Bye Bye LJ Paid Account; Hello Dreamwidth
http://lj-releases.livejournal.com/71858.html
http://news.livejournal.com/140215.html
http://news.livejournal.com/140511.html
"Site-scheme comment pages have been redesigned! Any journal or community which has disabled customized comment pages, such as this community, have been updated. Highlights include the commenting form having improved userpic selection, making it easy to insert links, images, and videos, expand/collapse functionality of comment threads has been improved, you can easily see what comments are new since the last time you loaded an entry, you can navigate between pages of comments by using ctrl + left/right arrow keys, and comments no longer have a subject field."
1) Removed subject fields
2) Removed ability to preview comments before posting
3) Graphic-only icon selection now (you must load ALL of your icons in order to choose one)
4) Removed many other pieces of the default comment pages - Link | Parent | Thread | track - have become simply - link | Collapse | Track - which you must HOVER over each comment to even see the commands.
5) Not to mention the page is painful on the eyes and an AWFUL design
The only positive seems to be that ALL users can now edit their comments (something only Paid users could do before).
Tore, my programmer husband, was flabbergasted that they would remove ANY functionality. That's just BAD programming and design in general. You don't remove a function without replacing it with something better at the very least.
This isn't the only reason I'm cancelling my paid account, but it is one of them. The slow response times, downtimes, and constant making of changes without taking user feedback into account...
I was heavily leaning towards cancelling before yesterday, even more considering it yesterday, but today I finally clicked the button to do it when my custom layout had comment and entry pages defaulted to the site's default without any warning (To fix: Go to Customized Journal Style and change "Disable customized comment pages for your journal" to "No"). It doesn't matter that it was an easy fix. What matters is that they defaulted EVERYONE on the site who they had let stay excluded from their AWFUL site design to it the NEXT DAY after they already had over 10,000 comments of people upset with it's implementation.
I can't say I'm leaving LJ permanently or at all, but they're not getting any more of my money. I have signed up for Dreamwidth though and imported all my settings, entries, and comments over there. You guys can even still access them exactly the same as before due to OpenID! You can even crosspost automatically by default through their settings menus. Dreamwidth is usually closed sign-ups and you can only get in via invites, so now would be a good time to sign up and snag a name even if you don't plan to use it.
Oh, and don't forget the LJ Prototype!
/gag
EDIT: LJ responded...kinda. Not much other than, "We're talking about it." or "It's not goign to happen" (re: subjects): http://lj-releases.livejournal.com/72149.html?style=mine
http://news.livejournal.com/140215.html
http://news.livejournal.com/140511.html
"Site-scheme comment pages have been redesigned! Any journal or community which has disabled customized comment pages, such as this community, have been updated. Highlights include the commenting form having improved userpic selection, making it easy to insert links, images, and videos, expand/collapse functionality of comment threads has been improved, you can easily see what comments are new since the last time you loaded an entry, you can navigate between pages of comments by using ctrl + left/right arrow keys, and comments no longer have a subject field."
1) Removed subject fields
2) Removed ability to preview comments before posting
3) Graphic-only icon selection now (you must load ALL of your icons in order to choose one)
4) Removed many other pieces of the default comment pages - Link | Parent | Thread | track - have become simply - link | Collapse | Track - which you must HOVER over each comment to even see the commands.
5) Not to mention the page is painful on the eyes and an AWFUL design
The only positive seems to be that ALL users can now edit their comments (something only Paid users could do before).
Tore, my programmer husband, was flabbergasted that they would remove ANY functionality. That's just BAD programming and design in general. You don't remove a function without replacing it with something better at the very least.
This isn't the only reason I'm cancelling my paid account, but it is one of them. The slow response times, downtimes, and constant making of changes without taking user feedback into account...
I was heavily leaning towards cancelling before yesterday, even more considering it yesterday, but today I finally clicked the button to do it when my custom layout had comment and entry pages defaulted to the site's default without any warning (To fix: Go to Customized Journal Style and change "Disable customized comment pages for your journal" to "No"). It doesn't matter that it was an easy fix. What matters is that they defaulted EVERYONE on the site who they had let stay excluded from their AWFUL site design to it the NEXT DAY after they already had over 10,000 comments of people upset with it's implementation.
I can't say I'm leaving LJ permanently or at all, but they're not getting any more of my money. I have signed up for Dreamwidth though and imported all my settings, entries, and comments over there. You guys can even still access them exactly the same as before due to OpenID! You can even crosspost automatically by default through their settings menus. Dreamwidth is usually closed sign-ups and you can only get in via invites, so now would be a good time to sign up and snag a name even if you don't plan to use it.
Oh, and don't forget the LJ Prototype!
/gag
EDIT: LJ responded...kinda. Not much other than, "We're talking about it." or "It's not goign to happen" (re: subjects): http://lj-releases.livejournal.com/72149.html?style=mine