Mod Note: New Beginning

[ahavah]

Hello, old friends! Once again, I apologize. Like so many, I jumped the LJ-ship. I've realized my mistake and have come crawling back. The f-list is still pretty slow, and most of my favorite communities seem to have died. I'm sorry that I allowed this one, my very favorite, to do the same

Comments

[gonzo21]

Always nice to see some Rumi appear.

Incidentally, one of the things I've noticed about people who return to LJ after an absence. They tend to come back, make one or two posts in their journals, then realise that most of the people they knew, communities they used, have drifted away too.

The way I've kept my LJ experience interesting and worthy is by maintaining a fairly constant stream of adding new people. Most of the people I speak to on LJ today are not the same people I spoke to two years ago. (They're mostly all on facebook now, being deathly-dull.)

[ahavah]

Yeah, I tried a 'return' early last year and gave up when it just seemed like I was screaming into the void. But I've rallied several friends to join me back over here, and I've broken up with FB almost entirely, which should help. I've tried posting in several of my old communities, hoping to rally up new, active friends without resorting to 'add me' communities, but we'll see how that goes. Seems most of my old haunts are dead too. :/

[gonzo21]

The communities never really recovered from the Great LJ Fiasco of STrike-thru, which drove most of the fandom communities onto Tumblr. Where they remain to this day.

And without fandoms driving the whole community scene, they just struggled to keep going I think.

But the problem with Tumblr is it is even harder to have any sort of meaningful conversation there than FB.

I mean okay, LJ is narcissistic. But FB and Tumblr are ~relentlessly~ narcissistic. :)

[ahavah]

What was the Strike-thru fiasco? I thought everyone jumped ship when the Russians took over. That seems to be the prevailing attitude with my friends.

I hate Tumblr with passion. Nothing will ever drag me there. I'll just cling to LJ all alone, I guess. lol

[gonzo21]

It was when they started banning over 500 of the biggest fandom peoples journals overnight one day on the basis of interests they had listed. They deleted RPG journals, communites based around rape survivors, the biggest (at the time) on the internet adult Harry Potter flashfic community.

Without giving any notice or grounds to appeal.

Users went ballistic. LJ failed to recognise it. And a few months later they did it again, and nuked a bunch more journals and comms.

At which point fandom pretty much packed up and left, and the vast majority of people who were on my f-list at the time vanished.

[ahavah]

Oh my gosh! No, I didn't know about that. Can't say that I blame them, then. I wish it wasn't so, but sounds like LJ did it to itself. :/

[gonzo21]

Yeah, it's really been a succession of absolutely terrible decisions by the LJ team that has seen their userbase dwindle away to virtually nothing.

Strike thru. Foisting horrible redesigns onto users who do not want. Ignoring criticisms. Refusing to respond to criticisms. One time a member of the LJ staff actually trolled users who were raising complaints about their latest poorly implimented piece of redesigned website.

The thing that will absolutely kill LJ dead is lurking in the wings, it's the newly redesigned website they introduced about 6 months ago, which caused a storm of protest, and they allowed people to opt out for now. But the second they make the new site and new friends feed default for everybody? I think that will be the last straw and LJ will be dead.

(The redesigned website really is incredibly ugly. It's a rip-off of vkontakte, the popular Russian facebook clone.)

[deloric]

well shoot, I hope your prediction is wrong. I'm starting to like the idea of an lj-comeback. I never new any of that fandom history either.

[gonzo21]

I hope I'm wrong too, LJ has been a very important part of my life for almost 10 years. And I fully expect to still be here the day they turn out the lights.

[ahavah]

Apparently I've managed to recruit a few people looking for a comeback, and the add-me groups seem to be leaning in that directions, too. Maybe there's hope!

I suck at the daily-posting issue by myself, though. Especially since I've lost my favorite Rumi book. Actually, I don't think I've done any posting on my own journal, either, come to think of it, but I'm lurking on my f-list again. Babysteps. lol