coolnamehere.com

Nothing special. I have Akismet set up. Hopefully that means comment moderation will be easier, so I have re-enabled comments.

Not that I expect a lot of comments. Nevertheless, it would be nice to allow folks to post something when they want.

Expect me to be editing and revising this post. It’s what I do.

Like Skud and many others, my Google+ profile was suspended while they review my name. I was using “Random Geek” as a name for the last year or so on Buzz, and continued that on G+.  Apparently that bothered somebody enough to report my profile. Oh well. I changed it back to “Brian Wisti” and submitted for another profile review. Unlike many others, I only had to wait about twelve hours. I’ve been reinstated as of midnight, so this will be more of a post-mortem. I like the people I know on Google+, so I’ll continue to use the service if I get reinstated. Just – you know – not as much.

1. This morning, I was posting my normal G+ randomness. A Violet Blue piece (warning: pictures of naked people on that page) discussing NSFW content on Google+, and old afrobeat songs from YouTube.
2. 11am or so – there’s my stream, but I can’t post anything. I get the generic “There was a problem saving your post” that we’ve seen some variation of many times in the last sixteen or so months on G+ and Buzz before it.
3. Startled but not exactly surprised, because my Buzz friends have been getting their profiles reviewed. A profile review means you automatically lose access to your profile and I look at my profile. Yep, suspended for my name violating terms and conditions in some unspecified way. Generic message.
4. Anything in email? Nope. No notification to let me know that something happened. Still none at this point, unless it’s sitting in Spam.
5. I responded exactly how I told everyone I would: I folded faster than an origami wizard. Changed my profile name and requested review with accompanying verification of identity.
6. Twelve hours later, I was reinstated. Still no email notification that anything was amiss or had been fixed.

Since I didn’t get any email notification of losing G+ privileges, I assume I will also receive no email notification of their renewal.

I don’t like that access to their services can be so easily revoked without warning – presumably based on one or more G+ users reporting my profile. I also don’t care for the fact that a company with several thousand employees apparently doesn’t have enough resources in their customer service / fraud prevention / whatever-bucket-I’m-in department to send a canned “your profile is suspended” or “thanks for the update, your profile will be reviewed soon” or “huzzah! Your profile is good!” email.

So – you know – I’m tidying up and making sure I’m not quite so reliant on Google services in the future. The risk is too high of becoming completely locked out of my documents, images, email, ad management, analytics, etcetera if Google Profiles do become more tightly integrated with the rest of their offerings. Sebastian Anthony pointed that out several days back on ExtremeTech.