I might be getting myself into trouble here. Just a risk I’ll have to take. What ever happens, it’ll happen.
I have a “friend” who had a blog here on WordPress.com. My “friend” done got his blog suspended. It is a twisted web we weave. Damned if you do, and damned if you don’t.
My “friend” was having a particularly rough time over the past half a year or so. I have to tell you honestly, WordPress.com has their rules, and they were not going to entertain anything.
After months of hard work, the blog was suspended. Turns out, it was suspended for more than just the reason my friend thought it would be.
Was it possibly time for my friend to move along? Perhaps. My friend had learned too many things using WordPress.com. That alone was reason enough to feel not all was lost.
My friend forgot to back up his blog daily, and when the suspension occurred he only had half of the materials he had spent so many hours to accumulate.
My friend was very sorry for what he had done to upset the WordPress Gods. But if they were to make an exception for one, they were going to have to make it for all.
I am here today to share my friends tail of woe, and send a warning out to all you WordPress.com users. If you plan to use this blog to spam or phish or promote any thing with links, you’d better watch out. They will hunt you down and suspend your account.
Since then, my friend has switched over to hosting his own blog. He will have to take some time if he wants to grow again and be seen. You can be seen here easily on WordPress.com, but you need to have really good content, and things people are looking for.
I didn’t see much on the suspension issue, such as any admissions to being suspended – other than the ones who were mistakenly suspended. I honestly only checked the first few pages of results – so it may be in there, I just didn’t see it.
When using the WordPress search function I expected to see some ranting and raving and I was quite surprised. Have they all moved on to blogger to discuss their past here with WordPress?
Is this subject taboo here? I don’t think it should be. When my friend got suspended, all he could see was the “you are suspended” page which looks like this:
I hope you never have to see this when logging in to your account. It devistated my friend, more than he cares to mention. I see it in his eyes.
April 21, 2008 at 8:07 pm
Here is a hug if it helps. So sad this happened to your friend. Am hoping your friend is ok!
April 23, 2008 at 4:19 am
Your friend agreed to Terms of Service to get a free hosted blog here and if the blog was suspended it was because your friend broke the terms of the contract.
(1) blogger initiated advertising is not allowed on wordpress.com blogs;
faq.wordpress.com/2005/12/08/adsense/
(2) the only exceptions made are for VIP bloggers
wordpress.com/vip-hosting
At the head of the wordpress.com support forum is a sticky post that clearly describes the differences between wordpress.com free hosted blogs and wordpress.org free self-hosting software. In the FAQs one can use the search box and easily find wordpresscom-vs-wordpressorg/
If your friend’s blog was suspended then I’m willing to bet a bundle that “your friend” was given the opportunity to respond to the warning on the dashboard and remove the “offending material” but because your friend did not comply the blog was suspended.
No matter how you cut it your friend tried to cheat the system and got caught cheating. Whining about it does not become you. It’s lame.
April 27, 2008 at 6:01 am
Timethief, there is no whining here – this post serves as as warning to others.
BTW, you lose on the bundle you bet – there was no warning, just shutdown. I heard of a lot of that happening after the upgrade, not just my friend. I’m not condoning it – just a warning.
Thanks for stopping by.