Thursday, January 17, 2013

Outage Report

Chancellorsville Ruins #1

As you all know by now, our blog was suddenly removed last night between 8 and 9pm EST for no apparent reason. Blogger never provided any explanation before, during, or after the outage. I assume it was an internal technical problem at Google.

Below is a portion of a mass email I sent out earlier today to dozens of people who had written to us to ask what happened:

Blogger “removed” our blog suddenly last night. One second it was there; the next it was gone. If we had violated their terms of service, we should have received an email, according to their own established procedure. But we received no email.

I retain my “dashboard” account, as does Dymphna. And, as you can see, I still have the gmail account.

There is no “deleted blogs” link on our dashboards, as there should be if the blog had been deleted deliberately through a normal procedure.

Late last night I began the process that one always goes through with Blogger: we posted requests on the help forum. That’s really all that can be done; you can’t talk to human beings where Google is concerned. We actually received a response, which is unusual with Google. Based on the replies, there seems to have been a major problem with Blogger last night. Many other blogs disappeared in the same fashion.

I anticipate that this is most likely a technical glitch on Google’s part, based on the number and types of blogs that had the same thing happen to them last night. But we should know for certain within another day or two.

It’s also possible (but far less likely, in my estimation) that we were taken down for political reasons. If it was a deliberate take-down, we will migrate to another platform with our own domain. We back up the entire blog frequently, so only a few posts will be missing when we restore.

This is all that we know at present. I’ll send out more emails if I find out anything else. Dymphna will also send out Twitter messages.

Thank you all for your concern and support.

Now the blog has reappeared just as mysteriously as it disappeared. No message, no explanation.

All indications are that this was a technical glitch at Google, given how many other blogs were affected, including lots of non-political ones.

It seems extremely unlikely that there was any political component to the outage. Nevertheless, we will continue with our “disaster preparedness” policy, with an eye towards an eventual migration to a secure platform, one that we have complete control over.

Thanks to everyone for all the emails, skype messages, blog posts, Facebook posts, and tweets. It’s gratifying to know how many friends we have!

17 comments:

Anonymous said...

1) Good to have you back

2) It would be interesting to see what other blogs were down and have a look at whether or not they have a common denominator. Beside the possibility that Google took them down for political (i.e. economic) reasons, there's also the possibility that multiculti nutter hactivists were responsible, as seems to be the case in the attacks on Dispatch International

Dane

Anonymous said...

Phew!! Suffered a horrible panic attack when I couldn't access my usual post-work reading. Where was I going to get my antidote to the insanity that surrounds our every waking moment? Welcome back GofV, Baron, and Dymphna.

Findalis said...

I wonder if a Muslim Hacker did something to Blogger? You weren't the only blog brought down like this.

Welcome back and it is reassuring to see you back.

Max Modine said...

It is good to see you back. I admit my first thought when you went down was that it might be a Political action. 4 years ago that possibility would not have occurred to me. Since Barry took charge it might happen at any moment. We live in precarious times. Max.

Anonymous said...

I hope that you have a backup of all the invaluable information on this site.
Thank you for what you do. It would be a lesser world without you.
Keep up the good work.
It's very much appreciated.

Ben.

Eleanor said...

So glad you are back. :)

Anonymous said...

Glad to see you back....I thought the Swedes had taken you down!

Anonymous said...

@Findalis, "I wonder if a Muslim Hacker did something to Blogger? You weren't the only blog brought down like this."
Perhaps, you know what they're like. What was it? Ah yehr:
"They are all backward savages, a devil-spawned death-cult worshipping all that is unholy and barbaric. Pure evil."
:-D

Dane

rickl said...

I'm glad to see you back. I was concerned last night.

I don't know what other blogs were affected, but I didn't see any problems with the ones I regularly read.

Green Infidel said...

Great to hear the news! And great that you have a "disaster preparedness policy" - as I imagined you'd have.

We must prepare ourselves mentally for events of this sort. And how to react to them, if and when they happen. If we react intelligently and decidedly enough, we may find they won't happen again.

Call Me Mom said...

So glad you are back.

It made me go to the trouble of backing up my own blog which I hadn't done for some time. I'll view that as the lemonade of the occurence.

Once again, glad to have you back.

Malcolm Pollack said...

By all means, please do seriously consider moving your site to your own hosted domain. It's cheap and easy, and there are plenty of us who will be glad to help if needed.

As matters stand, GoV exists entirely at Google's pleasure. This site is too important for that.

Anonymous said...

All I could think about was what a huge empty hole would have been left for me, and for all of us who are politically and culturally aware, if your blog was gone!

Scott said...

Glad to see you back! Given the way things are going on in the world today, I really thought someone may have deliberately taken you down. Glad to hear you have a back up plan and won't be silenced!

Scott

Red Rose said...

Thank goodness you are back. I almost had kittens because I haven't read all of Paul Weston's fantastic articles yet. Thought I had lost them.

Sol Ta Triane said...


I hope to God you are fully backed up. You have been lucky to not have been disappeared. Wilders is blocked by Facebutt I heard.

I suggest a fundraiser, or should I say I second the suggestion by Takuan. You may have to overcome some pride to do it, but it's probably for the best.

In fact, you need funds for:

Private website
generator and storage shed and covers and gas.
Harbor Freight ones were $270 on sale and seem fine. I still think you should get a good quality OUTDOOR wood heater, if you are going to be staying where you are. Still need the generator for fan heat thought.

Keep your keesters thawed people.

Darayvus said...

Yes, welcome back. You guys are growing on me . . .