Hello All,
I’m feeling a little down as I write this, because as those of you have faithfully followed the Cautious Optimism Facebook page already know, Facebook suspended the CO site last Friday evening, 11/21/25.
In this post, I’ll update you on that situation, and ask all of you to follow/subscribe to this site – which will continue to be free, as always. If you do so, you’ll get an automatic notice every time I post a new column or update.
Since I think most of you originally came here from the Cautious Optimism FB page, clicking “follow” here is the best way to stay in touch and get updates on where the CO site is going to migrate to, if we can keep it going.
So thanks in advance for doing that!
I talked to the great and powerful CO over the weekend, and he told me that he’s been repeatedly contacting Facebook and trying to get answers from them, but so far with no luck. They haven’t told us why the site was suspended, or whether it was only taken down permanently, or only temporarily. He had hoped that the suspension might only be for 72 hours, but that would have ended on Monday evening, and that obviously has not happened.
So we’re not sure what the next step is going to be. CO would like to keep the site going, and since it had recently grown to more than 34,000 followers, I think many people feel the same way. I have really loved writing for the site for the last nine years, and have made many friends there, and would hate to see that end!
CO and I discussed several options, if FB doesn’t relent and un-suspend the site. One option would be to re-start the dormant, old Cautious Optimism site, but we’re not sure that that can happen. One advantage of re-starting that would be the continuity; followers of the newer site could move over to the old site with the same name, assuming we can find a way to let them know that that one is back. The downside of re-starting that site is that if FB won’t even tell us why they suspended the new site, who knows whether they might do the same to the old one, if we break some mysterious rule that they won’t even identify!
Another option might be to start a new site on a different platform, but neither CO nor I are tech savvy in the ways to do that. In fact, if any of you out there who have followed and enjoyed the Cautious Optimism page and who have the skill set to consider setting up and maybe even helping to manage a new one, let me know that, and I think CO might be willing to negotiate a deal with you to make that happen.
One regret that CO and I have is that neither of us thought to create some kind of an email list of CO site followers, so that we could reach all of them with updates about where the site might migrate to, in case something like this happened.
And now something like this has happened, and we have no way to contact the CO family!
The good news is that I have this WordPress site, and you’re here, and I’ll still be able to communicate with all of you who have been coming here regularly. The arrangement I had with CO was to post every new column on the CO site first, and then when I wrote a new one to post there, I’d post the former one here. So I am going to continue to write columns and post them here, as always.
I’ll post my next new column shortly, but in the meantime, please do hit “follow” on this page, so I can let you know what the plan is, as soon as we get one. And if you know some of the other regulars from the Cautious Optimism site who don’t know about this site, please send them here and ask them to subscribe, too.
And while you’re at it, I’d love to get some comments and feedback from you: How many of you would be willing (or even eager?) to follow us to a new home, if we can find a way to re-create the site elsewhere? I’m assuming that the lion’s share of you found this page because you found the CO Facebook page first, but if that’s not the case for you, please let me know how you found me.
Also, if you’re at all tech savvy and have any suggestions for where we could locate a new site, we’d love to hear that, too!
I’ll be back to update you soon, and thanks!
Martin
Martin Simpson 