WordPress.com, despite being an awesome company has poor support.
Yesterday when I logged in to SL, I received a bunch of notices alerting me that iheartsl was down. When I checked the dashboard, I did not see any "messages" from wordpress.com about any issue that needed to be resolved, so I tried to get in touch with support. Finally, after the blog was suspended someone wrote me back to let me know that the advertisements on iheartsl was a TOS violation, but I didn't have a chance to remove them? Apparently support had been in contact with someone who is not me for a month and that person promised they would be removed (very puzzling).
That's why I moved the site off wordpress.com, because I had no choice. Over 650+ authors were signed up at iheartsl at the time and not having iheartsl would mean that a lot of people would not have a place to send their blog entries. For some, iheartsl was the only website they blogged on and/or were syndicated at, so I spent all evening moving the site over to Media Temple hosting.
I know that some people liked that iheartsl had a community feel, because readers can leave comments on posts and interact with each other. But, since iheartsl has the resources to syndicate again (which we originally did back in January 2008), I have decided to do that instead of requiring people to sign up as authors first. Even though readers lose the ability to comment directly on each post, the bloggers now have the added convenience of not having to manually re-post on iheartsl.
I'm currently working with support to get the iheartsl (wordpress) site back online so I can link to it, but I cannot import all 16,000+ blog entries because it exceeds the upload limit by A LOT! The wordpress upload limit for imports is 2MB, and with 16,000 blog entries the back-up file was 72MB, but I do have a copy of it if anybody can figure out how I can put it on, at least we would have an "archives" site and be able to restore all the comments from the past 2 years.
I should also mention that I have made the decision to not syndicate iheartsl to fashionplanet anymore, since it would result in a lot of double-posts. And besides, iheartsl gets more traffic than fashionplanet and I'm positive that it will be more inclusive since Tao has not updated the site with new requests since last year.
Anyways, I hope that clears up the situation a bit. I worked really
hard to restore iheartsl back to a functional state when I figured that
it probably won't be able to come back on wordpress.com, and I hope
that it continues to be useful to many of SL's bloggers.
If you haven't submitted your site for syndication, do it! 🙂
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“The wordpress upload limit for imports is 2MB, and with 16,000 blog entries the back-up file was 72MB, but I do have a copy of it if anybody can figure out how I can put it on, at least we would have an “archives” site and be able to restore all the comments from the past 2 years.”
Yes, actually, there is a method.
First, you’ve got to have the backup (obviously!). It should be in *.sql.gz format. Within this file, there’s a compressed *.sql file which you’ll have to open with wordpad.
Now, said SQL file will have the tables of the database in text format. You can actually see that if you take a closer look.
First thing you do, save the SQL file under a different name. Like, ‘wp_comments’.
Then look for the line that reads ‘# Table: `wp_comments`’. In case you want to just *add* the old comments to an existing database, delete the following lines:
“#
# Delete any existing table `wp_comments`
#
DROP TABLE IF EXISTS `wp_comments`;”
(In case you want to set up an entirely new WP installation, skip that last step)
Scroll down, until you find the next line that starts with ‘# Table: ‘ Delete everything from that line on (the line included). Save the file again.
Now you have a backup of *just* the ‘comments’ table.
Look up how big the file is. In case it’s still bigger than required, look at the lines that start with ‘INSERT INTO `wp_comments` VALUES’ (plus what’s following until that line repeats), cut some of them out and paste them into a new document. Save again. In case the file size still doesn’t fit, repeat until it does.
Then you’ll want to use the cut-out comments to actually replace those that are still in the ‘correct size’ document. Repeat the saving (and cutting out) if necessary (though you’ll have to remember *now* to save under a different name, e. g. ‘wp_comments1’.
Repeat this until you have files called ‘wp_comments’ which would all fit into your file size.
Now, look up the *original* sql file again and repeat the above described procedure with the following tables:
– wp_postmeta
– wp_posts
– wp_term_relationships
– wp_term_taxonomy
– wp_terms
– wp_usermeta
– wp_users (from this one, you’ll want to delete the first two data lines, which start with
“INSERT INTO `wp_users` VALUES (1, ‘admin’, (…)” and ”
INSERT INTO `wp_users` VALUES (2, (…)” respectively
UNLESS you want to set up an entirely new WP installation and are fine with having the old ‘admin’ and your first account transferred from the old setup!)
Of course you’ll have to remember that with those tables you won’t have to look for something like ‘# Table: `wp_comments`’ but ‘# Table: `(insert name of table I mentioned, one by one)`’.
Then, after having made all those chunks of database, uhm I mean files, you can upload them piece by piece to the WP database. In case you have the chance, it’s REALLY better to do it by actually feeding those chunks into the ACTUAL SQL installation (which, in case it’s on your server, can be accessed by the means of PHPAdmin or something like that). There, too, you will find the option to import stuff.
Hope that helps 🙂
Thanks for clearing all that up. I just posted about what I thought was happening and now updated to include a link here so people can KNOW. Good timing. And inclusive is a GOOD thing :D. Hope it all works out well.
You were in violation of the Automattic/Wordpress terms of service for a very long time – which have not changed in their essence since mid-2000.
Wordpress’s Advertising policy (http://en.support.wordpress.com/advertising/) states “Adsense, Yahoo, Chitika, TextLinkAds and other ads are not permitted on WordPress.com blogs. If you would like to run ads on your blog, please look into running your own copy of WordPress with one of our hosting partners …. We have a very low tolerance for blogs created purely for search engine optimization or commercial purposes, machine-generated blogs, and will continue to suspend them without notice, so if that’s what you’re interested in WordPress.com is not for you.”
Unless you have a VIP account, WordPress is not required to give you any notice or an opportunity to make required changes to resolve the issue to be in compliance with their Terms of Service.
Wordpress Terms of Service (http://en.wordpress.com/tos/):
#10. Termination. Automattic may terminate your access to all or any part of the Website at any time, with or without cause, with or without notice, effective immediately.
More than likely, your claim of “poor” customer support is really your poor understanding of the terms you agreed to when you signed up for the service. You can claim stupidity/ignorance of the “rules”, yes; that’s a believable explanation for someone with your history and level of understanding.
Dear DG, I’m going to have to roll my eyes at your response. WordPress had a vague warning on iheartsl a few months ago via some TOS issue and I wrote them to inquire about it. They never did respond, and the message went away. The day that one of my admins on iheartsl notified me that iheartsl had a problem was the same day that the blog was disabled. After a few email exchanged with WordPress, the site was restored but at that point, I had already moved the site to Media Temple to avoid future issues. Despite what you presume about me, I am doing my best to provide a service for my friends and fellow SL bloggers. I am not the most technical but at least I try. So if you are smarter than me, and can read fine prints, congratulations!!!!
LOL Gogo
Pft, it’s one thing to disagree with what Gogo wrote and to state it, DG, but there’s really no call for being nasty to anyone here, whatever your personal reasons.
Hey, when I xferred SCD to it’s new hosting they had way more than 2gb, I had to do what the above person did. Slower? Yes. If you do need help I’m around.
And if people want to be brats about things then maybe they should do this themselves. It’s not as easy as you think and costs a lot more than most people think. Thanks for your service to the community, Gogo.
I just found this blog (I know, I’m slow, clueless, AND a dork) and now understand what all you went through, Gogo. So sorry to hear how it happened! I wish there was a way that all of us on your blog could group-contact WordPress to help them understand the pivotal role you play in the fashion industry of Second Life. Pity there weren’t caveats in place in their rulings to understand the varying purposes of advertising on a blog — e.g., to support and promote a vital community, rather than to “make millions on the interwebz” hehe…
Big hugs and endless thanks for all you do,
Stacia Villota / Virtual Neko