Bad Blogger.

You might have noticed that, for nearly two weeks now, hundreds of images have been missing from my blog. For more than two years, I have placed a single image at the top of every blog posting. In fact, with only one exception, these images have always been 360 pixels by 250 pixels. You can see an example here.

The older images, during the first few months of my obsession with pictures, were all stored on FTP space provided by my alma mater. As time went on, it became more convenient to upload them to the FTP space provided by Blogger, through its Blog*Spot Plus service (go wayback).

Now, admittedly, I know nearly every web service provides some sort of fine print allowing them to murder me at any time, for any reason. An, indeed, the Terms of Service for Blogger and Blog*Spot from back in the day clearly stated:

You agree that Pyra, in its sole discretion, may terminate your password, BlogSpot Site, use of the Service or use of any other Pyra service, and remove and discard any Content within the Service, for any reason…

It’s clear to me that this is some technical glitch, some error with Blogger’s transitioning us grandfathered Blog*Spot Plus users. But, after several emails over the past two weeks to Blogger, the problem continues.

Abandoning Blog*Spot Plus users, however many of us are left, is certainly within Google and Blogger’s rights. It seems like a terrible, alienating mistake, but we all make them sometime. But accidentally destroying an invaluable part of the content of my blog, and then ignoring my pleas for help does not make me a Blogger fan. It, in fact, erases years of goodwill between Blogger, Google, and myself.

I hope someone at Google, or someone at Blogger is listening.

Update One

Unfortunately, Blogger also took it upon itself to delete all the stuff I had written and posted under I Rhyme? I can republish these, I believe, but I’m going to leave them down for now, in case it helps Blogger figure out what they did wrong.

Update Two

I have decided to go on a Blogger strike. I will not add any new posts to my blog until this issue is resolved. I wanted to blog today about Research In Motion, the company that makes the BlackBerry. It’ll have to wait.

Also, I have restored the images that used to be present here on my front page, as their absence was jarring. To see missing images, take a look at almost any archive page for 2005 or 2006.