Many in my WordPress community know about a wonderful writer and blogger named Kevin Brennan. His blog can (usually) be found at http://kevinbrennanbooks.wordpress.com/. Unfortunately, if you click on that link, you will get this (sorry about the lousy resolution):
Kevin doesn’t know why WP has suspended his site. I don’t know why. I read and re-read the Terms of Service. Regarding suspended blogs, WP offers this cheery message: “We take our Terms of Service very seriously and act on each and every feedback we receive in order to investigate potential breaches. Our terms are enforced on a daily basis, as we want WordPress.com to be a pleasant and safe environment for all of our valued users.” Yes, I understand “pleasant and safe” is important to all of us. But to just suspend someone without word, in effect, assuming that blogger is guilty until proven innocent, seems just a tad unfair.
This isn’t the first time I’ve heard of such a thing happening. But I don’t have any answers as to why it happens or what to do about it. Has this happened to any of you who happen to be reading this post? If so, what did you do about it? How do you avoid it?
I am making this post out of pure selfishness. I miss Kevin’s blog. If you have any insights or suggestions, please comment. Thanks 🙂
PS And, yeah, I’m listing a few “Related articles” related to Kevin’s blog so that, once it comes back, you can enjoy them 🙂
Related articles
1 Write Way 
36 responses to “What the Hell: Where’s Kevin Brennan?”
Whoa… I follow his blog. I don’t remember seeing anything of questionable nature. Very sad. 😦
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I agree. I understand that WP wants to avoid spam, etc., but the least they can do is notify the blogger and indicate why they are suspending. Really, I do believe they can do that much.
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I agree. Completely. A warning of what has violated the terms. Well I hope he can get it sorted soon.
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Me too ;(
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Reblogged this on Year 'Round Thanksgiving Project.
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Apparently one can write homophobic hate blogs with impunity (I’ve seen them) but a talented writer can’t innocuously promote his book?
Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.
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Indeed. I’ve seen some pretty nasty blogs out there so I can’t imagine what could possibly have tripped Kevin’s blog.
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He is such a cheerful, humble blogger. How can this be? Has to be a mistake, but how do you go about rectifying it?
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Supposedly there’s a link on one’s dashboard, when this happens, to contact WP. Of course, I don’t know if Kevin can even get to his dashboard. The only time I heard about this, it took days for the person to get their blog back.
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Do you have his email?
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Thanks for this, Marie! As of this moment — 10-ish pm PST, I’m still suspended and have not yet heard a thing from WP. Maybe they suspend on weekends but don’t rectify errors till Monday. Hope springs external.
I do resent being referred to as hapless, though. 😉
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Sorry to hear this! Kevin is such a great guy! They shouldn’t be doing this!
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Something’s definitely wrong in the state of WP.
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I admit, “hapless” wasn’t the best word choice. I was just pretty steamed when I wrote the post. As of this moment, 7:50 AM, you’re still off. WP has a lot of explaining to do, but I’m sure they won’t.
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Just for the record, I have loads of hap.
And by way of an update, I’m still down at 7:15 PST and I still haven’t heard bupkis.
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That blows. I don’t remember anything offensive there. Unless an over sensitive person reported him for something benign and WP overreacted. It could also be that they made a mistake. I know someone who was suspended without warning or reason and they contacted WP. They got their blog back.
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I know of one incident that happened to a friend of a friend, so the details are sketchy. The blogger included a “bad” link on her blog, only she didn’t know it was bad. At least, that was what WP eventually told her. It took her a few days to get her blog back.
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I think they investigate for a few days. It does make me scared that anyone could report a blog to get it taken down for a few days.
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It scares me too. I’m wondering if I should have an alternate blog, like on Blogger, just in case ;(
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Not sure. For me it feels like too much to keep track of.
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It would be for me too. At best, I try to remember to download my posts to MacJournal, but I haven’t done that lately. I’m more worried about losing all my posts than going dark.
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I haven’t done any backing up, which might be an issue.
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What the actual Hell??? I love Kevin’s blog, this is ridiculous!
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Indeed. I’m starting to have withdrawal symptoms.
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I’ve never seen anything on Kevin’s blog that’s questionable. You’re right, Marie, WP should have at least contacted him. Hopefully it’s a temporary technical glitch. Keep us posted on the outcome.
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I saw this on twitter, and couldn’t figure it… there must have been some sort of mistake… Isn’t there a “report this as inappropriate” button somewhere? Maybe someone accidentally hit that, and someone at WP just yanked his blog without investigating. What a shame!
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Truly it is. I don’t understand why someone would flag a post as inappropriate without contacting the blogger first. I know of a blogger who used a photo without appropriate citation, but the photo owner didn’t shut her down because of it. He just contacted the blogger and requested that she remove the photo, which she did. Seems if Kevin had anything on his blog that offended someone, that person could have contacted him directly. Simple etiquette. I just wish I knew what happened. I want Kevin back!
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WHAT THE HELL. This cannot happen. Kevin is about as far from violating a term of service as the sun from the Earth
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That’s perfect, John! I’ve seen some nasty stuff on WP. I can’t begin to imagine why Kevin’s blog would be shut down.
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This is definitely alarming … let’s hope it gets resolved soon. And that there’s a decent explanation of it … like WP made a mistake.
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Fingers crossed that it gets fixed today. My theory matches Kevin’s own – that some machine picked up on his discussion of that sem@lt spambot (not spelling it in case it picks up on your blog too!) and automatically suspended his blog.
Hope you hear something soon Kevin! Let us know if we can do anything to help.
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Thanks, Phillip! Sounds like that might have been it.
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I’ve only heard of this happening to one other person, and it took three days to resolve.
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And he’s back after 3 days … 🙂
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Back in business, kids! (At 9:30 pm, Monday.)
Whew! 🙈🙉🙊
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So glad it worked out!
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