Another problem I never thought I'd have: An old blog post is alleged to have violated Blogger's "community standards"

UPDATE: Immediately after posting this, I opened an email from Blogger saying that the 2010 post described herein has been reevaluated and reinstated. The brown paper wrapper is off. Kind of takes all the wind out of my sails, don't it? Today, at least, if not, a couple of weeks ago, I pressed the right button. My thanks to Blogger... although, in all honesty, I wish they'd held off for a few days so I could convince myself that the following article somehow helped my cause....

I've been using the Blogger platform for Page One of this site since 2006. I started this Page Two in 2008.

That was so long ago, blogging was fashionable, even (arguably) hip. (I realize, of course, that this time is long past; this is why I am so careful to call what you are looking at a "site" instead of a "blog." It sounds more current that way. At least to me....)

Anyway, in that time, between these two sites, I've put up over 4,400 articles (I like to think that 'articles' sounds more contemporary than 'posts'). Some have been better than others, obviously; I even won an award (in 2012) from the Chicago Bar Association for one post. I mean, article. I got an honorable mention from the CBA in 2014, too.

(It wasn't too many years after this that the CBA stopped giving out Kogan Awards. I deny any responsibility for this.)

Along the way, I've attracted some modest trappings of success. For awhile, I even had some of my own trolls. But I try not to be overly controversial in what I publish, and the trolls eventually lost interest.

In other words, I'm boring.

Which is why I was shocked, a couple of weeks ago, to receive a notice from Blogger that one of my articles on this site, a piece from 2010, was in violation of Blogger's Community Standards.

The article was entitled, "Up all night with a sick computer." If you are brave enough to click on that link now you will find the article shielded by the Internet-equivalent of a brown paper wrapper. Judging by the recorded page clicks, only about 250 individuals were potentially contaminated by this content in the 13 years before this label was slapped on.

If you do read the article, which recounts my experience battling a Trojan Horse virus encountered while innocently browsing the Internet, you may find it overlong, self-indulgent, or not nearly as helpful or amusing as I thought it was at the time I pressed the "publish" button. But while I understand that some people don't like The Quiet Man in particular or John Wayne generally, I don't see how the article could conceivably be seen as violating any reasonable set of community values.

My best, non-expert guess is that, after all these years, a passing AI "spider" picked up on the scary website names (the ones that the Trojan Horse virus caused to pop up on my computer screen that night) (not linked, obviously) and leapt to the wholly unwarranted conclusion that I was offering links to pornographic websites.

After receiving the message, I clicked around ineffectually, trying to find some human who could look at the article and remove the 'brown paper wrapper.'

Blogger does not have much in the way of in-person customer service, and understandably so: Who would want to field calls all day from old ladies unable to post their latest kitten-playing-with-yarn videos... or from old lawyers grousing about inappropriate warnings being slapped on essentially innocuous content?

But I have noticed that whatever I did that first day has so far brought no response from the folks at Blogger. The 'brown paper wrapper' is still on that 2010 post.

I looked over the post again today and noted there was a button that could be pressed seeking review. I pressed. Then I wrote this.

Neither tactic may succeed in getting the label removed. But at least I've tried my best.