Ok, Google. What have I done? | Hacker News Reader

Ok, Google. What have I done?

5 pointsDanielBMarkham7 comments

You guys know me. I've been here since the board opened almost.

I go through spells of blogging a lot, then nothing, then another binge.

I used to be interested in content marketing, but that was years ago. It was a complete waste of time.

I've always been interested in programming, startups, philosophy, history, tech, etc.

I'm trying to post this link on the G+ Agile forum. I have been a member in good standing in the forum for years. I know the moderators. People like my content. I engage with folks.

Google won't let me post it. It keeps telling me it's spam.

http://tiny-giant-books.com/blog/information-accounting-budget-your-code/

I've taken any kind of pop-ops off the blog. I've removed any tool or add-on that might offend folks. I spend a lot of time trying to create content to share with people.

But this is spam? What the fuck, Google? Who do I go complain to? The wall? I don't even know what I've done, much less how to stop doing it.

This BigTech gatekeeper situation is insane. People have to go on HN begging for attention so that somebody at Google will do their freaking job?

Google's been really shady about moderation for quite a long time (as you probably know). I don't think Google really listens to even HN.

It's a very good way to make lifelong enemies.

I could understand if the content was spammy, if I were sending out emails, if there were some kind of link-jacking or paid referrals or something.

But no. This is a group which I'm a member of and consistently likes my posts. But Google says I'm not allowed to post there any more. Why?

Who knows?

I think the best procedure would be to host your blogging content on a private platform and only link and advertise the new articles on several platforms, like your google group.

Yep.

My gut tells me that there is some mix of flags here that I somehow afoul of, although I have no idea what they were.

I did the best I could -- and I'm trying -- to just put out plain content. Yes, I wrote a book, and yes, that's one of the reasons I write. But it's a very small reason.

I'm using RamNode for this site. I have to have somewhere I own the box because at times I write demos and small apps.

The best guess I have is that after finishing the article this morning, I posted too quickly. I wanted to get through with whatever sharing I had to do so I could get back to coding. There are four or five places I hang out online, so I just went over there immediately and shared. I figured if folks didn't like it? So what? Happens all the time. Time is moving on today and I've got things to do.

Beats the living crap out of me. Worse, I don't know if it'll go away after a while or not. Fuck if I'm going to create a new blog or anything. I'm not doing anything wrong.

That's the problem with hosting content on a not-owned platform.

You may've done nothing wrong, but since it's theirs, they can pretty much do whatever they want, including censorship or shadow-ban.

So you're not saying to host my own blog, which I do. You're saying don't talk about anything I create on any kind privately-owned social media platform.

That makes sense. I'm not sure it's very useful, since most of the world's population are on these platforms and it's completely impossible to reach people without using them.

Doesn't matter to me how many people read what I write. I just want a chance along with everybody else. That's all. Not going online with the rest of the planet doesn't seem like a very useful piece of advice.

They did this same thing a month ago. I changed the picture that went with the post from one image to another. Then it was fine.

Tried the same thing today, no joy.

I spent five hours writing this essay. This is a very good way to make people angry with you.

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