[Doodlepaper]

So what's the matter now? Is there an ongoing maintenance that I/everyone should know about? Since there isn't anything posted about that, i'm assuming the problem must be coming from my side. If that's the case, please disregard this message.
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You make me feel like I don't belong.

[logansackett]

I can't load the post I just did, my page and cannot even get into the trouble ticket area so it's probably not just you.
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http://herbthiel.blogdrive.com/

The world's history is a divine poem, of which the history of every nation is a canto, and every man a word. Attributed to: James A Garfield (1831-1881), U.S. president.

[PhilM]

I had the same problem a few days ago. Right now, I (nor anyone I know) can get to my blog--simply never loads. But, rest assured, it will be explained as "maintenence" and "will be corrected shortly", just like every frequent & ongoing problem that BD has.
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http://nomadechoes.blogdrive.com

[petrajane]

[JLWalther]

I've read the posts concerning this problem. As usual, Blogdrive has not responded to trouble tickets, nor has anyone responded to any of the posts I've read here. This has always been par for the course.

I've been fighting this for two years, now. I had to find an alternative because of contractual committments to my editors. I've finally found an alternative in Blogharbor. As soon as I can get my database converted over, I will cease posting on Blogdrive. For the same price, the service at Blogharor is outstanding.

However, I'm not going to let the matter drop altogether.I pay top dollar to Blogdrive (their top of line plan) for my space. In return, I receive nothing even remotely connected to acceptable service. To this end, I've retained a law firm in San Diego, California to investigate BLOGDRIVE, though California's Attorneys General Office, if necessary.

The domain name, Blogdrive.com is registered to a Michael Danke. I don't know if he's the business owner, but there is sufficient information to get things started.
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Joe Walther

[PhilM]

[John Furie Zacharias]

[logansackett]

The last post I did was Sunday 10/29, not 10/22. The "update" blog has not been updated to even tell us about the "Scheduled Maintenance" and did anybody notice that when they did update it, they updated an existing entry instead of making a new one. Being a paying member I would consider joining in a class-action of some sort I suppose, but I did not do like some and pre-pay for top-notch service for 3 years in advance. If I had I would be a lot more upset. I can take my 5 bucks a month and add a couple of bucks and go to squarespace http://www.squarespace.com/pricing/ or some other place. I really do like a lot of stuff here, but this is getting old.

Just noticed JFZ's comment. You sir, are a fine apologist for BD, but when DO you think it's time to

[JLWalther]

John Furie Zacharias wrote...

"Blogdrive responds to hundreds of trouble tickets everyday. I know they've promptly responded to the few that I have sent in during the last three years. As far as the help forum goes, it shows that there are over 12,000 individual posts in here. Surely, that speaks to a huge response."

Walther responds...

They have never responded to any of mine and I have a substantial list of others in the same boat. I also have a copy of every one I've sent.

John Furie Zacharias contined...

"Over the last year or so Blogdrive has also upgraded its entry editor and added a profile system for users. Like any online service, there are times when that service is going to be degraded. When Blogdrives does maintenance, or installs spam filters for comments, or deals with attacks on its servers, I am not overly surprised."

Walther responds...

This is all well and good. However, it is little consolation to people who find, continuously, that the bloody thing is down again.

Right now, I can't even log into the "manage" module to send a trouble ticket. This goes on constantly, also.

John Furie Zacharias continued...

"While I can understand that it might feel gratifying to vent frustrations, I think some perspective might be in order before we all grab our digital pitchforks, light our torches, and storm Blogdrive."

Walther responds...

Perhaps this wouldn't happen if, once in blue moon, the folks at Blogdrive Support responded to email concerns. They don't do this, either. I have plenty of perspective about Blogdrive.com. I'm not interested in digital pitchforks, lighting a torch, or storming Blogdrive. I just want an explanation as to what is going on and why the problems persist.

Apparantly, the only way to get this explanation is to get it through legal channels. We'll find out. I don't care a hoot about a refund or suing this outfit for money damages. The annual fee is not worth the effort and I don't need the money.

On the other hand, it's time for a looksee into what's going on out there and why they think that they're exempt from the common decency of a service response.

The Civil Division for California's Attorneys General Office is quite adept at getting to the bottom of things. This is esppecially true when we can provide them with over a year and a half's documentation.

John Furie Zacharias continued...

Here, in order of the number of google search returns:
blogger http://www.google.com/search?q=%22blogger+down+again%22
myspace http://www.google.com/search?q=%22myspace+down+again%22
blogspot http://www.google.com/search?q=%22blogspot+down+again%22
typepad http://www.google.com/search?q=%22typepad+down+again%22
livejournal http://www.google.com/search?q=%22livejournal+down+again%22
blogdrive http://www.google.com/search?q=%22blogdrive+down+again%22

Walther responds...

Once again, downtime is one thing. Ignoring repeated inquiries for clarification is something altogether different.

John Furie Zachariascontinued...

All online services experience downtime. Personally, my blogs will stay here on Blogdrive.

Walther responds...

I am well aware of this. I deal with online services every day of my life and have been doing so for at least 20-years. However, I have yet to find a single one of them that comes within 10-light-years of Blogdrive's arrogance and utter disregard for their paying customers' inquires.

You may keep your BLOG at Blogdrive. I can't afford the inconvenience of doing so. While it's a minor matter to change sites, it's a monumental inconvenience to do so smoothly, so that subscribed readers know what's going on. As soon as I get this issue resolved, Blogdrive will be unpleasant history in my life.
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Joe Walther

[JLWalther]

My readers are beginning to receive the notification email for a new post. The problem is that when they click on the link, they are taken to a week old post instead of the one that I posted today.

When this happens, my email inbox becomes swamped. I also have 17 editors going for my throat because they can't download the new post in time for publication.

This is why I went to Blogharbor. In the past 6-months Blogharbor.com has gone down for scheduled maintenance twice. We were forewarned of it via direct email. While the site is down, they post a notification to that effect so that anyone accessing the BLOG sees it.

The site went down once as the result of a lightning strike. It took them about two hours to get back on line. In the interim, they linked to a separate sever that displayed the trouble message to anyone trying to reach the BLOG.

Blogdrive can't even post a notification in the forum, let alone go to these means in service to their customers.
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Joe Walther

[John Furie Zacharias]

[rymza]

[PhilM]

John Furie, I think you're continuing to miss the point of those of us who are voicing our frustration. We are not angry over a single outage. Nor are we expecting perfection. While I can not speak for everyone, I can say that my anger is not simply because of repeated outages. It is due to a combination of factors. Namely, it is the frequency of outages, the time it takes to correct the outages, and (most importantly, imo) the absolute and total lack of communication--no announcements for scheduled maintenance, no response from trouble ticket submissions, no official representative here in the forums to answer users when wide-spread problems occur, the very tired "it's maintenance & will be fixed shortly" excuse, etc.

You offered a "pragmatic" view, from your perspective. Here's mine:

I've worked in IT for 10 years, mostly at a multi-national corporation. So, I'm very familiar with the challenges of technology & demanding users. I know the importance of communicating with users--telling them ahead of time when maintenance will occur; giving them some official indication that we are aware of, and working on, large-scale problems when they occur; etc. I know full well that the "we're too busy working on the problem to respond" is absolute pure bull, because it takes less than 5 minutes to put together an announcement & post it (a move which, btw, will generally elimate 50% or more of the trouble-tickets & calls received on the problem). And I also know full well that if it took me weeks (or more) to correct a problem that was affecting a majority of my userbase, especially if I did so while (perceptually) ignoring said users, I'd be out on my arse & brushing up my resume.

I've had my blog at BlogDrive for a little over a year and a half. Before that, it was at Blogger for almost exactly 1 year. I left Blogger because of their frequent outages. But y'know what? When they had an outage, they were almost always back up within a matter of hours. And I don't recall a single time when it took more than a day. I'm not referring exclusively to "100% service failure" here . . . when I say "outage", I'm referring to any kind of technical issue which affected service for a large number of the users. In the 1.5 years at BlogDrive, there have been at least 7-8 such outages (which, btw, is no fewer than Blogger's number). With one exception, every single one of those outages were brushed off as "maintenance--it'll be fixed shortly" (always offered by a BD apologist user, rather than an actual BD representative) and lasted at least a full day. The one exception was when BD decided to experiment (again, completely unannounced) with their Google ads delivery, putting the ads in each and every post rather than just the banner at the top.

Over that 1.5 years, I've submitted (I believe) 3 trouble tickets, including one for this most recent fiasco. I have yet to receive a single response, or even acknowledgement for any of them. With possibly one exception, I have never seen a single announcement letting users know ahead of time that maintenance will be occurring (though I have seen a few "after the fact" notices). And I have never once seen any official explanations for any of the major, obviously non-maintenance related outages. And I have witnessed official BD representatives launch into personal attacks against users right here in this forum simply because the user made a legitimate suggestion or asked a reasonable question.

My point is this: I know the industry, know the challenges & expectations. I'm familiar with other blogging services. I'm very forgiving and understanding when it comes to IT & customer service. And that being said, my patience has worn out with BD. The frequency of the outages is annoying, but forgiveable. The length of time it takes to fix the outages is annoying, but forgiveable. The consistent lack of communication & utter disregard for customer service practices is more annoying, and less forgiveable. The "maintenance" excuse is tired, old, and annoying. Add them all together, and you get pissed off users. And rightfully so.

You're obviously perfectly happy with BD. That's fine. That's your opinion. Others of us are decidedly less than happy, and are voicing our unhappiness. This latest, continuing fiasco is a prime example of why. In all of the "discussions" (yes, I use the term loosely) about the synchronization issues which have been happening for close to a month now, how many responses from BD have you seen? Two? Three? Supposedly, the problem was fixed (although, again, that was from a non-BD source) on the 18th, and yet complaints still come in and are met with silence from BD. Until the people working at BD wake up & understand that they're pissing people off, things won't get any better. And while you may be fine & dandy with that, personally I think newer members should be aware of how many people are dissatisfied and why. If for nothing else than to keep them from getting their hopes up, only to wind up being part of the next wave of pissed off, unsatisfied customers.
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http://nomadechoes.blogdrive.com

[rymza]

[Splotch!]

Number 9.
Number 9.
Number 9.


If there's a bustle in your hedgrow don't be alarmed now.
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"What we've got here is ... failure .. to communicate."


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