I woke up yesterday (Sunday) morning, and began my normal routine of preparing for church. I noticed my phone was blinking indicating I had received an email during the night. I brought up my screen, and much to my surprise it was an email from my blogging service, Google Blogger. My surprise turned to shock when I read the subject: www.countrypreacherscorner.blogspot.com has been deleted.
I hurriedly read the email which indicated my blog had been deleted because I had violated the SPAM policy. That was a head scratcher, so I checked out the SPAM policy. I realized right away that I hadn't done any of the things that constituted a violation of that policy. The only thing that came close was my posting of the blog links to Facebook and to my congregation's Facebook page (of which I am the administrator). But that couldn't be it, could it?
The most frustrating part of the ordeal at this point was not knowing exactly how I had violated the policy and having all my stuff deleted without warning. There were a mixture of emotions welling up within me at this point:
1. Anger that my blog had been deleted without so much as a warning shot and knowing that much of my public written thoughts both personal and professional were gone. I considered the hours I had spent typing of things both exhilarating and troubling, and I considered how quickly they had been "taken" from me. It wasn't pleasant.
2. Frustration at not knowing what I had done wrong.
3. Sadness at the loss.
4. Anger at myself for having no backup of all the stuff I had composed.
5. Worry that I could never get what I had put out there.
All of these emotions almost led me to panic, but one overrode them all:
6. Calmness of mind which told me, "It has to be a mistake. See what you can do about it."
I eventually logged onto Blogger.com and discovered I could appeal the deletion. There was a grace period to do this within. As I read, I also discovered Blogger has certain algorithms which work to discover SPAM blogs. They pointedly point out this is a fuzzy process. Their comments were reassuring in that they promised my blog would be evaluated by real people within two business days.
Later yesterday afternoon, I logged in again, and there was a rather humorous comment apologizing that my blog had been kicked out. They commented that their "bots" had flagged the blog and that the process was continually undergoing tweaking. They also said, "Since you are a real human reading this, in all probability your blog will be reinstated shortly." I laughed.
Sure enough, within the hour, I received another email from Google Blogger that my blog was back up and running. I breathed a little easier.
However, I had to do some self-examination with this small ordeal, and I've asked myself some hard questions:
1. Why did it disturb you so much to have your blog deleted? Do you prize it so much?
2. Were you worrying about what other people would think about you should your blog be deleted because of SPAM violations?
3. Was this a call from God telling you to stop focusing so much on your blog?
4. To what extent were you willing to go to retrieve "your" intellectual property?
This blog has become somewhat of an emotional outlet for me. Granted, I do not reveal all my deepest thoughts. There are some things I keep under wraps, but there is a great deal that is healing for me to talk about. Even though I don't get a whole lot of feedback from readers, it is a joy to know a few are reading. And I do know that some of my comments have really touched the hearts of some of my readers and gave them hope and comfort in the midst of their lives.
Perhaps one day, I will be ready to hang up my fingertips and stop this business, but I'm not ready yet. And as I said on my Facebook status, I am glad that humans still trump computer algorithms. To those who tried to log on yesterday and read something, I apologize that the blog wasn't here. It was out of my hands. To those who might have been excited that I was gone, well...you'll have to wait a little while longer. :-)
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