Dec 28, 2011
Much Annoyed
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I’ve noticed that despite the fact that I haven’t edited the previous two posts in this blog, and haven’t changed the settings for this blog, that when viewed in Internet Explorer, the pictures have vanished from those two posts. They can still be seen in the feed, but not on the blog for some reason, and that reason has to be something that blog.com did.
Is it too much for me to ask, as a user, that my own provider refrain from sabotaging my blog? Because that really would be nice.
.
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It is now January 2 of the following year, and I’ve heard no reply from Blog.com. At this point, I’ve still refrained from opening the posts in the editor, myself, not wanting to muddy the issue, and having thought I’d see a response sooner than this.
I’ve updated the ticket, moving the priority of my request from medium to high, which I feel is reasonable, as I’ve now been waiting 5 days to see Blog.com stop sabotaging the display of some perfectly inoffensive blog posts. If I’m repeating myself on this point, it is only to express my incredulity over the fact that this is happening, at all.
Great. The system just wiped out my followup comment.
Ana Moreira finally responded to my ticket, denied that the problem existed, and closed the ticket before giving me a chance to reply. I re-opened the ticket, and attached 11 overlapping screenshots to my reply, showing the main page of my blog as seen in Internet Explorer, covering every inch of it from the top to the bottom of the page, showing that I hadn’t left anything out.
Moreira sent a pair of screenshots of her own which one might, if feeling a little cynical, say conveniently left out the top of the screen, leaving the viewer with no way to confirm that those screenshots had been taken in the right browser – the same one as the one in which the problem had been reported.
In my initial problem report, I had already stated that this was specifically an Internet Explorer display issue, also mentioning that the images were displaying in Firefox (and in the feed in Internet Explorer). Taking those screenshots in Firefox, and then concealing the fact that one had done so, would not have been a very honorable thing to do, or very reassuring, either, but I’m left wondering if that’s what I’ve just seen Support do.
Sleight of hand might make for a halfway decent entertainment on an afternoon, but it would be a poor substitute for honest maintenance. I’m hoping that this is not how Blog.com believes in doing business.
Now, I’m angry. I updated, I included the screenshots, I explained everything with a remarkable level of civility, and finally just felt foolish for having done so. Having pretended that the problem existed and doctored the screenshots in order to create the illusion that it didn’t, Ana Moreira and Blog.com are now refusing to respond.
I guess I should be glad that I found out about this by the third post to this blog? And that I have somewhere to jump to? Which is what I’m now about to do. If these guys are that determined to turn their service into a bad joke, then I don’t see what else I can do – other than warn as many people as I can to avoid this company.