Unpublished Doesn't Mean it was Never Published

I've had another run-in with an algorithm, this time from Blogger, Google's free web hosting platform, which is what I use. They sent me a notice that a post had been unpublished because it did not conform to community standards, under the category of "spam."

So I looked at the post in question. It was a vintage music video, with almost no commentary, no comments, and the only ads were those that Blogger places automatically through Google AdSense. What spam? Someone apparently complained, but I got no details.

The notice goes on to say that I can edit the offending content, republish, and they will check to see that it conforms with community guidelines. I see nothing to change, but that's the only recourse offered. It's only one music video, published months ago, so I don't really care.

Still, it's an algorithm that I can't argue with, and it could happen again. It's entirely possible that someone hit a "report" button by accident and the unpublishing was automatic with no review. Or possibly an overworked moderator trying to make quota in a hurry because he had a headache. There's no option to ask questions or communicate with any real person about it. This is our world today.  

Come Back Tomorrow for Links

There will be no links list today, as my mother is in the hospital and I did not collect enough of them. Links will most likely resume tomorrow. 

Not at All Helpful

I get these kinds of "warnings" quite often. I have no idea what kind of violation has occurred, who did it, how they did it, or what posts or ads were involved. Nor do I have any idea what I can do about it. Neither of the links provided in the email have any information on such things, nor are they an opportunity to ask questions. I don't have anything to do with AdSense besides enabling Blogger to put ads on my site, and the rare payment they send is not really worth bothering about it. Google pays for the bandwidth and takes the ad revenue, I provide eyeballs and get about $100 a year. If they want to suspend my ads, I would barely notice it. So why do they even bother sending these useless notices?

Programming Note

There may not be any videos here today, we will see how it goes. I was stung over a dozen times by wasps yesterday. If I were allergic to stings, I'd be dead now. Yeah, I got them back, but was in agony for a long time. I am doing well to get anything at all done.

Miss Cellania is Ten Years Old

For the biggest part of this year I’ve had it in the back of my mind to make a special celebration out of August 23rd, when my blog turns ten years old. Earlier this month, I was reminded of that when I worked on Neatorama’s ten year anniversary. And then yesterday I made plans to write something, but then got distracted, like I always do. This morning, I said, “Holy Moly, it’s my ten year anniversary!” So the first thing I did was look up my very first post to link it, and whaddaya know, it was published on August 22, 2005. It’s like I forgot my own birthday or something. Well, happy belated blogiversary to me.

Let me tell you how it all happened. My husband died in August of 2004. I was only 45 and had two small children. As I slowly climbed out of the grief pit, it became clear I was just plain lonely. We were living in his hometown, not mine, and most of our friends were his friends. I was busy with work and parenting, so I turned to a small private parenting group of online friends who had been so supportive. I started an email joke list to let people know I still had my sense of humor. I emailed old friends near and far. One of the guys in my parenting group introduced me to “blogs” by recommending I read Boing Boing. A mom on the group started a blog. What a wonderful idea! However, my current computer wasn’t up to the task, so I bought a new one, my first NEW computer ever. And I started Miss Cellania.

I was a real n00b, but spent a lot of time surfing, writing, and promoting the site. By commenting at other sites, I met a lot of bloggers- even dated a couple of them eventually. Blogging was a lot of fun! Meanwhile, my career as a radio announcer was reaching a dead end after 24 years. I no longer enjoyed it, and it probably showed, but I kept plugging away because I needed the money. In 2006, I was assigned a shift that was incompatible with parenting school-age children, so I quit. Staying in the profession would mean moving out of town, and since I finally got my house paid off, I didn’t want to deal with the hassle. So I avoided the job question and kept blogging.

In July of 2006, the guys at YesButNoButYes asked me to to join them as a writer. Then Alex at Neatorama linked to one of my posts, and later asked me to do a co-blogging feature, and then asked me to post on his site. In early 2007, mental_floss contacted me about writing for them. They were even willing to pay me, which was mind-blowing. As blogs became more popular and attracted advertisers, Neatorama and YesButNoButYes started paying writers as well. I began to think that maybe I didn’t need to find another job. Blogging for a living has its advantages and disadvantages.

In April of 2010, Alex made me managing editor of Neatorama. Shortly afterward, YesButNoButYes ended. I wrote for a couple of other blogs along the way, but have settled down with Neatorama and mental_floss because that’s the most I can handle.

Since I started this blog, I bought a house, got married and gained five more kids and now three grandchildren, went through menopause, and watched my children grow up (Princess is leaving home in a couple of weeks). I migrated this blog to a different host for several years and then back to Blogger, and there’s a ton of archives I still haven’t reposted. Blogging itself has changed as well. Social media is now king, even though blogs have more content. The attention span of those surfing the ‘net has decreased, and innovation has given way to improving on familiar tropes.

Here’s a timeline I created a few years ago about my internet career. I really should update that more often. 

I don’t know what the future holds for the site. There was a time not so long ago (or maybe it was long ago) when Miss Cellania had 5,000 visitors every day, with some days hitting twice that. Now I’m lucky to get 800 views in a day. Strangely, though, I’m making more money from it now than I did then. Advertisers learned the value of blogs late in the game. Part of that loss is because I don’t have time to promote my own site, since I’m so busy with the blogs that support my family. Part of it is the shifting habits of web surfers. There’s not much I can do about either trend. I’m pretty sure I will keep this site even if no one visits, because it’s my personal home on the web.

Thanks a million to everyone who comes to visit, who ever came over the past ten years. I couldn’t have done it without you!

Update: Thank you so much to everyone who left a comment! It's wonderful to know that there are people who still check in here every day. Thanks to John Farrier for posting a link at Neatorama. And to Marilyn for posting it at Nag on the Lake. Thanks to madamjujujive at Everlasting Blort for this neat gif.

Kentucky: Why We Can't Have Nice Things

According to the Washington Post, Kentucky is the state that will benefit the most by expanding Medicaid coverage with federal money under Obamacare. However, a social worker told me a couple of months ago that Kentucky was not going to participate in the expanded Medicaid part of Obamacare. That's just nuts. So I looked up any news stories about that decision and found out it was not true.

According to the Advisory Board Company, Kentucky has yet to decide the issue. Governor Beshear wants to accept the money and cover 300,000 more Kentuckians, or half of those without insurance.

Beshear made the decision after an internal analysis and outside studies conducted by the University of Louisville and the Price Waterhouse Coopers accounting and actuarial firm. The research concluded that the expansion would create 17,000 new jobs and add $15.6 billion to the state's economy between 2014 and 2021.

However, Tea Party activist David Adams filed a lawsuit to prevent the governor from accepting the federal funds to expand Medicaid. The lawsuit may take months to resolve. I hope Kentuckians who work at McDonalds or Walmart and cannot afford to buy insurance can stay lucky. 

I'm Glad You're Here!

Hi! It looks like you've found the new location of Miss Cellania. Welcome! I've tried to make it look like the site you are used to -as much as possible- but there is work to be done. I haven't moved much over as far as old posts go, but that will come gradually. The tools, such as the language translation, will come gradually as I get them formatted. And if you are looking for older posts, those are still available at http://misscellania.squarespace.com/ for at least a couple of months. I'll be moving them over here gradually.

Yeah, the site was down most of the day while I redirected my domain. It's still not exactly the way I want it, but I reckon you get what you pay for. And I'm not paying nearly as much now. The thing about domains is that every source uses different language to tell you what to do, so you end up guessing a lot. Then they warn you that any changes may take a couple of hours, so you have to wait to find out that the latest thing you tried did not work before you can try something else. Sigh.

Meanwhile, I wasted some time trying out a free Wordpress blog, which I was supposed to b able to import files to. In fact, Wordpress told me my files imported just fine, but they are nowhere to be found. They certainly didn't publish or even get drafted.

Things will settle down here sooner or later, but please bear with me while I make changes and updates. Hey, if you ever have trouble finding this site again, you can check my Facebook page and I will try to post updates and news there.

Domain Troubles

Some people are having trouble reaching my (currently) main site, Miss Cellania. I'm sorry. In the process of switching domain registration, each step takes "up to five days" and then you find out about the mistake you made, or the step that will also take "up to five days." That's what I get for not being a geek.

Anyway, until I figure out how to get my content moved to Blogspot, you can access the site by going to http://misscellania.squarespace.com/. And check back here, because I might get things straightened out sometime soon!

Some Changes are Coming

You may have noticed that the look of this site -and even the name- has changed. See, I am in the process of combining my two blogs, Miss Cellania and Miss C Recommends, into one in the near future, with all the archived content going back to 2005 in one place. I will redirect the domain www.misscellania.com to this site, so longtime readers can find it.

The change is so that I can go back to blogging for fun without having to worry about pageviews, statistics, and ad revenue to cover the expenses of blogging. Here at blogspot, I will post only the best of what I find, without worrying about how many posts per day, or whether there's something new every three hours, or whatever. The main reason I left Blogspot in the first place back in 2006 was over technical difficulties, and when they were fixed I stayed with Squarespace because Blogspot was difficult to work with. But the overhaul they've done here makes linking and editing a thousand times easier than it was a few years ago.

See, I also have two full time blogging jobs. I am the managing editor at Neatorama and a writer a mental_floss. After my duties there, my free time is limited. So I have decided that my personal blog should be a hobby and not a moneymaking obligation. This plan will work out better in the long run, I think. A longer version of this explanation can be found here.

It will be a few days at least before all this is done. Be prepared for some broken links in the older posts after the Squarespace site goes down... those may or may not be fixed eventually, but I'll work on them a little at a time.

Trouble at the Main Site

I'm having problems at the main site, Miss Cellania. I can't post anything new, since I put up the pictures of the cats yesterday. I'm in contact with support and hope to get it fixed, but meanwhile, all I have scheduled are some posts that I pre-loaded last week. Don't give up on me! Things will return to normal sooner or later.

UPDATE: We fixed it! Trouble with an advertiser's code. If we can't get the blog and the ads to work together, I'll have to give up my personal blog for lack of time. However, if that happens, I'll still be blogging elsewhere.

Blogiversary 3

When you get real busy, or you get really old, time speeds up and you can't believe another week, or year, or decade has gone by. It was three years ago today that I published the first post at Miss Cellania (which was actually here). It seems like just yesterday, but the days are a blur when you're raising kids.

For my first Blogiversary in 2006, I published a collection of silly generated images of myself. I still do that when the opportunity arises, but not often enough for another collection. For my second Blogiversary, I made a timeline of blog milestones, with links. Since I have that, I'll just give a few links on what's gone on in the third year.

This year, I tried to do some 100% original content posts, starting with the Playhouse post in November. Then I posted about my vacation in Memphis in a two-part post at mental_floss, and also my projects Hillbilly Recycling and Salsa Time! I'll do more of that  if I do anything even remotely interesting.

In December, The ABC World News Webcast used my voice for a video countdown segment. They contacted me again in June about a video segment to illustrate the Neatorama post about anti-terrorism patents. I didn't write that one, but Alex is camera shy, so I was glad to jump in.

In May, I decided to change this site's format. It was somewhat gradual, since I had some stuff ready to go, but the response was immediate and phenomenal! My traffic has tripled, since other sites find it easier to link to one item at a time. If you are looking for a particular topic, you can still find the old topic-style entries listed by post title here, or by subject here. That last index link is not quite complete, but I'm working on it. Those will go in my sidebar as soon as life settles down a bit (so it might never happen)!

In June, The Neatorama Show debuted. There were only three episodes (here are episodes two and three), because I couldn't figure out what should go in a show that we couldn't just post to the site directly. Keep it simple, ya know. I'm not in a position to get on-the-spot reports because I have no cameraman and I live far away from anything interesting to record.

In July, I made a road trip to New York City to meet with my co-workers from YesButNoButYes and Mangesh from mental_floss.

Just last week, this site logged the millionth visit.

I am now in the process of making an interactive timeline about Miss Cellania (the blog) at Timetoast. It wouldn't be interesting to anyone besides myself, but it's a great application you can use to make any kind of timeline you like.

Posting may be a little thin next week, as I am moving into my new house. This blogging job isn't as easy as you may think, but it's still fun! Many, many thanks to everyone who visits, corresponds, links, and contributes to Miss Cellania! I couldn't do it without you!

 

Blog Whining

My main site is a Miss Cellania, a site currently hosted by Squarespace. They rolled out a new version of their hosting service this morning, and I can't use it. If I type more than one sentence in a post, I can't reach the "save" button. I also cannot paste link in; I have to hand-code them. I also hand-code links here at Blogger, but since it's simple to switch to html and rich text and back again, it's easier. Still, editing a blog should not be this difficult. I have a brand new Mac Mini, the latest browser (FireFox 3), and the newest OS (Leopard).

Anyway, if you came over here to find out why there isn't much new at Miss Cellania, that's why. This all happened right before I went on a road trip, so I didn't have the time to reconfigure everything. I had a few posts ready ahead of the Squarespace launch, but not enough to last til I return. Please check back both here and there for new content beginning on July 28th. Thank you.

Meanwhile, what's your opinion on Wordpress blogs? Would that be a better platform than Blogger? I need a backup in case I have to leave Squarespace, which would be a shame since I've already paid up for a year!

New Computer

The good news is that I have a new computer! It's a Mac Mini, like the one I've been using for a few years, but the old one died suddenly on Saturday. You may not have noticed it here, because I had several "videos of the day" set to post automatically. But you might have noticed I haven't had any links lists or full-length features for several days.

The bad news is that I lost all my old files, so it may take a while to get back up to speed. There probably won't be any movies this week, and the links list will be shorter for a while. But this new computer is a pleasure to use, and I'll try to find lots of nice new stuff for you!

I'm sick!

I feel worse than I've felt in a LONG time. Took FOUR naps today! And still managed to catch up on some work for Mental Floss, but that's about it. I should be back to normal by Monday (I hope). Meanwhile, go visit Miss Cellania for this week's best links. And a couple of jokes.

Blogiversary

Today is the second anniversary of the date I started blogging. Miss Cellania actually started right here on this site, and was moved to another host a year later. I’m glad I kept this URL, because I’m using it a lot lately! Read about the history of Miss Cellania and Miss C Recommends at my Blogiversary post today.