News Thousands of Blogs Fall Silent

I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and where suddenly silenced... This from Wired:

Blogging pioneer Dave Winer unexpectedly closed Weblogs.com, his free blog-hosting service, on Sunday, leaving thousands of bloggers without access to their blogs.

Blogs affected by the shutdown now redirect to a generic message posted by Winer.

Some bloggers are screaming that the shutdown is a serial "blog murder." Other bloggers slammed the people whose blogs have vanished from the Internet, saying that no one should expect continuity from a free service.

"Oh boo hoo ... if you forked over the money for hosting like any serious site owner, you wouldn't now be pissing and moaning about 'blog murder,'" one comment read. "Putting your site on a CentralizedShinyWidget like weblogs.com or blogger.com is like moving into a house built of sugar cubes in the tropics, and then crying foul when the monsoon comes."

"So because it's free, people should bite their tongues about having their content wiped off the face of the earth with no warning?" responded another blogger, posting anonymously. "He couldn't even give them 30 minutes' notice to back stuff up?"

And many bloggers simply posted messages thanking Winer for the memories and politely requested a copy of their blog's contents.

More here

Have you suffered a painful blog-ectomy because of this?

 

"Oh boo hoo ... if you forked over the money for hosting like any serious site owner, you wouldn't now be pissing and moaning about 'blog murder,'" one comment read. "Putting your site on a CentralizedShinyWidget like weblogs.com or blogger.com is like moving into a house built of sugar cubes in the tropics, and then crying foul when the monsoon comes."

Sorry this is a little off topic but this is a prime example of the thing I hate most about the internet and forums, why do people feel the need to post things specifically to upset/degrade people when they complain about something bad happening to them?
I am sure that a lot of people on weblogs.com had put a great many hours into writing their blogs and to see it just vanish must be difficult to some, so let them moan for a bit, that is what forums are for, discussion on all topics, regardless of how they feel.
True that last statement might go against the not having a go at people because of something that they have said, but there is no need to be nasty with anyone, that is all I am saying, treat everyone like they were standing next to you when you were writing it instead of using the net to hide behind while insulting someone.

(grrrrrrrr moment over now thanks)

On a lighter moment, I do read a few blogs now and then from online friends just to see what is going on and as one of them is a real joker, it brightens up my day

Have a good one guys and remember, be nice

 

I use LJ, which is also free (probably everyone knows that..) but has a handy backup service where you can download your entries. Not sure why I bother doing it really, as I never read them back. Still, the option's there.

 

Yes, Livejournal is an excellent blogging site, the best one I've seen yet. I sure hope that if LJ ever goes down, they would give people a day or two notice, so that we could back stuff up.

However, the nasty comment had a touch of truth to it. As the old addage goes: "there's no such thing as a free lunch." People shouldn't really expect any website to last forever, especially a free site. But, as it has been said, the website should at least provide notice to the people in the community and allow them to back up their entries.

Almightyrastus,
I agree completely with your semi-rant. Internet forums are such a useful tool to enhance discussion and friendly debate, but all too often threads get derailed by children (and some adults that act like children) who are determined to insult everyone in sight. I can guarantee that not one of them would say any of those things if they were standing face to face with you.

-monkey

 

Geez .

Not to be blunt, but these sites were FREE. The people who used them should just be happy they got to post their blogs on the Internet for as long as the site lasted.

Is it just me, or have their been a lot of people complaining abought how their "Right" to get free stuff is being violated recently? (At least in america)

 

the guy had to be a complete jerk. sure he had every right to do what he did without notice, its his site. but that doesn't mean he was justified in doing it, he was a jerk. he should have warned the users at very least. lots of administrators get caught up in the power they have. they get the attitude of "its mine so i can do what ever i want to my site and to the content of the users of my site" and while the administrator can do whatever he/she wants, it doesn't mean that it's perfectly ok to do so.

and the "you didn't pay for it so dont be surprised when you get scewed" thing is BS. just because you dont pay for something doesn't mean you shouldn't be able to have it. thats just another thing i hate about capitolism, it gives the attitude that you have to earn what you get, what a horrible cutthroat attitude.

 

I use LJ. It's the best one

 

Ah, but not only was it his site, it was his BANDWIDTH. They were leeching bandwidth (which if you notice is a big no-no on this site) and if he couldnt afford to keep said bandwidth payments up, he had two choices, and he chose shutting down the site.

Just because you dont agree with the "earn your keep" menatility doesnt mean he didnt have to pay out his wallet. And telling someone what to do with that person's money is quite arrogant.

Maybe your blog was deleted as well? is that why your bitter?

 

like i said , he CAN do what ever he wants, just liike i can be a complete jerk to strangers if i want or whatever... but it doesnt mean he should have without warning. he was a jerk arrogant administrator like sooo many others..

noone was leeching anything from him, he put up a blog site for people to use. so they weren't leeching bandwidth, they were giving him what he wanted - users with blogs. why he would want that i will never understand but he made a blog site for some reason. if he didn't put up adds to support himself or didnt make a financial trouble announcement asking for help then he doomed himself without letting the users know beforehand and is still a jerk and his own fault.

i never said he didn't have to pay out of his own wallet, but paying for his site is hardly his user's fault. im not telling him what to do with his money, and im not saying he shouldn't have shut down his site. what i am saying is that he could have provided a little warning beforehand. yes telling people what to do with their money can be arrogant, except when the decisions affects many more people than the person with the money.

no im not bitter because my blog was deleted, i dont do blogs cuz i kinda think theyre fruity but thats my opinion... I dont like power mad administrators that act like jerks, thats why im bitter.

 

lmao @ that....


The way i see it, (i aint got a friggen clue what a blog is, and i dont really give a rats ass) but ill still stick my big, fat head in and comment.

It was "HIS" money, and "HE" payed for the site, that was "HIS" choice, and "HE" had the option to do what ever the hell "HE" wanted, he didnt HAVE to make that site, or pay for that site but he did, no one asked him to make a blog(?) site, but he chose to spend his money, which he goes out and works for just so that a bunch of people he,s probaly never met and never will can have a blog(?) to do with as they like;

The lesson learnt is that:

*its HIS money, HIS website HIS choice and HE did what he felt best*

(altho i do think he could have given at least 30 mins warning)

 

" he was a jerk arrogant administrator like sooo many others "

See, I dont agree with this. It's not just reason to call someone an arrogant admin if he couldnt keep the servers up anyway... if you read the article...

 

mmmmmhhm, so he tried to keep em up but couldn't. then he got rid of em all with no notice because it was on HIS servers and he CAN. still doesn't make it a nice thing to do. If i started an online data backup service that was free, lots of people would use it to store things they wanted saved, then one day i decided i didn't wanna do that anymore and just deleted everything. that would not be right at all. legal, of course, mean, definately

if he thought about it, and just got rid of the blogs because its his servers and he doesn't have to do anything for anyone because its his stuff, then hes a jerk.

if he absent mindedly got rid of em without thinking that people may want them, then he simply didn't think of it and i cant fault him for that.