6 posts tagged “livejournal”

Actual SA employees who may read this blog may want to skip this post.  Some of it is caustic or outrightly inflammatory, and is more of an attempt to enumerate my feelings that to seek dialog or redress.

Strangely, I had recently been thinking about how the old homestead was actually a whole lot more of an appealing playground for the early adopter types like myself, and before my semi-self-imposed exile from home computer use, was considering trying to make more use of it.  So, naturally, they had to go and sell it off to the Russians. 

Lord knows I'm an old cranky kibbitzer and that I like nothing better than to be a killjoy and a doomsayer, but the whole thing gave me a sort of sick feeling in my pants.  To tell the truth, I doubt that it really is going to affect the service, features, or community that's been built up over there-- certainly not for a while, anyway.

So what's bugging me? 

First off, SUP, is a "media conglomerate" which may just be evidence that the people they have doing their English copy writing are woefully second tier, because "media conglomerate" in English roughly means "great Satan".  Faceless, monolithic-- everything we really don't like to think about which is really going on behind the scenes in any organization over fifty people or so.  Certainly not the sort of organization which generates the same kind of fondness that you have for a guy named Brad who decides that all the file extensions on his blogging site will be .bml (presumably "Brad's Markup Language?"). 

Second, this paints Six Apart in an ugly, Carpathian light.  The chupacabra, having descended on LiveJournal and sucked out some of its marrow (privacy settings, etc.), is leaving the old goat on the side of the road for the vultures. Yes, I am prone to histrionics, even when, as mentioned above, I don't think there are going to be practical ramifications.  Only symbolic ones.  But fuck it, I've got a degree in reading too much into things.

Third, it really makes LiveJournal seem like The Simpsons.  Once in the prime of its life and creativity, now nineteen seasons in, all but the most hardcore fans are praying for it to just be fucking over.  LiveJournal didn't want LiveJournal, SixApart doesn't want LiveJournal.  Why the hell should I want LiveJournal?  There's no dignified death in business, though.  As if the chintzy interface and hand-me-down themes didn't already make the place seem a little like an outdated, depressing mall, handing the company off to "media conglomeration" just feels like adding a touch of insult to injury.

It's always odd when I find myself put out by these sort of things.  I actually wasn't upset when SA took over LJ.  I'd used MT before, respected them as another worthwhile player in the field, and accepted their stewardship.  I'm sure Brad and his cohorts would prefer this to being gobbled up by Rupert Murdoch, and I've come to accept that this is sort of the way things go in life and in business. 

Oh forget it.  I was trying to wind my way into some kind of concluding paragraph, and it's just turning into more maudlin bitching.  Chalk it up to being sick. 

Stolen shamelessly from the venerable Snooks:

1. LISTEN TO THE BIRDS That's where all the music comes from. Birds know everything about how it should sound and where that sound should come from. And watch hummingbirds. They fly really fast, but a lot of times they aren't going anywhere.
2. YOUR GUITAR IS NOT REALLY A GUITAR Your guitar is a divining rod. Use it to find spirits in the other world and bring them over. A guitar is also a fishing rod. If you're good, you'll land a big one.
3. PRACTICE IN FRONT OF A BUSH Wait until the moon is out, then go outside, eat a multi-grained bread and play your guitar to a bush. If the bush doesn't shake, eat another piece of bread.
4. WALK WITH THE DEVIL Old delta blues players referred to amplifiers as the "devil box." And they were right. You have to be an equal opportunity employer in terms of who you're bringing over from the other side. Electricity attracts demons and devils. Other instruments attract other spirits. An acoustic guitar attracts Casper. A mandolin attracts Wendy. But an electric guitar attracts Beelzebub.
5. IF YOU'RE GUILTY OF THINKING, YOU'RE OUT If your brain is part of the process, you're missing it. You should play like a drowning man, struggling to reach shore. If you can trap that feeling, then you have something that is fur bearing.
6. NEVER POINT YOUR GUITAR AT ANYONE Your instrument has more power than lightning. Just hit a big chord, then run outside to hear it. But make sure you are not standing in an open field.
7. ALWAYS CARRY YOUR CHURCH KEY You must carry your key and use it when called upon. That's your part of the bargain. Like One String Sam. He was a Detroit street musician in the fifties who played a homemade instrument. His song "I Need A Hundred Dollars" is warm pie. Another church key holder is Hubert Sumlin, Howlin' Wolf's guitar player. He just stands there like the Statue of Liberty making you want to look up her dress to see how he's doing it.
8. DON'T WIPE THE SWEAT OFF YOUR INSTRUMENT You need that stink on there. Then you have to get that stink onto your music.
9. KEEP YOUR GUITAR IN A DARK PLACE When you're not playing your guitar, cover it and keep it in a dark place. If you don't play your guitar for more than a day, be sure to put a saucer of water in with it.
10. YOU GOTTA HAVE A HOOD FOR YOUR ENGINE Wear a hat when you play and keep that hat on. A hat is a pressure cooker. If you have a roof on your house the hot air can't escape. Even a lima bean has to have a wet paper towel around it to make it grow.

It occurs to me that there may be many old LiveJournal expatriates out there, who may not yet know about the latest uber-drama which is unfolding back on the old homestead.  Rather like hearing stories about the Starbucks being built in the town you grew up in, replacing the penny-candy story where you used to buy pixie stix, I thought I might pass the information along to you.

In what is being called the "2007 LJ Strikeout" a group of concern zealots who call themselves "Warriors for Innocence" have decided to lean on LiveJournal resulting in an initial deletion/suspension of around 500 journals for suspected indulgence in incest, rape, or pedophilia.  The trouble, or so I'm told, is that in addition to poaching a couple of actual perverts, they have also nailed a slew of people who like to have "pretend" rapes in the bedroom, study incest academically, and/or like to read about hot gay sex between an underage Draco Malfoy and an unconcenting underage Harry Potter.

Most of what I've found out about this situation has branched off this post but I have to say that I no longer feel a vested interest in personal liberties or LiveJournal in quite the same way I did when I was 23 and first signed up for it, so I can't really make any kind of call for arms.  However, one of the things that seems to be really getting the people's gall is that the SA folks have been keen to talk to the press while the wailing and gnashing of teeth and anguish cries for information piled among users.  Again, a lot of the internal apparatus of LJ is (I'm told) volunteer, at least as far as dispute resolution is concerned, so really it's not like we're even accusing the same group of people of talking to the press as we are not talking to the user base.

However, we are all the gracious serfs of Six Apart and related web 2.0 celebrities, so even if you, like me, couldn't care less about LiveJournal, slash fiction, or schoolgirl fetishes, it might be wise to read up on the situation and be aware of what our landlords are up to at their other properties.

To quote the linked post:

Right now, Livejournal is in the unenviable position of being the landlord of a building where vandals are constantly pulling the fire alarm. Unfortunately, they must absolutely treat every fire alarm as if it were 100% real; they cannot rely on their own personal judgement and say "well, maybe there's only smoke and no fire here." Because putting illegal topics in your livejournal interests *could potentially* be interpreted as soliciting illegal activities, they must suspend journals that *are reported to them* as having illegal interests.

It is really easy to see the "slippery slope" where this could go.  One article mentions that the same reasoning behind this purge could easily apply to anyone condoning any illegal behavior.  From something as definitive as, "I get high every weekend" in your bio to the misleading interest in "Grand Theft Auto" could be interpreted as solicitation.  I for one will go out on a limb enough to say that a). a group with some clout would have to actively threaten action against SA for this to be a problem and, hopefully, that b). it would have to be a real losing "hot button" issue where the court debate could actually turn ugly and costly for them to just fold under threats.

I don't envy the folks at SA over this pickle they've been put in so I am realy not about to leap out and condemn anyone when I know only a fraction of what's going on.  Still, I feel that transparency is the cornerstone of any stable community and I wanted to shine the light on something which could potentially affect us Voxers as well.

That is all, I hope I'm not telling you something you already know.

And forget for the moment that it's an hour and thirty minutes into my working day and I'm still just doing things like blogging, running mac updaters, and listening to The Crane Wife again.  I'm actually starting to respect it as an album even more than Picaresque which had some highlights but was less of a whole picture, the way The Crane Wife is.  I'm finding those songs I adore, they're just not raucous ones like "Chimbley Sweep" so they don't jump out at you so much.  Of course, at the same time, I don't want them to stay on this note for another whole album.

Anyway, I jumped at the chance to go... oh hey, I have an idea.  No, nevermind, it looks like using the ?auth=digest option lets the Vox importer know there ought to be a password, but it doesn't seem to actually give me access to my friends only posts to pull them over here and make them neighbors only here.  Which brings me to the subject of my crankiness.  On a certain level, the web is all about sharing except that, as evidenced by the public's feelings on regifting, the Western business machine is out to criminalize sharing as much as humanly possible.  (Oh, you didn't know when you started reading all those frivolous YouTube posts that you were dealing with a radical armchair Marxist, did you?)  However, you'd think that with the business interests of LiveJournal and Vox merged, they might be willing to show a little love to their older cousin.  I mean, as LiveJournalers, we've endured the disdain of the auteur bloggers for years by admitting that maybe we don't actually want all of the details of our lives hanging out where stalkers, exes, and employers can find them and use them against us.  Like professional academics and Mac users, however, we've come to enjoy this disdain and elevated it to a symbold of distinction.  But I digress.

The point is that the cross-posting to LiveJournal feature is almost insulting, especially why you consider that there's an RSS feed of the whole post available from the site already.  However, if you want the convenience of immediate reposting, it has to basically be an advertisement for Vox.  A big fucking baner ad, on your friends' pages.  Go Vox.  The import feature isn't quite as appalling, just a little disappointing.  Maybe I'm just starting to feel old and entitled, but you figure if Vox is going to want to poach some of LiveJournal's userbase (by making a bigger, shinier, ad-laden version of the service) you think they might make some small effort to cater specifically to them.  I mean, I've got something like sixty people on my friends list over on LJ, and if I suddenly said, "Screw you folks, I'm going to Vox.  It's just that fucking cool."  I bet a bunch of them would come along-- or at least get Vox names to see what the hubub was about.  Sixty people isn't a lot of AdSense dollars, unless you start trying to multiply it by the actual number of LiveJournal users who might end up here. 

It occurs to me that there might be some kind of non-compete between the two companies, which is preventing SA from actually doing anything to really target LiveJournal users, specifically.  Or if there isn't, somebody's legal team probably isn't getting a fruit basket this Christmas.

I'm still straddling the fence, even if I'm doing most of my blogging here.  It's because I don't know any of you people, so there seems to be a bit more of that first-date, leave plenty of comments, actually interact with each other stuff that has sort of calmed down with my set of LiveJounal cronies.  However, these factors could make up my mind to ditch one and embrace the other:

LiveJournal:

• Some kind of halfway decent external, rich text editor.  - Maybe this exists for Windows users, but for all of its old school charm, XJournal really stinks as a post editor.  Ecto is fantastic blogging tool, but since we all live in the blogging ghetto, it doesn't integrate security settings, friend-list editing, or LJ-specific tagging.
• Media storage for more than just photos - really what I mean is that if LJ stole the "Organize" screen, I'd be back there in a heartbeat.  I love you guys, and I love a lot of the additional community feature that exist here, but that would definitely be 9/10ths of the law.
  
• Some small tweaks to the style system - I find myself wanting to add some of these (albeit sometimes very garish) "site badges" from places like LastFm, Joe's Goals, and possibly Twitter without going into the full blown nuts and bolts of writing a style myself.  I could do it, though, and become immensely popular. 
  

Vox

• Badges again - I'm a pretentious fuck and I like the idea of having my top ten artists for the week in a nice sidebar in my blog.
• Easy access to stored links at social bookmarking sites - "Organize" for del.icio.us, more or less.
  
• Some kind of external access for blog posting - Presumably this exists in some form already, but one thing I'm thinking about trying out for my LiveJournal is making a Temple of Ego-like blog and posting daily summaries in much the way that FeedBurner will add daily summaries of your del.icio.us bookmarks to a feed for you.

Just a couple things, even if they're not simple ones, but that's always the way, isn't it?

Be warned, Beatnik Sidearm and others are finding the worst 80's pop videos possible on YouTube.  Be afraid.  Be very afraid.