As some of you might know, Multiply.com was transferred over to the control of somebody who said that he would keep blogging going on Multiply, back before he was the CEO, and then, once he took over from the old management, announced his intention of shutting down all social networking services on Multiply, including blogging. This was not to be the last of the unpleasant surprises he had for the users. The export tools are failing to work.
People with hundreds of pages of posts are reporting that only dozens of posts are finding their way over to Blogger. The Tumblr export tool is said to frequently be failing to work, altogether. Users are speaking of losing years of work, photos and videos of their children growing up - it's an online horror story. The company has refused to even respond to the reports of trouble, and shows every sign of sticking, inflexibly, to its announced date for shutting down the blogs.
December 1. That's this Sunday!
Before anybody says that "a failure to plan on their part does not constitute an emergency on WordPress' part", this is really not entirely their fault. Multiply dragged its feet on providing export tools; I didn't even know that there was a Tumblr export tool until today. So, these users didn't really have a lot of time to discover that they'd just experienced the virtual equivalent of being put into a leaking dinghy, before being put out to sea. These aren't necessarily irresponsible people, just people with a misguided faith in the willingness of supposed professionals to behave professionally, while on the job.
Maybe there is not enough time, now. Maybe I should have written about this sooner; right now, I wish I had. But there are literally millions of Multiply.com users who are likely to give you their undying gratitude if you give them a chance to save their content before it is lost. This will not be a small task - they have photos and videos to save - and maybe you can't do all of it, but what you could do would be deeply appreciated, I'm sure. This would also, by the way, be an excellent chance for WordPress to experience real growth.
So there is no misunderstanding - I need no help with my own blogs, at the moment. I transferred my content to new locations by hand, cutting and pasting my posts, some time back. I'm in good shape. A few million other people, however, are not as fortunate, and need your help, soon, no later than this weekend.
If this though helps motivate people who might be asked to work overtime, think of this as opportunity knocking, maybe? Oh, and again - sorry that I didn't write, sooner.
