: Ireland

Calm down....

The blog as been undeleted as you can see here:
http://blogsome-forum.blogsome.com/viewtopic.php?p=15006#15006
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swirlwind · Joined: 04 Jun 2009 Posts: 3

Matthy, I'm sure you agree that even though the blog was returned, it doesn't make the underlying problem go away until the reasons behind it are brought to light. I don't think it unreasonable to ask for answers in a case like this, when a blog is seemingly randomly deleted. If a service is not trustworthy, why should it be used? I for one have been so happy with my blogsome accounts that I would have been ready to pay money to use the service, but this case has made me seriously worried about the lack of transparency when it comes to Blogsome's decision-making policy. Is it too much to ask for Blogsome to assume public responsibility for the mistake they made?

matthiku · Joined: 12 Apr 2009 Posts: 73 Location: Ireland

I couldn't disagree less. Smile

However, have you contacted the site admin directly via email to get an explanation or answer?

I think the right way to resolve issues like this is to first try to deal with the issue in private, and, if that doesn't achieve anything, you can go public.

There might also be legal reasons why the admins can't come out with a straight answer. The original "complaint" might have come from a private entity or from a state and the issue might still be ongoing.

In todays climate of state-run paranoia for "terrorism", child pr0n and filesharing, nothing can be ruled out. Confused

Look at the discussion that's going on in Germany, where already more than 100.000 have petitioned against a law that is going to introduce censorship on the Internet! That might exactly be what has happened here - the question is: Was it initiated by a state agency or not?

But again, I totally agree that the dealings of this platform should be as transparent as possible to make it viable for serious projects.

And always make sure you have a backup of your blog somewhere! Mad

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The Uvular R · Site Admin Joined: 15 Jul 2005 Posts: 753

I know you're all angry at the lack of response. I'd like to respond with more information, but I can't, because I have almost no information.

I don't know why the blog was deleted, and if there was a complaint (which isn't certain), I don't know have access to that complaint, so I can't tell you what was in it. I am working inside the company to try to get more information.

There seems to be a misreading of what I said above, which I would like to correct. I seem to have been understood as saying: "on receiving a complaint, we mechanically removed the blog without reviewing it or attempting to check whether it was in breach of the Terms of Service". That's not what I said.

The post above by jaakkome outlines the blogger's political stance, and seems to suggest that the decision to remove the blog was motivated by disapproval of this stance. I have quite a good idea of the politics of the administrator who deleted the blog, and I think it's very unlikely that he acted from this motivation.

With regard to knowledge of Finnish: as far as I know, the administrator has no knowledge of the language; but maybe he had access to someone who knows it, or maybe he used translation software, or maybe the breach of the Terms of Service (if there was one) could be verified without knowledge of the language.

A final minor point: I'd like to clarify the issue of whether there was a complaint, so people don't think I'm contradicting myself (because if people think we're lying about this, then they will naturally be very annoyed, and become mistrustful of anything we say in future). When a Blogsome blog is removed (or rather, archived), the administrator chooses one of several categories for it. This particular blog was in a category called "complaint". However, there is other data to indicate that the reason for removing the blog was something other than a complaint.

In conclusion: sorry for my convoluted prose, and I hope that I, or someone else, will have more information for you on this forum later today.
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rogerg · Posted: Thu Jun 04, 2009 10:29 am Post subject:

Hi,

I apologise for the error made. Just a little bit of background - we get literally 100's of pornographic blogs set up (and 100's that are in flagrant breach of copyright). It is not an easy task picking out valid ones from bad ones. If this is an error it is the first, following the deletion of 1000's of pretty awful blogs. The task is made more difficult as we don't particularly like looking at the porno blogs in detail to investigate.

In relation to this case, it wasn't a random deletion. The error arose from a blog post entitled:
"Give me crack and anal sex"
http://jatulintarha.blogsome.com/2007/10/03/give-me-crack-and-anal-sex/
The reviewer assumed that this was a pornographic blog in error and deleted.

Roger
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swirlwind · Joined: 04 Jun 2009 Posts: 3

Thank you for clarifying the issue. I can see why a blog post entitled thus (a quote from a song called Future by Leonard Cohen, as Jenny explains in the entry) might raise a few eyebrows, and am glad that the issue has been resolved. I've read Jenny's blog in its entirety and follow it actively, and it is indeed as jaakkome describes, a blog on personal reflections and research on pornography and sexual minority issues. This will inevitably lead to the occasional (or not so occasional) reference to eyebrow-raising issues, but it doesn't make it actual pornography, nor does it go against Blogsome's terms of service.

rogerg · Posted: Thu Jun 04, 2009 10:47 am Post subject:

BTW there had been no complaint made and the deletion should not have been entered under that category - it was purely on an erroneous assumption relating to the blog post title in English. Such deletions are normally entered under the "offensive" category rather than "complaint" category. In this case the blog should not have been deleted at all.
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jkangasv · Joined: 01 Jun 2009 Posts: 6

Thank you for explaining the reasons behind the deletion. I can very well understand how the sheer amount of pornblogs that violate copyrights may lead to a somewhat automatic deleting procedure in which the content of the deleted blog is not duly inspected. Also, I guess that the pornbloggers who know that their blog is against the terms of service of Blogsome will never come to complain on forums or send angry mail to admins.

Funny enough, in January 2007 I wrote an entry with a title "Joku saattas luulla että tämä on pornoblogi" - "Someone might think that this is a pornblog" http://jatulintarha.blogsome.com/2007/01/08/joku-saattas-luulla-etta-tama-on-pornoblogi/ in which I listed searchwords with which people had ended up to my blog - and supposedly been disappointed by the blog's non-pornographic content. Little did I expect that the Blogsome admins would be the ones who make the mistake mentioned in the title of the entry.

Best regards,
Jenny