2292 Still Feeling Mean

Monday, March 2, 2009

Back when I had to hide this blog, I did it by unchecking the setting that allowed search engines to find it, and by changing the URL.

Unchecking the setting was easy. Changing the URL was not.

I had a half-dozen or more possible names in mind, but when I tried to use them, Blogger told me that the name was already in use. So I'd go to that URL to see who was using it and what they were doing with it, and I'd find a five-year-old blog with one five-year-old test post. That happened over and over.

My first choice was IDontUnderstand.blogspot.com (of course). That one exists, contains 10 entries from two months in mid-2002. Why is she still sitting on it?

Look, folks, if you don't want to use the name, give it back! Unregister it. Release it for Blogger to let someone else use it!

Or maybe Blogger should contact the owners who haven't posted in a year or two (they have an email id connected to the blog), and if there's no further action within a certain period, the blog is unregistered and deleted. If nothing else, think of all those moribund blogs sitting out there taking up storage. Will they live forever?

What started this rant was my finding the other day a blogger who was lamenting the great ideas he had, but had no time to implement. He then proceeded to list thirty-one blog names/URLs and what he had planned to fill them with - mostly news and innovations in aspects of his profession and related areas.

I checked. Yeah, he had started all of them three to seven years ago, and none of them had anything in them. Thirty-one good descriptive blog names/URLs, and he had locked them up and then didn't use them.

Thanks fella. From me on principle, and from other members of your profession who might have made better use of those URLs.
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