Mike: I hope the blog is up again soon, too, Mike. That’s the important thing, especially as hurricane season is about to kick into high gear here.

The blog was not deleted due to a “spat” instead it was removed because it was no longer in use and it was a haven for thousands of spam links. We were surprised by Brian’s post today as Brian contacted us and asked that we point the old Slidell blog to his new Gulf Blog. I had a conversation with Brian today and planned to meet with the team to discuss his request and options for the blog. That was before I saw his post…

The last post on the Slidell blog was in April and the spam problem was getting out of hand. The blog was always considerd a temporary project and we never bothered to load a spam fliter on the comments. There was talk of cleaning the spam out and then locking down comments - to turn it into sort of a historical site. We estimated that 40,000 spam links were hosted on the blog.

We are meeting later today to discuss various options. One favored option was the creation of a single page that told the history of the blog and provided resources for Katrina and possible future disasters. I do want to mention that while Brian did a great job on the blog, he was only one of several contributors on the project.

Love to tackle that spam problem and host the content. An archive page will still break the deep links and doesn’t keep the project up as it should be. It’s pretty simple: preserve the structure of the blog with the domain that is pointed to by hundreds of links.

Also, there is a service called Akismet that is really great at dealing with spam on WordPress blogs. (http://www.akismet.com)

Brian, since you have decided to air this issue publically, even though we had settled it privately, I will post an mp3 of the call where we agreed on a solution that worked for everyone…

Instead of embarrassing yourselves further with a public airing, why not buy some space, replicate the site and use a simple redirect in the .htaccess file? Links will work, search engines will pick up on the changes and life goes on.

You both appear to believe the information is important enough to save. No one is claiming IP rights, etc.

The only thing left to argue about is who makes the bigger stink. Blame a third party for making a stink. Me. Jesus. Charlie Brown. It doesn’t matter.

Just put the archive of the biggest event of 2005 back on the web. If you cannot afford the space I am sure someone will step up.

Yeah I agree with Patrick. Blame me if you want to. Just get it back up, at the original domain. Askimet will solve your spam problems. Or just turn off comments on the posts. Whatever.

I have zero interest in hearing a private phone recording.

It would be excellent if you posted that call, as I recall you spent a lot of time trying to convince me that the site wasn’t needed and that it only benefitted me. So, please do. My post is absolutlely true to what was said, my POV on it, anyway. Your actions broke the links. I want the site back up, however it has to happen.
It’s pretty simple to me.

Wow, it is back up… http://slidell.weblogswork.com/

Fantastic! I am sure the Akismet folks would donate their services for spam fighting. Drop them an email. They are sure to think that this resource is historically important enough to be part of.

Thanks for making this happen, guys!

A demonstration of the problem of building up your blog on a domain that somebody else owns. It has happen so many times, Beware.

I’m really stoked that the blog is back up. Glad you guys decided to do the right thing. Thank you.

Nik is absolutely right–if you don’t have a contract, get one, or host important information yourself. So many people have gotten used to cheap or free service that they forget someone out there still has to manage or pay for it to be managed, and may have other priorities for the money or resources used to do so. If you aren’t providing those things, you have little room to complain if the person who does decides to pull them.

I don’t know the particulars in this case but it seems like it wasn’t a formal arrangement, as if it had been it would have been resolved with a quick fax of a contract or call to a lawyer; but the advice is important for anyone who has information they consider a priority on the web.

Nik and Scott - I think you misunderstand the situation with your comment “A demonstration of the problem of building up your blog on a domain that somebody else owns. It has happen so many times, Beware.”

The Hurricane blog was a team effort, Brian was only one member of the team. I am not sure where you got the idea that it was “his” blog. Brian has always had his own personal blog at Like it Matters. His personal domains were always hosted on his own servers and he always paid for his own domain registration fees. Our company, who he worked for, owned the blog and the domain related to the Hurricane blog. Had it been “his” project I am sure he would have registered the domain name and hosted it on her personal servers.

I am not sure who started this meme - i.e. we were the hosting company - but it simply is not true. Our servers suffered several DOS attacks this afternoon and we can only assume someone has the wrong idea about our company. I hope someone will clear this up.

I think we understood it perfectly, and the point stands–if he was concerned about the long-term availability of the IP he was contributing, even if it was only a portion of it, he should have made arrangements to ensure continued control. As it was, apparently your company owned it, and he doesn’t have much pull over whether it stays up or not. It’s great that you decided to make it available again, but this is splashed all over the blogosphere as if you yanked down his work. But if he was an employee and there were no agreements to the contrary, then it was your work all along. If you want people to understand something, that should be it… otherwise the tarring and feathering is likely to continue.

The venue may be new, but this is an old story for anyone creating content… be clear who has the rights to it and make sure you retain control of it if that’s a priority for you in the long term.

In this order…

I cried.

I laughed.

I cried again. Don’t break the web, its bad juju.