speaking of IN touch...

i first noticed this back in august, but it was seemingly ignored (or at least, nobody commented on it, no other blogs picked it up, and the star has made no attempt to fix the problem). perhaps it just got overshadowed by the main focus of the post, which was to catalog some of jocelyn-tandy's greatest hits.

so let's try again: why is it that some INtouch bloggers who have since left the blog were seemingly deleted (in a half-assed fashion), while others who haven't posted in months (or even worse, only posted once, months ago) remain?

as i noted back in august, jocelyn-tandy has been banished from the official IN touch archives, but with some googling, you can find that the actual posts are still there... though, bizarrely, her byline and photo have been removed. still, these nameless, faceless ghost posts are still on the server, ready to be found by anyone who wants to look for them.

now, if i'd ever had the bad judgment to include jocelyn on one of my blogs, i would probably be tempted to pull down her posts in shame as well. but it doesn't seem like the star is simply removing all the bloggers it's embarrassed of. after all, john sorg's old material is still up, but posts by chris douglas have been pseudo-deleted. (chris is an intelligent, well-spoken gay man who has since moved on to greener pastures, blogging at bilerico and his own blog, the first republicans forum.) if you look at the half-deleted chris douglas page on INtouch, you'll see his byline and photo still intact, but click on any of his individual posts and he becomes an unperson. the same goes for mel pfeiffer.

and surely there are more that i'm just not remembering. for example, K.P. singh, rick bentley, and rafael a sanchez have been removed from the official archives, but didn't suffer the indignity of having their bylines and photos expunged. and surely there are more: these are just the ones i've stumbled across so far.

so what's the deal? why are some bloggers still in the official archives despite months (or even a year or more) of inactivity, while others are removed from the archives (though their posts still appear on the server, so they still turn up in google search results), and others are not just removed from the archives, but have their photos and bylines stricken from their posts (which also remain on the server)? is there bad blood between the star and jocelyn, chris, and mel?

it's the star's website, so if the star wants to remove old bloggers from the site, that's their prerogative. but deleting them in a half-assed fashion so that the posts are still up but can only be found via search engine doesn't seem like a good solution. and in particular, if i were jocelyn, chris douglas, or mel pfeiffer, and my old posts were still on the server, but with my name no longer on them, i would be pretty offended.¶