Heavens to Betsy

Betsy Newsmark in addition to being a high school teacher and a very nice person(I've traded a few emails with her in the past and she was kind enough to link to the 2005 Knucklehead of the Year award) had an excellent blog till a few days ago. Then it disappeared.

I noted this in a post yesterday. On Monday night I first noted Betsy's blog being down, and I emailed her. She wrote back saying blogger had eaten her blog and was hoping to get the problem fixed.

Today other bloggers began to notice Betsy's page being down. The Anchoress for one. Then Michelle Malkin did a post titled- 'Where's Betsy's Page?' . Betsy shared this in an email to Michelle.

Evil Blogger has lost the page - server problems. They are the most unhelpful organization. You can't reach any human being and all I get are form letters saying that all the problems have been resolved. I'm just hoping that they fix their problem and I get back on. I don't have time to hassle with setting up a new page.

and

All I get are their automated messages that are of no help whatsoever. Then they put up lies on their status page saying that it really was just a tiny problem and it's all fixed now. Maybe if they get some notoriety out there, they'll take more action. Here is their lame help message. Thanks so much. Maybe one of your readers has a suggestion of what I can do to get my blog back other than starting over from scratch.

If Blogger's uncooperativeness was bad enough, some squatter named Sam has taken over Betsy's URL. Is this person hoping Betsy will pay him money to get her URL back? I don't know why someone would take it unless they wanted to cause trouble. At twenty comments and counting this person already has people angry at them. A URL stealing troll?

The weird thing is now the site is down for maintenance. Did someone at Blogger's customer service finally decide to do something about this?

This all sounds similiar to another blog, Florida Politics. I recall reading their troubles with blogger but can't find the post. So I emailed Betsy with two email addresses for people with that blog. I hope they can help her out.

I hope this all gets resolved quickly. Till then Betsy will be missed.

Also commenting on Betsy- Sensible Mom, Joanne Jacobs and others.
Open Post- Outside the Beltway, Quietly Making Noise, Bright & Early, Right Wing Nation, TMH's Bacon Bits, Cao's Blog,