The Real Blogger Status

We've been exploring bogus redirection of reader traffic , for a few years. Similar to dubious awards and web rings , we have "traffic exchanges". Traffic exchanges are similar to "affiliate marketing", where readers of one blog are randomly shuffled to another blog , then to another - all the while, lighting up ads on each blog.

We see evidence of confusion, from time to time, in Blogger Help Forum: How Do I? . How do I move an established blog to WordPress (or any other platform), while retaining the history, reader interest, search engine reputation? Some blog owners think blog readers are cattle (to be herded from blog to blog) - or monkeys (to be attracted by shiny things). We've known for some time, that Blogger blogs cannot be used as gateways, with traffic automatically redirected from one blog to another - or from a blog to a non Google website . Use of traffic redirection scripts is a known cause of blogs classified as malware hosts .

In 1977, the late Charles Bronson - better known for his vigilante justice " Death Wish " movies - starred in a movie that capitalised on US paranoia about American - Soviet Russia relations. Set at the height of the Cold War era , the plot of Telefon featured 51 human time bombs - all ordinary Americans. Each had been hypnotised to perform as Soviet spies, when a specially coded telephone call was received, with each tasked to sabotage some specific portion of the American infrastructure. None of the 51 human time bombs had any conscious awareness of their intended roles. Each thought of her or him self as an ordinary American, and lived that way - until a phone call from an evil renegade Soviet agent triggered their personal hypnotic suggestion . The woods are lovely, dark, and deep, but I have promises to keep. And miles to go before I sleep, and miles to go before I sleep. Remember. Miles to go before I sleep. In the action adventure genre of fiction (aka "spy...

In the modern legal system, justice is (supposedly) available to all citizens - regardless of colour, crede, or financial status - equally. In the Blogger legal system, justice (as in porn / spam classification, or URL availability ) is available to all bloggers - equally. If your blog is unjustly accused of hosting hacking, porn, and / or spam content, or if your blog is unfairly placed behind a content warning , you (the blog owner) are responsible for getting the wrong righted. Due diligence requires that the blog owner has to report any problem with any Blogger blog. Regardless of how many anxious readers your blog may serve, you the owner have to request a review, when the blog is unjustly classified, deleted or locked. And, you have to do so promptly. Blogger must serve owners of small and unpopular blogs equally, with owners of large and popular ones. The blog readers are not part of the review process. The only question is Does the blog host hacking, objectionable, p...

Today, in the USA, we celebrate the national holiday of " Thanksgiving ". Many people call it "Turkey Day" because the traditional cooking for the holiday meal is centered around roast turkey. The words "gobble, gobble" have two meanings. Turkeys are attributed as making that sound, such as the cat makes "meow", and the dog "bow wow". Celebrants of the holiday eat a lot of food, also popularly expressed as "gobbling". So, we have a "double entendre", that is, still, relevant.

The 1978 cinema classic " Animal House ", which starred the late, great John Belushi as John Blutarsky, was a comedy about American 1960s college life. It was described by one reviewer as the best college comedy ever made. Nothing has ever come close to comedic perfection, and never will again. It focused on one fictional fraternity, Delta House, the rejects of the campus fraternity system at the college. The members of Delta house included screaming nuisances ( coyotes ), troglodytes and trolls ( hyenas ), and hapless morons ( turkeys ). Many inhabitants of Delta House, many years later, can be found as bloggers, posting in Blogger Help Forum . Coyotes are individuals who, unhappy with the way they are treated by Blogger, convince the general public (their reader population) to conduct a Distributed Denial Of Service attack against the forum. The owners of their namesake blog, The Daily Coyote , conducted a DDOS in April 2008, when it was locked as a suspected spam blog...

I'm scared of elephants, if they're allowed to run wild. What time is it, when an elephant sits on the hood of your car? OK, Chuck, I'll bite - What time is it? Time to get a new car. LOL. Many years ago, when I moved to California, and having heard of the possible damage to your car (probably, an uninsured expense too) should an elephant sit on it, I put up a sign in my back yard. No Elephants Permitted Here! And, apparently the sign served its purpose - I haven't seen a single elephant in my back yard - or sitting on my car - since I moved here. An unlikely tale, you probably say. More crudely, you'd ask me What have you been drinking today, Chuck? So, what's the point of this narrative? Just this, that most bloggers may not waste time in putting up signs to keep elephants away - but they have other, stranger superstitions . My favourite examples of the latter would be advice from some bloggers about how to avoid the mysterious bX codes , the equal...