Too Many Tweaks
I was online when the notice came in the e-mail.
"'s birthday is today," it said. A little button said "Congratulate."
I clicked on the button that said "Congratulate." As I recalled, it would open a new post with the code to format an oddly formatted LJ name already in place, so all I'd have to do was type a "Happy Birthday" message. I can do that before daylight.
But it didn't. Apparently some automated glitch had logged me out (I had not logged out) and I had to look up the password the system has demanded I change so many times. Then the system insisted on opening a new post with no code and fouled-up paragraph formatting.
Life is too short. I'm not going to waste any more of my memory trying to figure out how to get around some other idiotic bit of code that turns line breaks into paragraph breaks.
I still wish Harvey_rrit a happy LJ-birthday and many more, but y'know, LJ staff, if web sites worked the same way every time, if tapping the RETURN key once made a line break and twice made a paragraph break, if we were logged in unless and until we logged out, there would be a better chance of Harvey_rrit actually using LJ and seeing an LJ-birthday greeting, anyway.
You need to make sure that whenever people log into a web site, everything looks the same way it did and works the same way it did the last time. Do not tweak ANYthing. Always assume that the amount of brain space people have to spare for any more tweaks in the way web sites work is zero.
A web site is a tool. Very simple. Like a hammer. If you try to add wrench functions to the hammer, your wonderful new creation has become a non-functional hammer nobody wants to use.
No attention is available to spare for the web site itself. All attention needs to be on the content the site is there to deliver. Even changing a color in the background, or the shape of a button, is a distraction that costs the web site administrators credibility.
I don't see the buttons I remember seeing at LJ. As far as I'm concerned, those functions aren't functioning. One more reason to leave LJ alone until the system stabilizes, if and whenever it does.
A good blog site is not a blog site that adds new bells and whistles daily. It's a site where people can click on a button, before dawn, and in their pre-coffee mental state type in fifty words, and create a short cheerful birthday post, and get on with their lives, without a single thought about the web site itself.