RetroRoleplaying: The Blog Disappears and (Fortunately) Returns
This blog disappeared from the Internet sometime in the early morning hours of January 2nd. When I tried to log into Blogger that morning, Google said that unusual activity had been detected on my account and required me to get a verification number on my phone to prove who I was. When I finally managed to log in, I discovered that RetroRoleplaying: The Blog was gone — not only from the web, but from my dashboard. Everything else was still there (email, other blogs, Google+ posts, etc.), but this blog was gone. It was like the 600+ posts here had never been. After posting about it on Google+, Christopher Wood mentioned that something like this had happened to him last year and after posting/emailing every support address he could find, his blog reappeared a couple of days later. I politely tried his method. As in his case, I never got any replies, but this blog suddenly reappeared (completely intact as far as I can tell) Friday afternoon — a couple of days after it disappeared — and you are reading it now.
I’ve learned my lesson, however, I’m going to use Google Takeout to backup all my Google data (including this blog) every week or two. I had not been doing so regularly as I discovered when this blog disappeared. I had not done so since late August 2013.
Unfortunately, this blog disappeared a few hours after I had announced that I had released the first public beta of Microlite81 Extended (in this post Microlite81 Extended: Download Public Beta 1 Playtest Version (Free, Of Course)) and knocked a couple of days off the Holiday 2013 Cancer Fund Drive. I’ve had no donations at all since the blog disappeared. Hopefully, with this blog’s return, donations will also resume as January 31st is drawing ever closer.
A couple of people have suggested that I should move this blog off of Blogger. I’ve thought about that — and definitely would have done so if Blogger had not been able to restore the blog. The RetroRoleplaying web site is Drupal-based and Drupal has a blog feature. However, for the time being, I will continue to use Blogger for this blog (because it is convenient) and just be more careful to do regular backups through Google Takeout while I consider what would be best for this blog in the long term.
Now that the “Missing in Action Blog Crisis” is over, I can concentrate on working on Microlite81 Expanded and Complete and my first Sunday game of 2014.