"Blogger accounts and Blog*Spot addresses do not expire. Therefore, we can't take away somebody's blog address to give to you. Occasionally people come back to their blogs after long absences, and we want them to be able to find their blog as they left it. If you find some contact information on the blog, you are welcome to deal with the owner directly, to see if they are willing to delete the blog so you can use the address. However, we do not give out contact information for the owner of a blog."
Two years is a very long time. Chances are if they haven't updated by then they have abandoned their blog. Another problem is some people don't give out their contact information on their profile. Consequently, you can't email the blog owner to ask for their BlogSpot.com address.
We, the bloggers of Blogger.com/Blogspot.com, need to rally together and petition Blogger.com to change this ridiculous policy. Please, help me petition Blogger.com by going to the feature request page. It will only take a minute, I swear! Just sign in with your Blogger/Google account. Click "Suggest a feature" and Submit. On the next page, scroll down to the bottom and copy-paste the following in the "suggest a new feature:" text box:
I read the policy on abandoned blogs. I am petitioning that blogs over two years old with no updates be deleted and the BlogSpot address recycled. Two years is more than enough time to login. Clearly, after that amount time the blog is truly abandoned.Or if you feel so inclined, you can write you own 45 word petition.
Thanks a lot,
Chris
14 comments:
are there abandoned blogspot addresses out there that you really want or something?
Yes. You'd be surprised how many abandoned blogs there are. However, most specifically, I want chrisforbes.blogspot.com. But this isn't just about me wanting that blogspot address. It's that blogger.com has a stupid policy and it should be changed for the benefit of everyone. I mean even gmail addresses are recycled after nine months. Why can't blogspot addresses be recycled too?
Yeah, it's true that there are a lot of abandoned blogs out there, and many of them had URLs that I want. But I'm actually OK with their policy right now, because I guess it protects my blog URLs. If we wanted our own non-blogger domain name, and someone already owned it, then the process to acquire that domain name would also be the same: we'd have to contact the owner, and bid. No giveaways, regardless of how long the owner is absent.
Good point Jonathan, but it's not quite as what you said. It's different with real domain names.
Real domain names expire (I not sure but I think every two years) and it is up to the current owner to renew them. (I think they have about 30 days to renew.) If they don't, the domain can be bought by someone else.
So really, Blogger has dumb policy that is NOT like normal domain names. They should change their policy!
I'm all for it; the available addresses are ridiculously limited because of people's failed experiments. I think after every year that a person is inactive, Blogger should send an automated message requesting that they either post or consider giving up their blog. That way, people who had real blogs, retired, but want to keep the site viewable, have the option of keeping them, while the ones who never posted and never got comments in the first place will probably have no problem clicking, "OK, donate my blog."
I would be willing to contact the owner of "my" address directly, but most people who were just fooling around in blogger didn't make their contact info available.
Those are some great ideas. If Blogger.com did implement that solution, I would be more than happy.
I think that sending an automated email asking if they still want their blog is more likely to happen.
Also about the two year wait period...and this is a first-hand experience...I have/had a blogspot blog, and I have not blogged on it in a few years. I have FORGOTTEN my username/password and I don't use the same email address anymore. I've tried to get it from them but have been unable to. Not only are people unable to want to return to the same blog after two years, but they have also most likely forgotten their logon and/or password.
I think that the old blogs should be saved...there are some good things, but they should be moved to another location (at some sub-address). If new users want to take the old spot, they must be required to put a small banner if they want to take the old one. I think that stealing old blogs, even if they are abandoned, is not fair. I think my bro has an old Blogspot blog, and I would hate to see it vanish and be replaced with some goon who uses the f-word every other sentence. If you'd like to see my own blog, Two Way Roads, come on over and drop a comment.
Hey Jonah N.,
This isn't a question of whether blogs (and their posts) should be saved but whether blog ADDRESSES should be recycled. I think if blogger wanted to save the content in the user account and just recycle the address that would be fine with me. That way if by some chance the user did want to come back to their blog they could, they'd just have to use a different address. And again, I am proposing this would happen after two years time!
If your brother doesn't want to see his blog "vanish" then just log in! It takes five seconds. Simple.
Someone seems to have snatched his original blog name and replaced it with a title called "Pissed Off". Now, what steps should be taken is that they should only removed domain name squatters, which have no posts and are just made to annoy people.
I think blogspot.com subdomains can be really long. So subdomains aren't going to run out.
You could always get our own domain name, registrars charge less than $9 a year these days.
Pierre Omidyar blogs very rarely and even wanted to do it once every 3 years.
My last post on my blog was last year. I tend to post for awhile, then take a long break.
We'll just see what happens, but I don't exactly share your opinion.
Although it annoys me that Yahoo has to send me an email every year to ask if I still want to maintain my geocities page. (The last time they did that, I was on a two week vacation and lost my page cuz they only gave me 1 week to click it active.)
I guess, I've learned that in today's internet, you have to be vigilant, and if you really want to keep your own stuff, get your own domain + host.
But I say that abandoned blogs should remain to preserve the information there. There's no guarantee that archive.org is going to keep it either.
Now blogs that have only 1 or 2 posts in them that are over 2 years old is another story. I guess it depends on the content.
David
I agree. I recently attempted to set up a blog, and nearly every name I chose was taken. When I went to the addresses, 99% had two or less postings and were inactive for at least two years.
Of course, giving the original owner ample time to at least log in would be entirely fair. Especially in light of the gmail policy. Perhaps give them 30 days from the time of notice?
If they haven't even logged in and can't be bothered to respond to an email, I say let it go.
forget it!.. the blogger accounts has to be inmortal!.
When i Die, i whish my footprint never erase from humanity. Blogger is not what you post right now. your post is also a message for future. forever!..
Now we and our thinking our ideas, our post are inmortal. forever.
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