The Real Blogger Status

The new Blogger commenting system has been in place in many of our blogs for just over two weeks . Some blog owners, who moderate using the new system, have started to notice a marked decrease in spam, hitting our Published, and Awaiting Moderation, queues, as the filters are trained. Other bloggers, who do not moderate, are observing the opposite. Since the new commenting system was started, my blog is getting twice as much spam as before. Oddly enough, both results were predictable.

Now that the new commenting system is a reality, many blogger are learning that the filters provided in the new system need training . Until the filters are trained, we will continue to see unwanted comments in our "Awaiting Moderation" folder. Before the new system was provided, many of us who moderated comments may have gotten used to simply moderating when we had nothing else to do. We would let comments "awaiting moderation" pile up for days, before selecting and "Publishing" or "Rejecting" each one, in turn.

Occasionally, content that we don't recognise may show up in our blogs. There are several different ways that the bad guys may have, in getting their unwanted contributions into our blogs. If you read the latter article, don't find an explanation to your immediate problem there, and conclude that your blog has been hijacked, try not to panic. First, verify who has control of the blog in question. Go to Settings - Permissions, and examine the list of blog members. Do you recognise every administrator and author on the list? If you have access to the Permissions list, and have the "Add Authors" button, you still have control of the blog. If so, the blog has not been hijacked. Now, you have to find out what has actually happened, and ensure that you retain control. If you see an unknown administrator listed there, did you install an accessory improperly ? If you see an unknown author, did an invited author maybe create a second account or invite a friend , ...

A few bloggers in Jordan - apparently customers of the Orange ISP - are reporting inability to access Blog*Spot URLs, with no apparent problem with non Blog*Spot, Blogger, or Google. We have a problem rollup in Blogger Help Forum , where the problem is being explored. If you are affected by this outage, please confirm your location, the name of your ISP, and the scope of the outage . Explicit confirmation of each individual detail, by each blogger with a problem, helps Blogger Engineers to focus on the problem - and not on speculations. >> Top

As the new comment moderation system gets deployed on more blogs , we are seeing a few reports of problems moderating using email. Some bloggers report inability to moderate, without having to sign in again, repeatedly, to their Blogger accounts. Other blogger have observed that some comments, selected as "Publish" or "Mark as spam", seem to remain in the current queue also. In some cases, bloggers have selected "Publish" repeatedly, with no error provided.

Now that we are seeing the new Blogger commenting system rolled out through the majority of our blogs , some bloggers are seeing problems with the "spam" / "not spam" classification of some comments. While the training process is in progress, and the system is still "learning" which comments are spam - and which are not spam, we are going to see some legitimate comments dropped into the "Spam" folder. We will similarly continue to see some spam comments published (with moderation not enabled), or dropped into the "Awaiting Moderation" folder (with moderation enabled).

Many bloggers are enjoying the new ability to "Mark as spam" any offending comments, with the anticipation that shortly similar comments will be routed directly to the "Spam" Comment folder. Other bloggers, who do not see "Mark as spam?" are asking How do I report these comments? Blogger has told us that the new comment moderation system is not yet rolled out to all blogs, as this is being done on a blog by blog basis. If you don't yet see a "Mark as spam" link or selection in your comment moderation queue, rest assured that you will, soon. And later, you'll stop seeing the typical "Nice blog" spam - unless you go diving into the Spam Comments folder. Be patient, your blog will have the new system shortly - if it does not, already. And if your blog does offer you this ability, use it. The new system depends upon your input - it will not know what should be put into Spam directly, without votes from you and others like ...

Last week, Nitecruzr Dot Net and RobertosBlogs Dot Net together announced the new Cumulus "In Your Language" non English translator gadget, which support blogs published in any of 7 different non English languages. Now, we have added 4 more languages - Arabic, Chinese (Simplified), Japanese, and Portuguese - to the supported population. If your blog is published in any of these languages, you can now provide dynamic translation of your blog or website, by your readers, into any of the other languages, using the Google Translator engine. Arabic Chinese (Simplified) Chinese (Traditional) French Hindi Indonesian Italian Japanese Portuguese Russian Spanish We hope to add additional languages, as need and resources become available. And, we'll add to the target languages, for all source languages, as Google expands the base of their translation engine. >> Top

Recently, we have seen a few reports from bloggers who have a blog with a "Cutest Blog" template, who are mystified by the PhotoBucket icon This image or video has been moved or deleted and discussions such as Have a photobucket icon appearing in the middle of my blog that says a picture has been deleted. are common in BHF: Something Is Broken .

Adding links, in blog post text, is one of the most basic tasks in creating hypertext content - and it may be one of the most subtly misunderstood too. Like the inability to add a link using the Blogger Post Editor , the ability to correctly specify the link target is frequently seen I created a standard HTML link <a href="www.website.com">Link</a> but when you click the link Blogger turns the link into this blogaddress.blogspot.com/www.website.com What is going on here? Some bloggers do not understand HTML / HTTP syntax, and that's the problem here. If you specify a link target as "www.website.com", most hypertext content editors will qualify the target with two elements. The protocol, i.e. "http://". The base URL of the website being edited, i.e. "blogaddress.blogspot.com". giving you blogaddress.blogspot.com/www.website.com Instead of typing www.website.com type the link target as http://www.website.com and you'll be...

Just a bit more than 2 years ago, NiteCruzr Dot Net became a part of the world wide culture, by providing an easy to install translation bar , for blogs published in English. That's a start, anyway. What "we" (the "English" speaking population of blog owners) don't always realise is that neither the entire world population, nor the entire web population, speaks English. The English language isn't the most commonly spoken language in the world - nor is it even number two . Blogger blogs are being published in many non English languages, and bloggers need to support that reality. Now, Nitecruzr Dot Net, in partnership with Robertosblogs Dot Net , announces the next step in multi-lingual blogging. Cumulus In Your Language now provides multi-lingual translation from any of 7 non English languages, to any of the other provided languages. Chinese (Traditional) French Hindi Indonesian Italian Russian Spanish If your blog is published in any of...

As I've written a few times, your blog is yours - forever . Generally, "forever" is equivalent to eternity, or as long as Google stays in business. In some cases, when a blogger passes on to the next life, the survivors left behind may decide that it would be best, for all concerned, that one or more blog(s) left behind should be discontinued. In other cases, the survivors may wish to continue the blog, as a memoriam. Blogger will support this need, as long as the survivors can prove their close relationship with the deceased blog owner. This is most easily done, by providing a proper copy of a legally issued death certificate. With the death certificate available, post a question in BHF: How Do I? , and wait for contact with a Blogger Support person. Blogger Support will inform you how to transmit the death certificate to them, using a legally recognised medium. (Update 2012/07): Blogger has enhanced these requirements , to allow them to exercise both compassio...