The Real Blogger Status

Periodically, we see reports in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken , about hijacked blogs. Sometimes, the reports come from blog owners (or former blog owners) who cannot now control (or publish) their blogs - or maybe who report mysterious content on their blogs . Other times, the reports come from people who report mysterious and unwanted content in their Reading List (Google Reader) displays. Of the latter group, many are being found to have earlier Followed blogs owned by people who are naively trying to attract random readers to their blogs, and who overlook the reason for having blog feeds in general. Different Followers would report seeing multiple streams of randomly changing content in their Reading Lists. Recently, we've gotten reports from people who are seeing a single, and unique hijacker in their Reading Lists - producing consistent streams of duplicated, repetitive content. This does not appear to involve blog owners, naively misusing the Post Feed Red...

Recently, we're seeing a few frustrated blog owners, in Blogger Help Forum: How Do I? , who have decided that the recently provided CAPTCHA ("word verification") screening puzzle is simply too much for their readers to handle. Some blog owners have discovered that removing the CAPTCHA, from their blog comment wizard, is not all that easy, either. Everytime I click on "Save settings", to disable word verification on my blog, as soon as I return to the settings, it is enabled again. How do I get rid of the CAPTCHA? Some blog owners have not yet learned that the New Blogger GUI (2011) just is not ready for public use.

Some Blogger blog owners, as they develop a post, use Preview mode to periodically observe what the post looks like. A few owners are confused about the privacy of a post, as it is Previewed. Some think that the temporary nature of the Preview window makes the content, as Previewed, intentionally unavailable for viewing by their readers. Fortunately, the links - even though they may be clickable by the readers, lead nowhere.

Occasionally, an oddity in our Blogger profiles will cause confusion - and offer some blog owners a opportunity to make a bad mistake. For some unknown reason, some Blogger blogs may be listed twice, in the dashboard or profile Blog List. If you are one of these blog owners, seeing the same blog listed twice in your dashboard or profile, think before you act! Check the URL behind the blog title , for each entry - you'll see an identical URL behind both.

Occasionally, a bewildered blog owner will write into Blogger Help Forum: How Do I? , and ask How do I completely remove a post? I deleted a post - but my readers still could read it, in Google Reader! Some owners are not clear about the nature of post deletion, and the blog feed.

Right now, a few blog owners who depend upon using the Draft status on posts, and who move posts in and out of Draft status regularly, are noting an oddity in the New GUI Posts menu. I can't find my Draft posts - there's no menu selection!

Blogger has long promised us that our blogs will be ours, forever , and that we are free to publish our blogs in privacy , if we so desire. Based on those promises, not all Blogger blog owners have made the right decisions, in retaining access to their Blogger / Google accounts . Many problem reports. from frustrated owners, are seen, daily, in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken . My email address changed some time ago, and now, I can't login to Blogger and update my blog! Last year, Blogger made several changes to their account recovery policies and procedures , which made this subject, for many blog owners, a critical and painful issue. Now, Google is making an organised effort to reduce the pain, by improving their account recovery tool .