scfrankles | Kept in Suspense (Reply)

I had a bit of a stressful evening yesterday regarding LJ - I logged in to find my journal had been suspended.

The page I was faced with explained what my journal could have been suspended for, and stated that I should have received an email giving the particular reason. I hadn't - and I was pretty sure I had done nothing wrong anyway. I immediately reported the suspension, and thankfully it got sorted out pretty quickly. When I checked this morning I was back, and I'd finally got the explanation from LJ that my journal had been (erroneously) flagged as a source of spam.

But though all this was stressful, I didn't panic. Because luckily, and just by chance, I'd recently read an LJ post written by someone who'd gone through something similar (though I think they may have not been given a reason at all as to why their journal had been suspended). Knowing this could happen to an innocent person, knowing what to expect, and knowing that things could be put right really helped.

I was very grateful for that accidental reassurance. And I thought I’d do a post too, in case it can help anyone that I know. I really, really hope that this sort of thing doesn’t happen to anyone on my flist, but forewarned is forearmed.

So - when I logged in yesterday evening, the first thing I saw top-left was a line through my username. Thanks to that other LJ post, I knew immediately this meant my journal had been suspended. But I was also faced with a page telling me that explicitly, and telling me I should have had an email giving a reason. I hadn’t - but again, the other post had prepared me for this.

The page also told me I could contact LJ about the suspension: there was a link which took me to the relevant page. I had to give my full real name, my username and select the subject I was contacting them about. It was something like ‘I would like to know the reason for my suspension’. (The original page gave the subject I should choose as something slightly different, but as far as I could see it wasn’t on the list - the one I did select was the closest.)

I also was able to add a comment if I wanted. I kept the ‘what-the-hell-ing’ to a minimum, and simply said something like: ‘I haven’t received an email giving the reason for my journal’s suspension. And I believe it to be a complete mistake.’

So that was the report done. I just had to wait for someone to look at it. The next thing was to let LJ friends know what had happened. I would guess everyone on my flist has this sorted out already, but I would recommend making sure you have another way of contacting at least one LJ chum, so they can then spread the word. I think Small Hobbit’s ‘are you okay?’ email and my ‘my journal’s been suspended!’ email were written pretty much simultaneously ^^

When logged into LJ, I really couldn’t do anything. I couldn’t read my own messages or look at my friends feed. But when I was logged out, and went to

sherlock60, I could see that my posts and comments had disappeared. Again, thanks to that other LJ post, I was aware this was only temporary. It was stressful - the thought of never being allowed back to LJ and so no-one else being able to access the poetry pages with all their comments made me feel sick - but at least I knew the posts and comments hadn’t been deleted.

It is annoying that I don’t know why my journal was flagged - whether it was a blip, an accident, one of my comments or notes being automatically flagged as dodgy, or even someone maliciously reporting my journal. But at least I know if it happens again, it can be easily fixed.

And thank you especially to Okapi, Mrs. P. and Small Hobbit for your concern and your support while things were fixed this time. It meant a great deal ^__^