The intrigue around the site closures of Bell of Lost Souls and Faeit212 is the biggest buzz in Gaming right now.
The latest update is an email from Larry Vela, the owner of Bell of Lost Souls. It doesn't tell us much, other than the site is still not up.From Larry:
Thanks for the concern and the kind words,
As you can tell, the BoLS frontpage is down and we are actively working the issue.
We are working this issue up the chain with Google via multiple channels and making plans to migrate the site off of Blogger to avoid any such service interruptions in the future. We have not received any notices, DMCA notices, or violations from anyone, so at this moment we are still treating this as an IT issue on Google's side, but it is looking mighty suspicious by the hour.
There is a possibility that BoLS temporarily got caught in the crossfire between GW and other 3rd party blogger sites - we shall see.
In the meantime, my fellow writers, please submit any posts as new threads on the Lounge and send me a link to them at belloflostsouls@gmail.com. We will manually get the word out via Facebook, etc...
We will be back shortly - My first priority is ensuring that BoLS keeps on delivering the news on all the game systems we cover to the wargaming community and we will do so, come Hell or high water (or any other bad actors)...
For every contributor on BoLS, please stand with us during this time, and make a mental note to prepare for a move to a more robust and secure blogging platform in the weeks ahead. We simply cannot allow this type of potential danger from 3rd parties to endanger us ever again.
For our fans and readers - we love delivering the news and opinion on our beloved hobby to you day in and day out, and have been for over 7 years. Please stand with us during these trying times and tell your friends. Enjoy the BoLS Lounge where your favorite authors will be publishing during this time of need, and we will be back shortly.
Best regards and my deepest thanks,
-Larry Vela
As you can tell, the BoLS frontpage is down and we are actively working the issue.
We are working this issue up the chain with Google via multiple channels and making plans to migrate the site off of Blogger to avoid any such service interruptions in the future. We have not received any notices, DMCA notices, or violations from anyone, so at this moment we are still treating this as an IT issue on Google's side, but it is looking mighty suspicious by the hour.
There is a possibility that BoLS temporarily got caught in the crossfire between GW and other 3rd party blogger sites - we shall see.
In the meantime, my fellow writers, please submit any posts as new threads on the Lounge and send me a link to them at belloflostsouls@gmail.com. We will manually get the word out via Facebook, etc...
We will be back shortly - My first priority is ensuring that BoLS keeps on delivering the news on all the game systems we cover to the wargaming community and we will do so, come Hell or high water (or any other bad actors)...
For every contributor on BoLS, please stand with us during this time, and make a mental note to prepare for a move to a more robust and secure blogging platform in the weeks ahead. We simply cannot allow this type of potential danger from 3rd parties to endanger us ever again.
For our fans and readers - we love delivering the news and opinion on our beloved hobby to you day in and day out, and have been for over 7 years. Please stand with us during these trying times and tell your friends. Enjoy the BoLS Lounge where your favorite authors will be publishing during this time of need, and we will be back shortly.
Best regards and my deepest thanks,
-Larry Vela
It seems pretty clear that there is some connection between the closing of Faeit212 and the fact that BoLS is down. No one else with a Blogger based blog (the software platform most blogs use) is having issues. But BoLS did NOT get a DMCA take down notice, so that is a big mystery.
Stay tuned.
Loken