Vindicated!!!

I've been waiting for this day for way too long now. Finally, Blogger Support has verified that all my affected blogs are indeed not splogs and I don't need to go through the annoying captcha word verification anymore everytime I want to update my blog! I feel so vindicated! Cue song from Dashboard Confessional! (Yes, I do feel like swinging from building to building like Spiderman!!!)


"Vindicated" music video by Dashboard Confessional

You can imagine my expression when I received this email below from Blogger Support.



I quickly login to my Blogger account to check and indeed the annoying captcha verification thingy is gone! Yippee!!!



See the highlighted area? No more nonsensical words! Compare that to the screenshot of when my blogs were affected below.



I never want to see you again anymore, you hear me? This is a genuine blog and I'm a serious and genuine blogger! Go get the real splogs out there!

Thank you Blogger Support.

Keywords: Vindicated Blogger bugs problems errors trouble Dashboard Confessional Spiderman music video song Blogger Support

Blogger Admits Faulty Algorithm

Finally, Blogger has admitted their spam blog detection system is faulty! This is a good first step since you can only rectify a problem IF you admit having the problem. They term their new splog detection algorithm the "automatic spam classifier". Hmmm, can't they come up with a name that is not so lame?

In the announcement on Blogger Buzz regarding this issue, they claim that false positives is very low and they are working on reducing such incidents by improving their systems. Hmmm, why didn't they think of that in the first place before implementing?!? Low percentage of false positives? Have they seen the extend of the problem highlighted on Google Groups?!?

It seems that the spam classifier will automatically delete blogs after a certain time. Now, this is a very serious matter! Looks like the captcha verification problems faced by genuine blogs is related to the disappearing blogs problem that is popping up like wild mushrooms at Google Groups! I do hope my affected blogs will not end up in some Blog Heaven (or Hell) because of their incompetence. I'm already pissed that I've been inconvenienced with the captcha verification thingy. I'm be DAMN pissed if they deleted my blogs.


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They claim they will delete the blogs if they do not receive a response from the user after a significant amount of time but how do we contact them when you always get the error page above when you try to contact them? Worse, they do not respond to or acknowledge your emails to their support email, how is it that you know you are considered among those that have responded to them? Blogger has the worst support system among all Google's services I've written to. Just horrible! They give Google such a bad name.

Now that they have acknowledged this problem, they should seriously start looking into enabling the genuine blogs that were affected by their faulty spam classifier. They claim to fix the problems that are reported to them in one business day. I've been compounded with this problem for way over THREE WEEKS! You tell me that's not more that one business day. Contacting them seems to be useless since they don't bother at all. I've contacted them uncountable times already! Are you asking me to do it one more time just for the fun of it?

This problem has seriously hampered my blogging for the past few weeks and I'm seriously considering migrating to Wordpress. Maybe I should just give Blogger one last chance but my instincts tell me it's just useless and my instincts are more than often right. Maybe I'll go against my instincts this time. One last time, Blogger....ONE LAST TIME!!! Give me back my blog! Go get the real splogs out there and leave us genuine blogs be!

Blogger Full Of Bugs

How often have you seen this message within Blogger? Looks like the problems are piling up for them at the moment. Not only do they have a faulty spam blog detection system that wrongfully locked some of my blogs and forced me to go through an annoying word verification thingy everytime I want to update my blog, people are also complaining of inability to upload photos (people, please use Flickr or some other photo hosting services instead), white-screen-only-can't-see-my-blog problem, 450 Write Error and a host of other issues.

I've been waiting for days now for a response from the Blogger Support group concerning my blogs being wrongfully flagged as splogs but still nothing. Apparently, it only takes 24 to 48 hours for them to review the blogs and whitelist them. I've been waiting much much much longer than that and still I've got to put up with the annoying word verification thingy. Come on! Is it that hard to see my blog IS NOT a splog? Go out and get the real splogs and leave the authentic ones alone. The compound my problems even further, I couldn't login to my account this morning and got an error message like the one below instead. WTF?!?


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It was really the last straw and I just had to blog about this. I checked the Blogger Status as requested but no information at all. Great! Tell us to check on something which isn't there! I did mention that I wouldn't blog another entry until my blogs were vindicated but I just had to get this off my chest. Anyway, some are already suffering from a severe case of JSYK-withdrawal syndrome and had constantly requested that I continue blogging. I might consider coming out from this self-imposed 'sabatical' but I'm quite adamant to limit my blogging for the time-being until this has been resolved. You all have to understand that it's very difficult for me to blog with the damn word verification thingy on. Blogging is no longer a pleasure to me now and has turned into a hassle due to the annoying word verification thingy. Also, I just don't like the idea of being labelled a splogger, even if it was an honest mistake.

I give them the benefit of the doubt that they are too busy fixing all the other problems now to review my blog but it is very possible that this blog might not even last one year at Blogger. I might just consider moving over to Wordpress instead or stop blogging altogether. We'll see how things go. I'll give Blogger a little more time for now. Maybe it's about time my phantom readers come forward and speak up. ;)

You Telling Me This Is A Spam Blog?

You wake up one morning feeling wonderful and all, sitting right in front of your computer and getting ready to start blogging when suddenly, Blogger presents you with a gift that will give your blogging experience that little something extra. Those brilliant people at Blogger presented something extra alright, an extra word verification thingamajig for everytime I want to save/post/edit a blog entry!


How is it that they are so generous in dishing out this 'gift' to me? Well, Blogger has implemented a system that can detect splogs (spam blogs) and then force them to take a Captcha 'spell this word' test. So, you see, this blog has just been 'detected' and is now being forced to take the damn Captcha test for every single post I want to create. It is damn irritating that you have to key that in everytime you want to post something or even save it as a draft! With so many Blogger outages, I save my entries frequently so I do not lose them whenever there's an outage. It's not easy trying to remember the crap you've taken so much effort to write down, you know. Now, I can't even do that without having to key in the word verification thingy every single time and that is very, very, very annoying.


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Clicking on the round orange button with the "?" sign will bring you to the page you see above. The page explains why I have that annoying Captcha thingy, their efforts at fighting splog and includes a simple form to request for a human to review my blog and verify it is not a splog. I filled up the form and sent it in, hoping my nightmare will soon end. Guess what? A freaking error message like the one below popped up. WTF?!?


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I hate all types of spam and I hope all spammers will burn in hell. I'm an advocate of all initiatives to make their lives more miserable and ours much easier. However, I do not take it lightly being labelled a spammer especially when I'm not one!!! This is not my first experience of my blog being wrongfully labelled a splog. I was working on another blog recently and was updating it with loads of stuff before making it public (no, it's not this one but another one) but never got to doing that as after just a few posts, it was quickly flagged as a splog and updating it became a real farce.

I tried getting a human reviewer to verify the authencity of my blog but the same error page keeps popping up. I searched for Blogger's support email and hope they will be of assistance but couldn't locate it. The only Blogger related email I found was bloggerbuzz@gmail.com and sent them TWO emails concerning this problem. I was disappointed I didn't get a reply like the last time I contacted a Google service. Recently, I checked the Blogger Buzz blog again and noticed they have indicated on their blog that that email is not a support email. Great! The least you could have done is have the courtesy to inform me, no? Why couldn't they have just forwarded it to the right people instead? Guess what I did? I deleted that blog!!! I was that pissed!

I didn't like the idea that my blogs were wrongfully flagged as splogs but I didn't really feel the need to do something since it didn't really affect me and the blogs weren't my personal/main blogs. Only when this blog finally received this 'innocuous gift' did I get so riled up. At present, THREE of my blogs are affected - excluding the one I deleted, so you understand how pissed I am. How is it that a blog with original content that has been in existence for nearly a year, updated frequently with over 400 blog entries and viewed nearly 100 times a day by people from all over the world be considered a splog? There are plenty of splogs out there and those are the ones that should be experiencing this type of inconvenience now, not me! Go lock their blogs up instead! It is obvious Blogger's 'splog detection system' is faulty especially when so many genuine blogs have been wrongfully flagged as splog. Doing a Google search and browsing through Google Groups will show you the extend of the 'damage'.

You can do your part in fighting splog. If you come along a blog that is not a blog, report it. Apart from Blogger's 'Flag As Objectionable' initiative which I highlighted some time back, there are websites available for you to report splogs such as Splog Reporter and SplogSpot. These splogs just clutter up the worldwide web and messes up the search results with useless content. If you want to know more on how you can fight splog, read this.

Now, please give me back my blog before I do something crazy like deleting my blog!!! I don't feel like blogging until my blogs get whitelisted for good. This is such a nuisance! Now then, you don't want my faithful readers to suffer from another round of JSYK-withdrawal syndrome, do you? ;)