We are upgrading the software for this blog site on Tuesday evening. We recommend not signing up for a free blog until you see a post from us stating that the upgrade has been completed.

Exisiting blog owners-I suggest you not post anything in your blog after today until the upgrade is complete. Make sure you change your blog template to Standard. Make sure you save any images that you have uploaded in case we cannot restore them after the upgrade.

I sent an e-mail out to all blog owners (and a post on this site) with steps on what to do to keep their blog. One of those steps is to e-mail me stating that you want to keep your blog. I have not received one single e-mail.

If you want to keep your blog you must send me an e-mail letting me know (include your blog name and username). Otherwise we will be deleting all blogs. We have over 600 blogs on this site and I am sure that only around 30 are active. If you are one of the active ones, email me (webmaster@christianblogsites.com).

Also make sure that you have the domain christianblogsites.com in your whitelist so you can receive e-mail from me.

By this Sunday night you must implement the following steps:
1. E-mail me letting me know you want to keep your blog-this is critical, if I do not receive your e-mail, I will delete your blog and username.

2. Change the template for your blog to the Standard Template. After we get all the bugs worked out on the other templates (after the upgrade) you will be able to choose other templates. We will also be moving the ChristianBlogSites Banner to the bottom of the page.
How to change template:
a. Log into your account
b. Go to Control Centre
c. Click on Blog Settings
d. Choose Standard template

3. If you have any images on your blog, be sure you have a local copy on your computer. Whenever we have done upgrades we have had problems with restoring images properly. Hopefully we do not have this problem-but no guarantees. I cannot spend hours and hours on this issue like I have in the past.

4. Do not post or do anything else with your blog site after 5pm Pacific Time on Monday 3/21.

5. You will receive an e-mail when the blog site has been upgraded. Do not do anything with your blog site until you have received the e-mail.

Reminder: Any blogs that have spam comments on them will be deleted on Monday night, so remove spam comments from your posts.

Richard
BlogMaster
webmaster@christianblogsites.com

We have had several blogs that have been having spam comments on them. If you are going to be allowing comments on your blog, you must implement all spam blocking plugins.

You can read about how to implement plug-ins (takes a couple of minutes) by going to the User Guide and FAQ's. Links are on the ChristianBlogSites Summary page:
http://www.christianblogsites.com/blog/

Since we are close to the upgrade and some of this will change I will be gracious to those who have not followed the blog guidelines to implement these plug-ins. However, after the upgrade we will be strictly enforcing no spam comments on blogs. The plug-ins prevent spam, so the only reason a blog would have spam is because individuals choose to not follow the guidelines and implement the plugins to prevent spam. After the upgrade, it will be almost impossible for spammers to even try to post spam.

The integrity of ChristianBlogSites.com is on the line when there is spam on the site. So after the upgrade, users will be given one warning to remove spam. If the spam is not removed within 24 hours, the entire blog site will be deleted.

This is just a reminder that we are upgrading this blog site on March 31. Any blogs or users that have no actvity this week, will be deleted. So be sure to post in your blog if you want to keep it.

I will also be sending out an e-mail asking you if you want to keep your blog and giving you info of what you need to do to make your blog work after the upgrade. If I DO NOT get a response from my e-mail, your blog will be deleted. So be sure that you can receive e-mails from the domain christianblogsites.com.

This post is for all www.christianblogsites.com/blog users. Be sure and read this entire post or there is the possibility your blog will be deleted.

It is time for us to upgrade the software for this blog site. If we do not upgrade the software, our hosting company will be forcing us to take the blog site down.

By upgrading the blog software there will be additional features, the speeding up of processes, and overall improvement.

As those of you who have been with us long enough to remember upgrades in the past, this can be challenging to get everything functioning properly-so we will need to have the blog site down for 24 hours.

Prior to the upgrade we need to clean up the database. We will be deleting any blog sites and users that have not been active for 14 days or more. So, if your blog fits in this category, you need to make a post to keep your blog active.

We will also be deleting any blogs and users that have any spam comments on their site-so make sure there is no spam on your blog.

Our goal is to upgrade the blog site on March 31 until further notice. 5 days prior to the upgrade we will be e-mailing all current blog owners and making a post here. At that point we will be confirming that blog owners still want to have a blog on the site. If we do not receive confirmation, we will be deleting the blog. So, be sure and respond to the e-mail when you receive it.

 Also, to make the upgrade go smoother, all blogs will need to be using the Standard template at time of conversion. We will be providing detailed instructions on how to change your blog template to Standard. Blogs that don't convert to Standard templates may not work correctly after the upgrade. Once the upgrade has bee fully tested for bugs, we will then be offering several different templates.

Richard Dover
CBS Blogmaster
www.christianblogsites.com/blog