[LCC] Bryn Mawr Classical Review and Google

[Terrence Lockyer]

Apologies for the inevitable effects of cross-posting;  however, 
this is a matter that affects everyone whose field touches 
directly or tangentially upon the cultures of ancient Greece and 
Rome, and the classical tradition.  This evening I visited the 
site of the Bryn Mawr Classical Review at

http://bmcr.brynmawr.edu/

to search for a title in the archives, and was rather surprised 
to see against the link to the blog version of BMCR - which of 
course provides the option for visitors to leave comments unlike 
the traditional web version - usually at

http://www.bmcreview.org/

the following notation:  "Please note that Google has removed all 
access to our blog after incorrectly flagging it as a spam blog. 
We had requested a review which did not happen, and on September 
28 Google removed all access to the blog, which we are attempting 
to appeal."

I find this kind of misjudgement, evidently made in complete 
ignorance or disregard of the contents of the blog, especially 
worrying from a company that aspires to be, in effect, the 
digital librarian and cataloguer of the entire world.  Of course, 
due to its very size, Google is notoriously hard to contact 
directly;  however, perhaps wide enough attention on blogs and in 
other fora might just bring to someone's attention the gross 
error that appears to have occurred.


Terrence Lockyer
Johannesburg, South Africa
e-mail:  lockyert [at] mweb.co.za