LJ, in its infinite wisdom (<--- can you sense the wagonload of sarcasm there?) has decided to
implement a new look for our friends pages. I've looked at it, and my reaction is thus:
Infinite scroll needs to die in a fire. I hated it when Cheezburger implemented it and I will hate it here. Getting back to the top of the page is a royal pain in the ass if you're scrolling for several pages, and half the time at the Cheezburger site it won't take me all the way up. I hope your coders are more competent than theirs, but this is LJ and I have no faith that they are. The UP button that takes you all the way back to the top is good, but I've got no confidence that it'll work 100% of the time because, well. This is LJ.
Were people beating on your doors demanding this or did your coders just wake up one day and say "Oh, hey, we need to justify our paychecks again, let's put in this new thing that will drive the users crazy and send people to DW in droves again!"
Also, the new friends page is ugly as hell. I hate the static buttons on the side of the page (whatever the hell they do). Whoever designed those damn things needs to be fired from the internet. At least make them smaller, because for those of us with small screens they take up way too much damn room and block content.
Also, I have to scroll sideways to read entries, so if you've got a fixed-width thing going here, STOP THAT SHIT RIGHT NOW. I don't want to maximize my browser.
Apparently "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" is anathema around here. If it ain't broke, LJ will fix it 'til it is.
EDIT: Also, no word on when you're going to fix the bug that makes it so that long comment threads break the page. Instead of implementing new crap that no one wants, how about you get the coders to work on something that is actually friggin' broken and has been for friggin' ages???
This may be the straw that breaks my back. I've been with LJ through thick and thin, for going on nine years. I stuck with them through Strikethrough and the ads they said they'd never implement and then did and the comment page revamp. Very few of the changes they've implemented recently, starting with the ridiculous comment page revamp and coming forward to now, are positive. They keep fixing what's not broken, breaking stuff they have no business messing with, and ignoring stuff that is broken -- such as the fact that long comment threads still break the page in S2 styles, months after this has been brought to their attention.
I realize they don't care about me and my two paid accounts and my nearly-fifty-year-old sensibilities. Their revenue stream is driven by... hell if I know what it's driven by, and they've made it clear that they'd rather attract new users than keep the old. But if I wanted to be on Tumblr or Facebook or Twitter, I'd be there. I want to be on LJ. And they are making it very damned hard for me to stay here. They keep lowering functionality and calling it an "upgrade." Come on, LJ. Removing options and features is not an upgrade, it's a downgrade. Your userbase is not as stupid as you apparently think it is.
I'm angry, and I'm sad. I don't want to move. But they refuse to listen to their customer base, again and again and friggin' again, and I don't like doing business with brick walls. I also realize that they will not miss my measly fifty bucks a year. But DW will actually appreciate it. And, honestly, I don't have a reason to have my main account a paid on DW; I'm pretty sure the only paid feature I'm using is the extra icons. I can go back to fifteen for this one. So it'll actually save me money in the long run.
LJ, please for the love of God and little green apples, make this change optional. I don't want to go. But I will, over this one. I'm beyond sick of your shenanigans.