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You Fail LJ

AGH. LJ is at it again.

I just... agh. I was defending them last time, I believed their apology, and now this? I'm so glad I didn't cave to temptation to get a permanent account - at least I can stop paying them money. Anyone know how to turn off autopayments? (It annoys me that I just renewed, but I suppose I can console myself with the thought that I'm not seeing their precious advertiser's ads in the meantime.)

Plus, doing this just after changing the way deleted journals are displayed? Subtle, guys.

(And is anyone else slightly suspicious that they've only (AFAIK) gone after content with homosexual content/overtones? Just sayin'.)

I know this is going to fuel the 'let's all leave LJ' debate. I'd be sorry to go - my friends are here, my communities are here, not to mention a few years worth of entries. But I'll follow the fandom - that's why I'm here, after all. Of course, we could all hang around waiting for everyone else to leave and never get anywhere :)

I have heard a few people mention trying to get some sort of 'switch over date' consenus, which would be interesting (both to implement and watch. Organising Fandom = Herding Cats). Still, given the current political/social climate, especially in the US, I'm not convinced any of the other journal-hosting services would be better.

Anyway. I'm Lyore on InsaneJournal and GreatestJournal, for those of you with journals/backups/name claims over there.

On a slightly happier topic, I have discovered Chris Eccleston is going to be the Black Rider in the Dark is Rising adaption. OTOH, they are changing the name to The Seeker: The Dark is Rising. I'm not sure what the rationale behind this is, unless they are trying to tap into the Harry Potter connotations of the word Seeker. But, Chris Eccleston.

Hmm. Speaking of The Dark is Rising I think it is definitely time I re-read the books.

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Aw, don't leave. I'm not planning on moving and I'd hate to see everyone go.

Don't worry, I'm not planning on leaving :) (Apart from anything else, I get a certain satisfaction from the idea of staying here, using their storage and eating their bandwidth, while not paying them a cent and refusing to buy anything from their advertisers *evil grin*)

That's my biggest worry about all this, really. I like all my friends and communities here, and don't want to see everyone disappearing to different sites or out of fandom all together. *hugs flist*

So yeah. You're stuck with me for a while yet!

You might be interested in this post, which talks about some of the legal issues endemic to operating social networking sites in the US.

Yes, I saw her post. While it might not seem so right now, I really am sympathetic to LJ's position. It's one of the reasons I don't think the alternatives would be any better - it's easy to declare that you will not be intimidated by threat of lawsuit when you are not a target, but something else entirely when you have a large population of fen on your site indulging in what may seem to be questionable practices.

I have no problem with LJ self-policing, or with structuring their TOS to protect themselves, or refusing to host certain materials based on whether or not they are likely to draw lawsuits rather than any real belief in their ability to cause/inspire people to cause harm. It's their site - they can make the rules as they see fit.

However, what is really annoying me about this is LJ's lack of consistency between public statements on policy and their implementation (for example, the clarifications on the

lj_biz. I firmly believe that users should have every opportunity to understand and comply with the TOS. And even more so when you are a paying user.

And somehow this comment got a little long... Oops :) Sorry, I didn't mean to rant at you, I'm just annoyed at the entire situation, you know?

No problem. I'm just a great believer in not ascribing to malice what can be adequately explained by incompetence... (But I can certainly understand you not wanting to pay for crappy service.)

And I have to live with our current legal and policical system in the US, so I feel like I have a head start in observing stupidity and incompetence. *g*

Don't worry - it isn't all that much better in Australia :)

I think I said last time around that LJ, being a business, has the right to decide what they will host on their servers. It doesn't matter whether it's flocked or not, LJ doesn't have to store it if they don't want to. Freedom of speech only applies to public spaces and the government. (The erosion of public space is one of my pet peeves, but I digress.) I may disagree with LJ's decisions about what to ban, but I don't own the servers. I do think that the way this is all being done stinks. Either they learned nothing last time or they intended to be dicks.

What really has me angry is their new safety tips for teens page in which they advise teens not to lead predators on, lest they make themselves targets. While it is good sense not to talk about sex with strangers, I doubt whether a serious predator would start with the sex talk. I read somewhere (I must find the reference) that most groomers insist they only want to talk about the teen as a person, until they have an emotional hold on them. Most child sex abuse is perpetrated by someone the child knows, but I have yet to see any large-scale public outrage over that. Where are the newspaper editorials about the evils of family reunions?

Sorry for the long comment, it's just a triggery topic for me. I think I'm too tired and possibly tipsy to really think this through right now. (Alright! Drunk LJ commenting! What a concept!)

No, I agree. LJ has the right to host or not host whatever they want - but I find their implementation and the obscuration around their policy almost offensive. (Full ranty comment on this above (http://lyore.livejournal.com/61921.html?thread=412129#t412129) - you're not the only one this is a hot topic for *g*)

I didn't read their safety tips link. But you're right - and I think that might be one of the arguments about the Perverted Justice campaign, that they take the focus away from the larger 'threat'.

Sorry, I didn't mean to come off as stand-offish. I did understand that we agree but I forgot to say so. The lack of clarification, warnings, or communication of any kind is definitely offensive, but the TOS state that they can permanently suspend users without warning. If they cared at all about having a good relationship with their users they'd ask users to take material down rather than banning them, but really they just care about selling content to advertisers.

The safety tips really set me off because of personal experience, alas. The wording was atrocious.

Yay, Chris Eccleston! No, Trainspotting screenwriter! [wards against] DO NOT WANT! Though to be fair, he did a pretty good job of a tricky novel.

"... the Black Rider (Christopher Eccleston), a malevolent figure on a massive horse, whose goal is to stop Will and seduce him to the Dark."

Come to the Dark Side. We have cookies and free ADSL.

As you say, LJ's dilemma is not unique to them, so a mass move to another journal service provider may just transpose the problem between providers. Greatestjournal's one temptation is their (currently) large userpic availability. I may just get a contingent account over there before that particular bit of policy changes.

But if you look between the two the Lyore mentions above (and I have because I've just created placeholders there), the customisation suck as much as possible over there.

Also, what's up with all the ads?! GreatestJournal has them everywhere. At least InsaneJournal's kept them to their admin pages only...

I don't think I'll move. It's way too much hassle.

GJ has ads in some places and their ToS warns they may introduce ads on journals somewhere down the line. It's not any different from what I currently have at LJ.

Lj has the friends and the comms, I'm here for the company and I'll follow it where the wind takes me. I'm not fussed.

Plus, I'm enjoying myself with 2,000 icons.

o_O

2,000 icons?!

Dude. I so didn't look at the features. The ads sent me running once I'd signed up.

2,000 icons, I do not kid.

'Sif anyone's going to get around to using 2,000 icons. I am rising to the challenge!

Oh dear. They are feeding your addiction? :P

They are feeding your addiction?

FOR FREE. :DDDDD

Now if only everyone else would move there so I have people to talk to while I have 2,000 icon userspace.

Looks like most people are sitting tight for now, so you might be out of luck :)

Okay, not that I've made those placeholder accounts - what the hell's going on? Why are we imminently moving? You know I don't LJ often! :(

... I'm gonna miss the layout options on LJ..... :(

Dont' worry, I have no intention of going anywhere - not unless everyone else does. But I just wanted to get my placeholder journals created, and start finding my LJ friends over there, just in case a mass exodus does happen.

(I'm assuming you've figured out what is going on - the link in the post does/did have a pretty good summary. Although it's almost a day old now, and we all know how fast things move on LJ!)

Ohnoes. :(

This is quite irritating. I've only just got the hang of LJ (after three years! Go me!) and don't really want to go anywhere else... The only way I would move is if that fan-run journal system got going. If that was the case, I would up and over, advertise everywhere, and drag every LJ-user I've ever seen with me.

Hmph. This needs more consideration. Wonder if LJ would take on a UK-based student as part of their team, purely to distinguish between fanstuff and the more suspect sort of thing...

Yes, it's taken me ages to get everything sorted out over here too.

I have no realy intention of moving - I just want to be able to find people again if they go. I like the idea of a fan-run one, but I'm not sure if in the long run it will fix anything - the same pressure being applied to LJ will be applied to any future sites, once they get to critical mass, IMO. *sigh* What a mess.

I'd be very interested in how they chose the people who make these decisions, myself.

I do have a place holder, just in case, at gj, it's Amethyste, but I don't plan on moving, it's more in case lj blows up entirely, etc..

I shall friend you on gj then. I just want some other way to find people if worst comes to worst (and 'cause I'm all engineering-y and hate the idea of having a single point of failure for all my fannish contacts *g*).

I saw the trailer for Dark is Rising when J-Kun and I saw the Simpsons movie. Looks interesting. Possibly being taken a little too HP like, but that may just be the trailer to suck the audience in. Totally different style of story, so could be interesting :P I was interested that they're doing Will's story and skipping the first book, given that the kids from the first book tie back in later, depending on how far they take this... You could mishmash all the Will books into one movie and remove all the other kids, I guess... :(
Anyway, maybe I should go read and see what they've kind of done with this instead of only having seen the trailer :P

Then you are a step ahead of me - I haven't seen the trailer yet.

http://www.seekthesigns.com/ if you want to watch it...

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