The HomeschoolBlogger support team would like to make clear what our blog deletion policy is. First and foremost, we do not delete blogs for no good reason at all.
Blogs are deleted for one of four reasons:
- Violation of the Terms of Use
- The blogger has clearly stated that they are blogging elsewhere
- The blogger has asked us to delete their blog
- The blog has been abandoned
We do not have to give notice before deleting a blog, which is clearly stated in the Terms of Use that every blogger has agreed to in order to start their free blog at HSB. This is not unique to just HomeschoolBlogger. Other blog providers usually note in their Terms of Use that they do not have to give notice as well. (The only exception I am aware of at this time is of blogs that are paying the provider for space.)
If a blog is in violation of the Terms of Use we may just temporarily disable the blog, notify you of the problem and ask that it be corrected. This depends however on the severity of the violation.
We delete blogs that clearly state they are now blogging elsewhere because we have no obligation to bloggers who are just using HSB as storage space. Each blog takes up bandwidth - and bandwidth isn't cheap. We also do not have an obligation to help your readers find you blogging elsewhere. It is not permissible to keep a blog in order to just be able to leave comments. Unless a blog is set to be viewed by only HSB members then you can still leave a comment. The word Anonymous can be deleted on the comment page and your username or new blog/website address can be put into that field.
We notify the HSB community when we are about to do a blog clean-up of abandoned blogs. At that time we just ask that you login to your account. Just logging in does not guarantee that your blog won't be deleted at a future point. Abandoned blogs can be but are not limited to those that have been up but have no posts, have not been logged into for over a year, the e-mail address is not current, or state that they are now blogging elsewhere.
There have been instances where a blog has been deleted and we tried to notify the blogger beforehand but their e-mail address was not current. For this reason you can see how important it would be to keep your e-mail updated. If you change your e-mail address please also let us know by e-mail so that we can make sure our files have the latest information.
Keep in mind that Section 15 (g) and (h) of the HSB Terms of Use covers User Conduct even after a blog has been deleted or disabled.
We hope this clears up any confusion about our blog deletion policy.
Tia Linschied
Senior Editor of HSB
