The big news rocking the blogosphere is the sudden disappearance and/or deletion of the blog Renard’s World.  For the uninitiated, Renard Moreau is to WordPress blogging as Tom was to MySpace; somehow, no matter who you were or how active your blog, Renard would follow you, and you’d follow Renard.

From what I could gather, Renard was (is?) from somewhere in the Caribbean (Trinidad and Tobago, I think), and would write mostly about blogging, as well as some stuff about blogging on Linux versus Windows or iOS.  He was a WordPress loyalist, but was also quick to point out the many, many bugs that seemed to creep in with each update (I’m still not sure if people can comment on my blog, and there’s no rhyme or reason as to which other WordPress blogs are commenting-friendly or not).  He also would always write, “the God/Goddess’s honest truth,” which seemed to fit into his quirky way of writing, which always featured short, terse sentences that usually double as paragraphs.

Renard was posting as usual just a few days ago—I received the typical e-mail updates as usual—but his blog vanished sometime earlier this week.  As of the time of writing (a little before 9 PM on Tuesday, 14 May 2024), here is what readers will see if they attempt to visit Renard’s World:

What’s gotten everyone abuzz is that Renard had given no warning or indication that he planned to delete his blog—well, perhaps not.

In doing a bit of reading and searching, I noticed that Renard wrote a post on Friday, 10 May 2024 entitled “The Gravity of Deleting a Blog.”  Unfortunately, it does not seem to be archived on The Wayback Machine, and Renard—like a true WordPress blogger—only published the lede for his posts in e-mails, and yours portly did not read the post (it was one I wanted to read—what a fascinating topic!—but I never got around to it, and I unceremoniously deleted the e-mail).  As such, all I have is the following:

Renard (who always referred to himself in the third person in this preview e-mails) “wants bloggers to think before deleting their blogs.”  Perhaps Renard had thought it through, and, in the spirit of his succinct writing style, deleted his blog.  Perhaps this post was his warning.

But I cannot say.  The buzz on WordPress is that it seems unthinkable that he would pull the plug without some definitive announcement or declaration.  It’s possible WordPress banned him for some reason, but given the benign nature of his content, that seems unlikely.  The prevailing theory seems to be that there is a glitch of some kind, but that’s not necessarily comforting, either—if a major blog like Renard’s World can disappear into the Internet ether (the “Ethernet”?) with so little warning, what does that mean for the rest of us?

Of course, blogs also run their course.  Often, they simply fade away, rather than implode—a slow tapering off from posting content, or even an abrupt cessation of posts.  These tend to be deaths of indifference, or perhaps short-term hiatuses that turn, day after day and year after year, into permanent silence.  In the latter case, there’s always that notion of “I’ll return to it someday”; indeed, yours portly did that with this blog, which actually got its start in 2009 on Blogger!

But deleting a blog is an intentional act.  It’s an act with finality, from which there is no (easy) coming back.  Some speculation among bloggers is that Renard was simply ready to hang it up, but there’s a great deal of surprise at its sudden deletion (if, in fact, it was deleted intentionally).  As several bloggers have noted, Renard doesn’t owe anyone an explanation, and it’s his choice to delete it; it’s just taken everyone by surprise.

The simplest explanation—Renard pulled the plug—is probably the likeliest, but the intrigue is that Renard seemed like the last blogger to do so.  We only know our Internet acquaintances dimly, though, and in a way, it doesn’t seem entirely out-of-character (for, admittedly, a man I don’t know—see also the sentiment expressed at the beginning of this sentence!).

I hope to see Renard back.  I also hope we get some definitive answers, though who knows?  If anyone managed to screenshot or save Renard’s post “The Gravity of Deleting a Blog,” it might provide some clues.  If you have, please send along a transcript to me.

If there is some heinous glitch, backup your blogs.  Gulp!