For several days, we saw mass confusion, in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken.
Why am I getting this email? Is it a scam?and
I can't migrate my account!and
I migrated my account, and my blogs disappeared from my dashboard!!
The people targeted in the email were registered owners of legacy (pre 2006) Blogger accounts, created before Blogger started using Google (email address based) accounts.
The confused owners are similar to the ones with whom we have been dealing for several months, unable to regain access to their long dormant Blogger / Google accounts.
Many do not remember creating accounts, others don't remember the login details, which are essential to blog control.
Both the blog owners, and Blogger, contributed to the confusion.
The confusion was caused jointly by Blogger, and by the blog owners. And, it was not a surprise, to Blogger Support.
The confusion started with the history of the migration.
- In 2007, Blogger offered the opportunity to transfer control of owned blogs, to a new Google based account, when someone attempted to login to their legacy Blogger account.
- People never logging in to Blogger after 2007 never got the offer to migrate.
- Some people elected to not migrate - but setup new Google accounts and manually transferred control of their blogs - and left some legacy accounts inactive and without any owned blogs.
- Last year, Blogger warned people that the end of life, of the legacy accounts, was inevitable.
For a number of technical and operational reasons, we’ve decided to finally end our support for migrating legacy accounts and blogs after December 5th, 2011. So if you have a Blogger account and haven’t logged in since 2007, you will lose access to the account and associated content permanently unless you update to the Google Account system before December 5th.
- Last week, Blogger took the next step.
You are receiving this message because your email address is associated with an unmigrated legacy Blogger account. As we announced in April of last year, legacy accounts will no longer be accessible after May 30th, 2012 unless they are updated to the Google Account system. Any blog content associated with this account will also be unmodifiable after that date.
- The emails went to registered owners of all unmigrated legacy accounts, whether or not any account owned a blog.
The confusion was magnified by issues caused by the various blog owners.
- Blogger insists on making it easy to create a Blogger account, frequently resulting in non intentional creation of multiple Blogger accounts. Some people, for instance, may have created Blogger accounts to post comments, on other blogs.
- Some people receiving the email had stopped using Blogger, long ago.
- Other people had continued using Blogger, but with newly created Blogger accounts - and simply ignored the unused legacy accounts.
- Many people, overlooking the fact that the migration had started in 2007, became unhappy that they were given only one month to conclude what they had been given, to date - 5 years.
- Too many people, not having used their legacy accounts since 2006, were unable to remember the account name or password, and were forced to use the "Forgot your password?" wizard.
- Some people, anxiously awaiting the arrival of the password reset email, found that this critical email is subject to email spam filters - and now, to email spoofing filters (and the two are not the same).
- Some people managing to complete the migration - but with their blogs owned by a separate (newer) Google based Blogger account - watched in horror as their blogs appeared to disappear from their dashboards. The migration created a new account, leaving their important blogs owned by their previously created Blogger / Google account, which became inaccessible to them.
The confusion continued, with multiple scenarios.
The history, plus the issues, resulted in several scenarios - each resulting in an unhappy account owner.
- Owners with a migrated previously legacy Blogger account (created in 2007), and one or more un migrated legacy Blogger accounts. These people have one or more legacy Blogger accounts (that they don't know about), plus an already migrated previously legacy account (that can't be migrated, again).
- Owners with a Google based Blogger account (created in 2007), and one or more un migrated legacy Blogger accounts. These people have one or more legacy Blogger accounts (that they don't know about), plus a Google based Blogger account (that can't be migrated).
- Owners with a single un migrated legacy Blogger account, unable to migrate because of forgotten account name or password. These people have a legacy Blogger account (that can be migrated, if they know the account name, and the password).
- Owners with a single, newly migrated legacy Blogger account (created this week, with no blogs), and a previously migrated or created Google account (created in 2007, with the owned blogs). These people are now logged in to Blogger with a new Blogger account, and cannot access their blogs, owned by their previous Blogger account.
The unhappy recipients of the email, following the instructions provided to them, posted their complaints in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken.
If you have questions, please visit our Help Forum at http://www.google.com/appserve/mkt/OKddNnCN05400K and create a message with [legacy Account] in the subject line.
Confusion was magnified by forum complaints, and inability to help.
The confusion spread, as the forums became saturated by the complaints. Not all complaints used the "[legacy Account]" tag, suggested in the instructions. This motivated various forum helpers to use fuzzy processing techniques in sorting various forum complaints, and some non legacy issues were treated as legacy issues. Other legacy issues were overlooked, in the volume of posts.
Blogger Support, becoming aware of the numbers of complaints, created a legacy Account FAQ, and started answering questions, posted in the FAQ. And the frustration became expressed in various FAQ responses.
This is clearly not working out well for Blogger. In the true business world, heads roll when fails are so epic.
This blog owner is overlooking the history and the issues, and making no acknowledgement of his contribution to the problem.
(Update 2012/04/30 10:00): Blogger Support has now provided a form, for any legacy account owner to use, to request details.
Mass Confusion Caused By Legacy Account Migration
http://blogging.nitecruzr.net/2012/04/mass-confusion-caused-by-next-phase-of.html
Challenges Created By Legacy Account Migration
http://blogging.nitecruzr.net/2012/04/mass-confusion-caused-by-next-phase-of.html
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