I'm sure many readers shared my disappointment when the Al Fin family of blogs 'went dark' early this year. There was no explanation, and I'm sure many feared, as I did, that something nasty had happened to the author.
By sheer chance, today I came across a Wordpress blog: 'Al Fin next level'. It's by the same author. In the 'About' section, he writes:
I regret that I was unable to inform readers of those blogs of their closing in advance, or to provide a link to this blog. Google’s decision to deny administrative access to those blogs made those ordinary courtesies impossible.
Something must have happened to interrupt his ownership or management of those blogs. I'm sorry it did, but I'm very glad to see he's back!
I'll continue to recommend Al Fin as one of the most interesting resources in the blogosphere. I've updated my blogroll to reflect his new address, while retaining a link to the old Al Fin blog family.
Peter
Outstanding. I've wondered myself where Al Fin went to. Sounds like enemies were made in high places.
ReplyDeleteI'd never heard of the Al Fin blogs, but after giving this one a quick perusal it was easy to appreciate the darkly amusing appropriateness of the name.
ReplyDeleteConsidering his subject matter and viewpoint, I wouldn't be surprised if the generally left-authoritarian crowd in Google management decided they didn't want to give him a platform.
Al Fin is maybe the smartest guy on the Internet. Maybe.
ReplyDeleteAnd I know a lot of smart guys.
If this really was Google doing a politically inspired takedown because of his content then I'm moving off of Blogger.