The Real Blogger Status

Occasionally, we have a would be blog owner, becoming confused about blog access, in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue . I can look at the dashboard Posts page - but there are no posts listed. or I can't access the Template Designer (edit the template, add users to the blog, ... ). or maybe Why is Settings so small? These are bloggers who are confused over a blog where they are an Author , or have no access - as opposed to a blog where they are an Administrator . Along with knowing how to identify yourself , knowing what access you have to a given blog can be a key detail, when you are dealing with identity confusion - such as inadvertently created duplicate accounts , or possibly duplicated blogs .

Occasionally, someone reports a problem with disappearing blog content, in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue . My posts disappeared, right after I changed my email address! This blog owner does not realise the problems caused by changing ones email address (but not the account name ), without thinking.

Blog owners continue to forget the account name and / or password of their Blogger accounts, then demand alternate recovery options. Every week, we see the reports in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue , claiming that changing their email - or getting a new phone - caused somebody to unfairly lose access to her / his blog. Too many blog owners refuse to understand that the email address and phone number are simply backdoor accesses to their Blogger accounts .

We see signs of naivete, in Blogger Help Forum: How Do I? , from blog owners concerned with malware / spam deletions, and with other unexplained disasters in Blogger. How do I backup my blog, to protect the contents against unfair spam deletions? Not many concerned blog owners realise the first principle of backups, known by any experienced network administrator. Never plan a backup, without first planning the restore. How you backup your blog depends upon several details. What problem do you expect, to require a backup? How do you plan to recover, from a problem?

We're seeing problem reports from some confused blog owners, who are apparently customers of ISPs who have made the switch, from using a private email infrastructure, to using GMail based email (administered using Google Apps). When I try to sign in I get this message. Blogger has not been enabled by the administrator of the domain How do I administer my blog? We've known, for a while, that having a Blogger account based on a Google Apps provided GMail account may not be a good long term strategy - particularly if the Apps account is based on a domain which you own, and the domain was purchased to host one of your blogs . Possibly considering the latter scenario, Blogger / Google now requires that you enable the Blogger service , for any new Google Apps controlled domain - if you wish to use email addresses in that domain to host Blogger accounts. This is a safety measure, helping to prevent you from having a Blogger account that you can't control - or can't recove...

Every week, in Blogger Help, we see the cries of frustration. Many years ago I had a Google account with a "gmail.com" e-mail address. But I deleted this account, because I didn't need it anymore. Later, I wasn't able to login to Blogger, to delete my blog. And I also wasn't able to remove it by contacting Blogger. Why doesn't Blogger support their customers? The point being overlooked here is that both Blogger and Google do support their customers. Blogger / Google, like every commercial enterprise worldwide, simply supports their active customers more than their not-so-active customers. They have millions of customers, who spend much time maintaining and publishing their blogs. They also have some customers, who start blogs, and leave them dormant for many years - then require assistance recovering access to their Blogger accounts, because they have forgotten the account name or password, and the backup email address can't be used. Considering that...

We have known, for a while, that every Blogger blog has to have at least one administrator . That rule is enforced by the Permissions wizard, which gives any administrator the choice to demote or remove any administrator, from the Permissions list - but only when there is at least one other administrator in the list. When the Permissions list is displayed, if there are at least two members with administrative authority, each administrator entry, in the list, has a link to demote or remove that member. If there is only one member with administrative authority, there is no such link - and that member can be neither demoted or removed from the list. As long as only the Permissions wizard is used, to demote or remove administrators, this article would be meaningless (see the above link). But, there is another way for administrators to be removed - and this occasionally leaves blogs with no administrator.

Periodically, in Blogger Help Forum: How Do I? , we see a hopeful query. How do I claim the brand name URL for my clients blog? Many merchandisers are unaware of the simple Blogger / Google policy Blogger accounts and Blog*Spot addresses do not expire. Another way of saying that would possibly be first come, first served .

One of the oddest displays of naivete we see, from some blog owners, asking in Blogger Help Forum: How Do I? , would be How do I let anybody post to my blog? These owners have no idea how popular they would be, with spammers, were this to happen. If you have a blog, and you want to let up to 99 of your closest friends publish their thoughts to your blog, you can setup a team blog , and have fun. Beyond that limit, you cannot - nor should you - go.

We see occasional confusion in Blogger Help Forum: How Do I? about gaining (or re gaining) access to a given blog. I made my buddy an administrator - and now, I can't control the blog. Who do I contact to get this corrected? and I was reader of a blog which is now private. Can Blogger provide me contact to the blog owner? Not everybody realises that Blogger does not provide blog access / membership control.

We see periodic evidence of confusion, in Blogger Help Forum: How Do I? , about deletion of our blogs. I deleted my blog last year - can I get it back? and I deleted my blog last month - when will I be able to use it with my new Blogger account? and I deleted my blog, but it's still visible, on the Internet! Not everybody is fully able to understand the "90 day" deletion policy.

In 2009, Blogger Support became weary from handling too many problem reports from blog owners who had made such a simple mistake. I hit the wrong key, and deleted my blog! Help Me!! They started archiving deleted blogs, and gave us a wizard to un delete a newly deleted blog , from the archive. Unfortunately, that ability to un delete a blog has two major limitations . A deleted blog can be un deleted within 90 days. A deleted blog can be un deleted by a blog administrator. Some blog owners find out the relevance of the second limitation the hard way - after they delete their blog, then find out that they have two (or more) Blogger accounts .

I've explained the issues about Blogger account maintenance, and blog access, so many times. I've described it as possession being the law , or as reading between the lines , or even as responsible practice - and some people just don't understand these issues. Some people try to describe their problem, when they have a problem, as Blogger unlawfully stealing their possession. Blogger won't give me access to my blog - do I need a court order to get access to my blog, and to my content? At first glance, they have a point - Blogger has to give us access to our blogs, or they cease being our blogs. If you look closer though, there's a flaw in that reasoning.

Anyone is free to publish a Blogger blog, discussing any subject. The Blogosphere is full of many blogs, some discussing the same subject as others. A blog on any subject can have any title desired by the owner - and the title can be identical to the subject, or it may differ from the subject, as desired. This leads to many blogs having the same title - and this is OK. Unfortunately, though many blogs may have the same subject and title, each blog must have a unique URL . Some blog owners have a problem with this policy, since they believe that their subject, title, and URL must match. Not every blog owner understands why not every blog, ever written, can have a matching subject, title, and URL .

Almost daily, we see a confused query in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken I lost ownership access to my blog. Can Blogger restore my access? Not every blog owner realises that the Permissions wizard has a safeguard, ensuring that every blog will always have at least one administrator. Anybody who is the former owner is now a member of a team blog - and at least one other team member is an administrator.

Now that support for "legacy" Blogger accounts (accounts created before 2005, without Google account association) ends after this month , blog owners are trying to catch up. Some blog owners are reporting that, when trying to use the "Forgot?" wizard , they are seeing bX-2uckqc Blogger Support has accepted responsibility of the problem, and announced yesterday We're investigating reports of users seeing bX errors when using the recovery form found at http://blogger.com/forgot.g (Update 10/13): This code has been resolved . I was finally able to recover my blogs. >> Top

The process of transferring control of a blog , from one Blogger account to another, involves 4 distinct steps, using 2 different Blogger accounts, alternately. If you do any step out of sequence, or if you fail to properly keep the 2 Blogger accounts separate, you end up with a blog successfully controlled by neither account. There are 3 ways to keep the two Blogger accounts separate - and the easiest yet most reliable is to use two separate browsers.

Many imaginative blog owners are finding out, from time to time, that deletion is not the way to continue - or to start over. I deleted my blog, and now I can't recreate it! and My domain is offline, and the registrar refuses to help me! or even I deleted my post, and now I get a weird URL! Each of these complaints are examples of people who tried to delete something to get something done, to a Blogger blog. In the first two cases, they were trying to transfer control (a blog, to a different Blogger account / a domain, to a different domain registration); in the latter case, they were trying to clear out unwanted content from a blog post. In neither of these cases did the blog owner accomplish the attempted goal.

We see this naive question, from time to time, in Blogger Help Forum: How Do I? . I added my friend as an administrator, to my blog. He changed permissions, locked me out, and now I don't have access. Can Blogger get my blog back? Here, we have bad news for you.

Blogger has been making it progressively easier for us to manage our blogs, ourselves, without having to waste time posting in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken Help me!!! They have provided us with various tools, such as the ability to restore an accidentally deleted blog . The tools that they provide are not immediately, perpetually, or universally available, however.