Eye of the Storm?

Anyone who actually reads this blog will have noticed that it hasn't been updated as recently as in the past. Why is this? Well it seems that blog deletions have leveled off to a more stable figure. Some might say it's all about procrastination and excuses amusing they may be, we think that this period is simply the eye of the storm in the raging blog deletion epidemic.

Some are taking this quiet period as a time to clean up bookmarks and blogrolls in the wake of these past few days. It now seems clear that it is indeed a minority group that is taking any notice of the recent mayhem and havoc. At the same time there is an even smaller group that appears to be grossly over exaggerating the situation for reasons unknown.

Whatever the reason for the decline in activity, we are confident we haven't seen the worst part yet.

DBF Pulls a CBS on DBT

In a similar move to CBS's withdrawal on their claims about US President Bush, DBF (Deleted Blog Files) admits it may have inadvertently misrepresented facts in a recent article.

Lemuel blog slayer and articulate writer of DBT made a subtle threat of unleashing his weapons-of-blog-destruction if he wasn't going to be taken seriously as a courageous blog reaping veteran. Understandable as this reaction is to our hollow claims, this may warrant a movement to BLOGCON 4 if the hostilities continue.

With a suggestion that this writer should experience blog deletion of his own, DBF conducted a random user survey. Unfortunately the results were the opposite of our predictions and 89% surveyed said that Deleted Blog Files should be prepared for immediate blog deletion.

In the meantime DBF will continue to bring you more unedited news on the state of the blog empire. Also we have bookmarked the how-to for blog-self-destruction, highly recommended reading!

Lemuel Having Second Thoughts?

In a chilling confession from Lemuel, writer of This Blog will be Deleted by Tomorrow he admitted to having deleted a previous blog in an unofficial record time of 50 seconds. Lemuel also stated in a previous post that he had deleted his current blog completely only to find it still there today. Cold feet? That's what we think here at The Deleted Blog Files.

After second thoughts about the greater purpose of his blog, Lemuel mused the possibility of turning his blog into a mecca of sorts for bloggers who should self delete. Having dismissed this plan we're pretty confident that he will delete the blog tomorrow... Whenever that may be.

In other news, George W. Bush declined to comment when questioned to whether he would be deleting his worthless blog. Bush fans were furious at the idea but one commented:

"Even if Bush doesn't win the election, [snip]. He will still have his blog to fall back on."

That's definitely a reason to be proud.

MacGyver Mullet to Blame

Jenny an avid Stargate SG-1 fan spoke to us here at The Deleted Blog Files about her deletory actions. Speaking out for the first time Jenny said that she wasn't really a big Sci-Fi girl it is really Richard Dean Anderson who she can't get enough of.

Having been tricked into watching the new spin off series called Stargate Atlantis, Jenny discovered that besides the pilot episode Richard Dean Anderson was not part of the cast... Shock horror.

After watching every Stargate SG-1 episode at least twice over, Jenny looked for alternative sources to get her RDA fix. However, she says in retrospect that this may have been a bad move. Stumbling across fossilized tapes of MacGyver, Jenny began to watch until she was in tears terrified by the mighty MacGyver mullet!

With almost no hesitation Jenny's RDA dedicated blog was no more! Zip, nada, zilch, diddly-squat.

Need I say more? Really, this is getting hopeless! On second thoughts, perhaps the 80's were of some use.

EDIT (04:38): also, just for Jenny's sake here is the MacGyver Theme (mp3)

Deletions Linked to Ivan

Reports are flooding in that the recent mass of blog deletions may be linked to Hurricane Ivan. While we still remain skeptical about these claims, it should be noted that statistics show that blog deletion is usually higher than average during hurricane season. However the seasonal fluctuation has been far exceeded in this case. Ivan while most likely weighing some impact on bloggers giving up the ghost, but Ivan shouldn't be held entirely responsible for the recent set of events.

One helpless ex-blogger went as far to say that some government aid should be "funneled" towards distressed bloggers to prevent them from self termination.

Incredible!

Web Crawler Alert

If you are experiencing slow blog posting or viewing do not adjust your computer. We have had reports that someone has activated a deep web crawling bot, an anonymous source told us that most of the hits bore:

User-Agent: blog-preservation-bot v0.1

So it would seem some "do-gooder" out there is making an paranoid attempt at crawling and caching blogs before they're all gone. Although the anonymous tip said that the bot crawled some of his pages over 3000 times, so we suspect it hasn't been perfected yet.

Don't bother updating your robots.txt file, this bot doesn't read it... you can't escape this creepy crawly sorry. As of yet we are unsure of the source of the bot, or who is responsible for these aggressive tactics. No doubt some white hat will find a way to disable this spider for the greater good of the net community.

In my honest opinion, this is a wake up call to those who would think of deleting their own blogs. All your posts could be preserved for all time if you have managed to stay out of search engines so far (more than likely).

Don't go far, no doubt news will breaking again any minute.

"Take that Blog!"

The words of an unstable blog writer, "Take that Blog!" seems to speak for many on this troubled day.

We ask ourselves: If a blog deletes with no readers? Does it blog at all?

One troubled mother of 2 said, I quote:

"Just say no, it's as easy as that."

And her husband cut in with:

"What the hell is a Blog?!"

I think that pretty much sums it up for the rest of us. Deletion may be the silver lining in the blogosphere dark cloud. If you beg to differ be sure to tell us why.

Blogger Needs Counseling?

Tree huggers and Hippies alike are scrambling at the recent news that blog deletions are at alarming levels (for some). The suggestion has come across that Blogger.com needs to have some sort of counseling service, or a comforting FAQ for emotional bloggers who feel they are at their end. A brief overview of Blogger Help shows little indication of having any compassion for those who are considering taking their own blog... away... to be gone... DELETED!


In all fairness I think not it be the job of Blogger.com to have to deal with these troubled individuals, nor should they feel in anyway responsible. When surveyed, several bloggers said it doesn't help that Blogger.com provides succinct information on deleting one's own blog. Another said that bloggers should pull their shit together and stop blubbering like babies, deletion is a fact of life and if you can't handle it perhaps you're not cut out for blogging anyway.

How do we feel about this here at The Deleted Blog Files? Well the jury is still out, but it's leaning towards: "Do it!"

More to come on deleting.

Blog Deletions on the Rise

The facts are in, blog deletions are on the rise. All across the blogoshpere weblogs are dropping like flies. Gone, maybe even for ever.

The question: is this a good, bad, or neither?

Some attribute the sudden increase in blog deletions to a recently created blog titled: This Blog will be Deleted by Tomorrow which encourages fellow bloggers to throw in the towel and delete their own blogs. Others argue that this critical point had to be reached eventually, trying to use science to explain their crackpot theories. One blogger said:

"According to the second law [thermodynamics] entropy must always increase over time, blog deletions are going to be directly proportional to the inverse square of blogoshpere entropy"

While this at first glance seems a scientifically sound theory, it assumes that the mighty blogosphere is a closed system. The Second Law of Thermodynamics clearly states that entropy must increase in a closed system over time. For this to be true there should be no inbound links to the blogoshpere, and none outbound. While clearly there are few inbound links to most parts of the blogoshpere (see: irrelevant blogs, online journals) the closed system is broken by the astronomical count of outbound links from the blogosphere. Concluding that there are channels for entropy to be conveyed from the blog-o-universe.

This blog will attempt to monitor and chart the surge of blog deletions, I encourage all readers to take note of any blogs they attempt to visit that have disappeared. Without support this blog is likely to join the many of blogs which are perishing left, right, and center.

Act now, before this gets out of hand.