Tuesday, January 9, 2007

Ejected

I don’t know how much free license one has to say what they think on a Blog. But my understanding of freedom of speech is as long as it is true there’s no great risk. I hope that is the case. Because I am feeling so low I need to tell someone.

Now this may not sound like a serious question, but it is a serious question, and don’t even read the rest of this until you give it some thought.

How would you feel if you shut down your blog for a few days to put up a new template, and when that new template was ready, you found someone else living on your site? Decorating it their way with their color values and their words? Remodeling what was once yours to suit them? How would you feel?

Well, that’s more or less what has happened to me. Starting in March of 2003, I had a quaint little place called “Abbreviated Abstractions”. This was my fledgling blog. But I was forced to build another spot because it was a blog that allowed a maximum of 300 posts and I had 311, which caused the indexing page to scramble and overlap. And made it impossible for me to continue posting there. So I moved. But still I spent a lot of time at the old place and so did my visitors.

Then just before Christmas, Hub said to me, “You’re not posting on ‘Abbreviated Abstractions’ anymore. So why don’t you clean up that site? You are a rather unorthodox thinker and if nothing else, a lot of the stuff you write is original. Original thoughts are at a premium these days and if you leave those ramblings too long, they could be plagiarized by others.”

Now I probably would have stood my ground and let the site stand as it was, but this remark was the closest Hub has ever come to complementing my blogging efforts. In an oblique way it seemed to me he was saying that I occasionally write worthy stuff. So although I wavered for the rest of that day, the next day I backed up my rants and took down the site.

And then busy with Christmas and New Year’s. So it was January 6th before I set about to resurrect that familiar old place, where I had always felt such magical inspiration, and move back in. But it could not be resurrected. URL - No longer available.

So now, my heart is breaking, as I tell you this. In the space of less than two weeks, someone else moved in. I guess to be fair, I have to admit it, the title and URL were up for grabs for a few days. That is, if we ignore the rules of plagiarism. But it still showed up when Goggled. Even though on Blogger it was now available. But Gees, I made up that title with no one’s help. So can’t others do the same? But no, we have a new resident in my old place. And guess who it is?

None other than Martha Stewart. My Title was “Abbreviated Abstractions” and my URL was “abbreviatedabstractions.blogspot.com” and her title and URL is now exactly that. Words cannot express how heartbroken I am. I know I’m partly to blame but couldn’t I have had a longer period of grace?

I moved out on the 23rd of Dec and as far as I can tell, she took up residence January 5th. I am so sad. My only comfort in this fiasco is that the place is haunted. When I was there, there was Spam lurking everywhere.

By the way, just so you know, I noticed when I googled what once was my place, that some of my older blog friends still have links to my old calling card, so don’t be surprised if Martha greets you, instead of me.

And now, by writing this, I’ve probably offended Blogger, and they’ll kick me out as well. But that would be too unfair. They have a shared responsibility in this matter. They have been telling me, and telling me, for probably two months or more that my old blog was unstable and that it MUST be moved.

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

Blogspot has a problem with this kind of thing, I think. A friend of mine had a blog with them, hadn't used it for a while but never shut it down, and it was first taken over by a spammer site and then by a Japanese site. She'd just totally lost control of it.

susan @ spinning

Roberta S said...

susan, some comfort in knowing I'm not the only one. i.e. misery likes company.

But today I'm feeling as disappointed as yesterday. It's like a piece of me has been stolen.
Still, I appreciate you listening to me whine and offering comfort. Thanks for stopping by.

Anonymous said...

I'm just so very glad that you continue to blog. I think there must be some kind of strange karma going on that Martha Stewart of all people would invade your old blog. She is just so very different from you and yet the very same. She loves to craft, and so do you. She loves to garden and be outdoors, and so do you. She is independent and so are you. I've been told she is compulsive and so are you (about writing) that is. And as she would say, that is a good thing.

Spicy said...

Roberta,
Are you serious? Can this happen? Really? Martha Stewart? can't you kick her ass to the curb? I'm a new blogger, so does that mean when I hit 300 I get booted and maybe Dr. Phil takes over?
I'm going to check your old blog, there is just no justice, is there?
This is a joke, right? and I'm just not getting it??

Spicy said...

Roberta, I can't find that blog and no Martha Stewart.....can u leave a link?\

Roberta S said...

esther, you are dear to me. Thanks for helping me see this mess of pottage as a good thing. Glad you continue to pop by, you so often encourage just when I need it most.

Roberta S said...

matty, this in no joke. This is for real. Go to your address line and type in "http://" followed by "abbreviatedabstractions.blogspot.com" leaving out the quote markings. I would have wrote the address as one line but I'm fearful of it somehow creating a link to this site. Martha's site was clean the other day when I went there but now it looks like she has rightfully inherited all the Spam I left behind. Also I noticed the other day it said she has a new line of products called... you guessed it, ABBREVIATED ABSTRACTIONS!

Roberta S said...

oh, and by the way matty on this new Beta Blogger I don't know what the maximum number of posts is.

Spicy said...

Roberta,
Oh my God! Of all the nerve of that woman! Identity theft for sure! Wasn't fraud enough? now she has to go and do this?
Darn shame you can't do anything about it!

Harvey Molloy said...

Hi from New Zealand. I've never heard of the 300 post limit before. I can appreciate that this has been a sad experience. I hope that you kept a copy of your posts.

Roberta S said...

harvey m, thanks for visiting. Yes, luckily, I did back up all my rants. Good thing. One could, if compelled to do so, extract ideas from those rants for drape fashions, vase shapes colors and sizes, and even a recipe for pig's feet and some other uncommon muligan stews. And with my blog snapped up so quickly, the threat is there for theft of such ideas as well.

Anonymous said...

Roberta, dear, there's an option to Blogspot that has many more options available. Haven't tried it myself, but it looks quite interesting and worth consideration: http://www.terapad.com/

Roberta S said...

Thank you for that kind tip anne. I may need to move on sooner rather than later and it's nice to have a welcoming place in mind.