I am sad… but I must move on.
I honestly never thought that I would see the day that I would post a “last post” entry here at LiveJournal. When I joined LJ in 2003, I thought that it was a wonderful service, run by wonderful people who believed in two values that I hold dear: freedom, and open source. While LiveJournal still provides Open Source software, in recent days they have shown that they do not believe in freedom-this is disheartening to me. I have friends here, I post in communities, and I have had at times past a paid membership to this service. I have spent lots of time and energy here in communities.
If you would like to continue to see me around, I have my own stuff in progress at http://www.trausch.us/ and will continue to get more up there as time goes on. At the moment, LiveJournal members can comment on there (using the OpenID technology that was created by Brad Fitzpatrick of LiveJournal; I remember when that effort was born and was happy to see it). I can also comment on LiveJournal blogs using the same system-my posts will show up as being from the "trausch.us" user (you can see what this looks like on my previous post here). I will be setting up something in the next few days so that I can still read people who like to keep friends-only entries up that they would like for me to be able to see; it will involve adding the ext_49147 user as a friend.
Also, while I cannot do this, any paid or permanent member can: my posts can be syndicated on LJ. If someone wants to do that, the feed URL for syndication is http://www.trausch.us/feed/atom/ and it can be added at the bottom of the LJ Syndication page.
I will no longer be using the LiveJournal IM service, either. However, LiveJournal’s IM service is “federated” which means that it can talk to users on other Jabber networks. If you use LiveJournal’s IM service, you can add michael.trausch@gmail.com to your LJ IM buddy list.
My e-mail is also changing; I have decided that since I am leaving LiveJournal and I have contemplated changing my identity from the fd0man handle that I have had for years, I am going to finish that task. It is going to be michael.trausch@gmail.com, but I will still receive mail at fd0man@gmail.com for probably about six months while I transition over.
More on why I am leaving:
The trust that I placed in LiveJournal as the holder of my writings, however lame they might be, has been violated. Trust, as I am sure we all know, is far harder to earn than it is to lose, and LiveJournal combined with Six Apart, has managed to lose my trust completely. The most recent official communications from LiveJournal were, as far as I can tell, on May 25, 2007. This means that they have failed to address the current issues plaguing the site within an adequate time-frame. I used to work in customer service and if there were two things that I learned in doing so, it was that people appreciate it when you care about their problems, and when you care about their problems, you are motivated to respond to them not only as quickly as you can, but in a manner that makes them feel welcome and be proud to be a customer.
Many innocent journals and communities have been suspended by this service. Furthermore, there has been no effort to publicly apologize for these happenings as far as I can determine-and perhaps, even if there were, I would not expect those people who were affected by this massive cut of membership to ever return, even if they were promised free permanent accounts. It is a sad day for freedom in the online world, and there have been many of those both in cyberspace and the meatspace. It is unfortunate, and I think that there are going to be some major, major changes around the bend that many of us may not be prepared for.
As I have noted above, I will still be accessible to everyone. I am not sure of how active I will be in any communities here anymore, though I might still go ahead and use some of the features of the service. However, I am not prepared for them to shut me down like they have so many others, and I am also not prepared to support such actions-to me, this means that I must leave LJ as my primary system for blogging and more.
For many of you, this will likely be the time where we shall part ways. I understand that many people have a lot of web sites to keep up with anyway, and mine would just be one more of them. If someone is able to add the feed for my new site onto LiveJournal for syndication, that will make my site slightly more accessible to everyone (since it will then be able to be added to your friends lists). As far as I am aware, though, the OpenID system does not permit syndication in either direction, so unless someone adds the syndication to LJ, it won’t be done-I can’t do it. If we should part ways here and lose touch, I wish you well, and I hope that things go well for all of you in the future.
There isn’t much more to say. I will miss using LiveJournal, because it has been my home for so long. I have met many new people here, new friends whom I probably would never have met if it weren’t for my being here the first place. I do hope to see you in my new place, but I will understand if I do not. My move should be finalized within a week or two, time permitting.
Goodbye, LiveJournal.
If you would like to continue to see me around, I have my own stuff in progress at http://www.trausch.us/ and will continue to get more up there as time goes on. At the moment, LiveJournal members can comment on there (using the OpenID technology that was created by Brad Fitzpatrick of LiveJournal; I remember when that effort was born and was happy to see it). I can also comment on LiveJournal blogs using the same system-my posts will show up as being from the "trausch.us" user (you can see what this looks like on my previous post here). I will be setting up something in the next few days so that I can still read people who like to keep friends-only entries up that they would like for me to be able to see; it will involve adding the ext_49147 user as a friend.
Also, while I cannot do this, any paid or permanent member can: my posts can be syndicated on LJ. If someone wants to do that, the feed URL for syndication is http://www.trausch.us/feed/atom/ and it can be added at the bottom of the LJ Syndication page.
I will no longer be using the LiveJournal IM service, either. However, LiveJournal’s IM service is “federated” which means that it can talk to users on other Jabber networks. If you use LiveJournal’s IM service, you can add michael.trausch@gmail.com to your LJ IM buddy list.
My e-mail is also changing; I have decided that since I am leaving LiveJournal and I have contemplated changing my identity from the fd0man handle that I have had for years, I am going to finish that task. It is going to be michael.trausch@gmail.com, but I will still receive mail at fd0man@gmail.com for probably about six months while I transition over.
More on why I am leaving:
The trust that I placed in LiveJournal as the holder of my writings, however lame they might be, has been violated. Trust, as I am sure we all know, is far harder to earn than it is to lose, and LiveJournal combined with Six Apart, has managed to lose my trust completely. The most recent official communications from LiveJournal were, as far as I can tell, on May 25, 2007. This means that they have failed to address the current issues plaguing the site within an adequate time-frame. I used to work in customer service and if there were two things that I learned in doing so, it was that people appreciate it when you care about their problems, and when you care about their problems, you are motivated to respond to them not only as quickly as you can, but in a manner that makes them feel welcome and be proud to be a customer.
Many innocent journals and communities have been suspended by this service. Furthermore, there has been no effort to publicly apologize for these happenings as far as I can determine-and perhaps, even if there were, I would not expect those people who were affected by this massive cut of membership to ever return, even if they were promised free permanent accounts. It is a sad day for freedom in the online world, and there have been many of those both in cyberspace and the meatspace. It is unfortunate, and I think that there are going to be some major, major changes around the bend that many of us may not be prepared for.
As I have noted above, I will still be accessible to everyone. I am not sure of how active I will be in any communities here anymore, though I might still go ahead and use some of the features of the service. However, I am not prepared for them to shut me down like they have so many others, and I am also not prepared to support such actions-to me, this means that I must leave LJ as my primary system for blogging and more.
For many of you, this will likely be the time where we shall part ways. I understand that many people have a lot of web sites to keep up with anyway, and mine would just be one more of them. If someone is able to add the feed for my new site onto LiveJournal for syndication, that will make my site slightly more accessible to everyone (since it will then be able to be added to your friends lists). As far as I am aware, though, the OpenID system does not permit syndication in either direction, so unless someone adds the syndication to LJ, it won’t be done-I can’t do it. If we should part ways here and lose touch, I wish you well, and I hope that things go well for all of you in the future.
There isn’t much more to say. I will miss using LiveJournal, because it has been my home for so long. I have met many new people here, new friends whom I probably would never have met if it weren’t for my being here the first place. I do hope to see you in my new place, but I will understand if I do not. My move should be finalized within a week or two, time permitting.
Goodbye, LiveJournal.