Tuesday, July 17, 2007

Gates of Vienna Blocked?

Now back up, according to Baron.



Baron Boddissey of Gates of Vienna says he is being blocked from posting by Blogger software which calls his site a "spam blog". I hope Blogger resolves this. Gates of Vienna is not a spam blog. Here is the text of an email being sent around.

I just attempted to post at Gates of Vienna, and was told by an automatic
message that our blog is suspected of being a spam blog, and has been blocked
by Blogger.

The full text of the message:

"This blog has been locked by Blogger's spam-prevention robots. You will not be
able to publish your posts, but you will be able to save them as drafts."

And here's what  Blogger says about what we are suspected of:

"What Are Spam Blogs?

"As with many powerful tools, blogging services can be both used and abused.
The ease of creating and updating webpages with Blogger has made it
particularly prone to a form of behavior known as link spamming. Blogs engaged
in this behavior are called spam blogs, and can be recognized by their
irrelevant, repetitive, or nonsensical text, along with a large number of
links, usually all pointing to a single site."

I followed Blogger's instructions, typed in the visible letters to prove that I
was not a bot, and am now awaiting a response from the Powers That Be.

In the meantime, I can't even post a notice at Gates of Vienna about what is
going on.

If you don't think Gates of Vienna is a spam blog, please send a notice about
what has happened. If you know of a way to contact Blogger or Google, please
let them know that Gates of Vienna is *not* a spam blog, regardless of how
politically incorrect it is.

That's: http://gatesofvienna.blogspot .com

Thank you.

--Baron B.

8 Comments:

Blogger Sparks fly said...

It doesn't sound like any actual person has decided this but rather some automatic statistical analysis has been shaded a bit too close to the bone.

Then again.....

INFO WARS............!

7/17/2007 09:39:00 PM  
Blogger What is "Occupation" said...

it's back up

7/18/2007 12:29:00 AM  
Blogger RWE said...

Whenever I access Michael Yon's site my ISP's "Scamblocker" feature puts a yellow banner across the top of the display that says "This site may be a scam! Exercise caution!"

The problem with any Internet-based approach is that you are not dealing with a person, a company, or any actual entity but instead a computer program that can never respond to any and every situation and frequently can't even respond correctly to ones that are perfectly reasonable.

I gave up on using Paypal after repeatedly finding myself in a Do Loop that prevented me from correcting a problem. Trying to communicate with ebay about a mistake they have made is almost as bad. What is worse is that disease is spreading. Try to call your local Sears to find out if their paint color match scanner is working. Just try it. After being routed to the Sears Intergalactic Call Center a few times - and they have not the faintest idea of the status of a paint scanner at a specific location on some insignificant planet called Earth - you will just give up, get in your car and drive over there.

Computers are marvelous but do not subsitute for intelligent, trained, and capable human beings. And to think at one time people feared being "just a number in a machine"- that is the least of our problems. The machine is on autopilot.

7/18/2007 06:35:00 AM  
Blogger Dymphna said...

unfortunately, Gates is *not* back up. I just tried to post there and get the same "you are spam" message.

I will be posting at ibolga for the time being. My first post is here.

I can see why someone might think we're still up if they access the page -- yesterday's posts are there and you can make comments. However, since the Baron has the image banner on our own site, he was able to post a message across its width, explaining the situation.

For the moment it's the best we can do.

Atlas Shrugged has kindly offered space on her blog, too, and I'll be sending her something in the interim...

7/18/2007 07:23:00 AM  
Blogger Alexis said...

Hopefully, Gates of Vienna will be back up. If this continues, the time may come when Blogger is no longer a preferred publishing platform.

I am already ambivalent about Blogger and Google. I am unhappy about how Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, and Cisco help the Chinese government censor the internet. I already feel funny about using blogs from Blogger, considering how Google kowtows to the Chinese Communist Party. If Google now stoops to political censorship, its "Do No Evil" slogan would look quite silly.

By any chance, are CafePress paraphernalia made in China?

7/18/2007 12:14:00 PM  
Blogger Chieftain of Seir said...

I wonder if this has something to do with the long posts that Michael Yon and the Barron write. When I started my original essay blog on blogger it was labeled as a spam blog after I had posted a couple of essays. This made me wonder if blogger's spam catching algorithm has a bias against long posts.

But I still wonder why they shut Gates of Vienna down. When I was labeled a spam blog I just had to pass an anti spam test before I could post. And even that was removed after I got someone at blogger to verify that my blog was not spam (though some people have been known to disagree with that assessment :)).

A separate question; why do so many big name bloggers continue to use blogger? After I got brave and made the switch I found that Word Press was much better.

7/18/2007 03:19:00 PM  
Blogger rickl said...

I've had trouble in the past commenting on Blogger blogs. I think I've finally figured it out, but I've never had that much trouble on other blogs.

And I don't trust Google either. They haven't earned my trust.

7/18/2007 08:20:00 PM  
Blogger j willie said...

There are so many alternative better than Google. In my opinion, its by far the worst of the big platforms. If it were a browser, it would be Internet Explorer. Just as Firefox and Opera provide endlessly customizable and tweakable browsing experiences for savvy surfers, Wordpress, Typepad, Squarespace, Expression Engine, Community Server, Sitekreator and other provide far greeater freedom to blog publishers to tailor their blogs, and zero likelihood of censorship. Google's political leanings are well known, and its funny how these system issues rarely punish the left, and can be counted on to disadvantage the right. I have become concerned to the point that i check Google searches against Yahoo, MSN and Ask results periodically, just to see if there is their familiar "editorial" pattern shows up there. Happy to say, with the exceptions noted by Gates and Atlas this week, than I have not seen it yet.

7/18/2007 10:55:00 PM  

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