DRAFT - Release 88-Gate
Recently, I realized that unlike in 2006, 2007, and 2008, I had neglected to do any kind of PSA/Alert/just plain keeping track post of LJ's latest blunders. Part of this is because work has been so crazy the last year or so that I just haven't had the time or the brain to put it together. But, after rereading the messes of the previous blunders, I realize that having all of this in one place is a good thing, because those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it, and I really want to remember how badly LJ screws things up.
SO.
On December 14th, 2011, LJ posted that they were going to roll out an update to their software, Release 88. In the news post (http://news.livejournal.com/140215.html), was this seemingly innocuous statement: "Comment pages have been redesigned! More information about specific changes will be announced in the next few days."
On December 20th, 2011, LJ rolled out that update (http://lj-releases.livejournal.com/71858.html). There actually was no "more information," just the sudden changes that Release 88 unleashed upon the world.
You can read in the many, MANY comments the details about the changes - very, very few of them were for the good. And one of them, the removal of subject lines, was not only of the bad, but apparently because ONE PERSON, a member of the LJ Russian staff, didn't like them.
You see, this change was beta-tested on the Russian side of LJ (and reportedly the beta-testers had many issues with the changes but were ignored), and then forced onto all users with no warning (http://news.livejournal.com/140215.html?thread=97245367#t97245367 and http://news.livejournal.com/140215.html?thread=97146039#t97146039 and http://fail-fandomanon.livejournal.com/24177.html?thread=107626865#t107626865). And when users started complaining, with very good, valid reasons (Honestly, can you imagine managing a community like the ones that raised money for Haiti or Japan after the earthquakes functioning at ALL without subject lines? What about meme posts, spoilers, or trigger warnings?), that same user tweeted about it, said that 1% of the users actually used them, insulted the users, and said that we would "get used to it." Numerous links here: http://fire-igrick.livejournal.com/905.html?thread=14985#t14985 especially this post: http://sf-drama.livejournal.com/3311572.html
Oh, and eventually an answer in English on subject lines: "A note to users of RP, Meme and Other Communities, WHERE Subject line is Crucial for Operation: for the moment We Are Only Developing Standard Commenting Representation, well know in LiveJournal as S1 styles, BUT We Will Keep Subject lines, in terms of Both form and representation, in advanced - S2 - styles, and provide an ability to keep it forever for certain communities, as well as, by request, will develop an extra functionality for such communities thru OpensSocial applications going public next year."
In other words, 'you either have to have a paid or plus account (so you can use S2 and enable custom commenting), or you be stuck with this shit.' (Not to mention the fact that S2 customized comments go into that hell loop thing and won't load after there are a certain number, which was the whole reason for disabling them on comms in the FIRST PLACE.)
Other Release 88 changes included a graphic-only userpic selector instead of the drop-down list, terrible new eyestrain/migraine/seizure-inducing colours and letter spacing, animated expanding and collapsing of comments, the sudden disappearance of parent and child links to comments, removal of the 'preview' feature for comments, and numerous other things, many of which crippled the site's function for the visually impaired using screen readers, or people using mobile devices, etc. Not to mention anyone on a slow connection waiting for a large number of icons to load their IMAGES instead of a nice fast drop-down list! LJ assured us that they were all "improvements" to make the site faster and more responsive. They did the exact opposite. (Oh, and by the way, it's not actually the last of these "improvements" -- I can't find it now, but there were screencaps of a HIDEOUSLY ugly page of short entries with expanded versions to one side that looked more Facebookian than anything else. If I do find it, I'll add it here! Oh lord, there it is... http://tema.livejournal.com/1021672.html and then there's this http://manonon.livejournal.com/6816.html)
One of the thing that still pisses me off the most (other than the whole crippling-usability issue) is that they essentially snuck this change up on EVERYONE. It was discussed on the Russian side of things, where not only is there the language barrier but also the alphabet barrier. It was further discussed in member-locked posts on official LJ communities. Not once did the English-speaking/reading usership of the site get more of a warning than "Comment pages have been redesigned!" Users had to search and uncover all of this by themselves, and had NO say in the matter at all. A change that affects thousands of users, and it basically snuck in under cover of the glitch (sorry, local fannish reference...)!
Thousands. Literally thousands of comments saying this was a bad change, please switch it back, please fix it; many, MANY of them well-reasoned, sensible explanations of what the problems were and why they needed to be fixed. THOUSANDS of comments.
They were met by one update for a patch (88.2 - http://lj-releases.livejournal.com/72149.html) which included the "fix" for the lack of 'preview' function by suddenly allowing everyone to edit comments, not just paid users. And then the massive chirping of crickets. Crickets so large they could eat the world. For TWO MONTHS.
Now, keep in mind that at the same time, Dreamwidth had a 'free account creation' period, where invite codes were not needed. They started it on December 16th, and, well, take a look: http://g-shadowslayer.dreamwidth.org/226319.html
People turned off automatic payments, let their paid accounts expire, let their extra icon packages expire, and flocked to DW in droves. DW, in turn, welcomed us with open arms, transparent processes, and a whole hell of a lot of awesome customer service. They put their account import and community import processing into overtime, and before long had the community import process available for even non-paid comms.
LJ? Silence. Crickets chirping. Tumbleweed blowing across the dusty road...
[And re-reading all of these comments is hurting my eyes/head so much I have to stop for now. More later...]
start here - http://news.livejournal.com/140215.html?page=11#comments
start here - http://news.livejournal.com/140215.html?page=8#comments
Auto-pay issues http://lj-releases.livejournal.com/72149.html?thread=8298453#t8298453 and http://lj-releases.livejournal.com/72149.html?thread=8194261#t8194261 and http://lj-releases.livejournal.com/72149.html?thread=8212181#t8212181
That doesn't happen: http://lj-releases.livejournal.com/72149.html?thread=8300245#t8300245 and http://lj-releases.livejournal.com/72149.html?thread=8338133#t8338133
This entry was originally posted at http://g-shadowslayer.dreamwidth.org/227958.html. Please comment there using OpenID.
SO.
On December 14th, 2011, LJ posted that they were going to roll out an update to their software, Release 88. In the news post (http://news.livejournal.com/140215.html), was this seemingly innocuous statement: "Comment pages have been redesigned! More information about specific changes will be announced in the next few days."
On December 20th, 2011, LJ rolled out that update (http://lj-releases.livejournal.com/71858.html). There actually was no "more information," just the sudden changes that Release 88 unleashed upon the world.
You can read in the many, MANY comments the details about the changes - very, very few of them were for the good. And one of them, the removal of subject lines, was not only of the bad, but apparently because ONE PERSON, a member of the LJ Russian staff, didn't like them.
You see, this change was beta-tested on the Russian side of LJ (and reportedly the beta-testers had many issues with the changes but were ignored), and then forced onto all users with no warning (http://news.livejournal.com/140215.html?thread=97245367#t97245367 and http://news.livejournal.com/140215.html?thread=97146039#t97146039 and http://fail-fandomanon.livejournal.com/24177.html?thread=107626865#t107626865). And when users started complaining, with very good, valid reasons (Honestly, can you imagine managing a community like the ones that raised money for Haiti or Japan after the earthquakes functioning at ALL without subject lines? What about meme posts, spoilers, or trigger warnings?), that same user tweeted about it, said that 1% of the users actually used them, insulted the users, and said that we would "get used to it." Numerous links here: http://fire-igrick.livejournal.com/905.html?thread=14985#t14985 especially this post: http://sf-drama.livejournal.com/3311572.html
Oh, and eventually an answer in English on subject lines: "A note to users of RP, Meme and Other Communities, WHERE Subject line is Crucial for Operation: for the moment We Are Only Developing Standard Commenting Representation, well know in LiveJournal as S1 styles, BUT We Will Keep Subject lines, in terms of Both form and representation, in advanced - S2 - styles, and provide an ability to keep it forever for certain communities, as well as, by request, will develop an extra functionality for such communities thru OpensSocial applications going public next year."
In other words, 'you either have to have a paid or plus account (so you can use S2 and enable custom commenting), or you be stuck with this shit.' (Not to mention the fact that S2 customized comments go into that hell loop thing and won't load after there are a certain number, which was the whole reason for disabling them on comms in the FIRST PLACE.)
Other Release 88 changes included a graphic-only userpic selector instead of the drop-down list, terrible new eyestrain/migraine/seizure-inducing colours and letter spacing, animated expanding and collapsing of comments, the sudden disappearance of parent and child links to comments, removal of the 'preview' feature for comments, and numerous other things, many of which crippled the site's function for the visually impaired using screen readers, or people using mobile devices, etc. Not to mention anyone on a slow connection waiting for a large number of icons to load their IMAGES instead of a nice fast drop-down list! LJ assured us that they were all "improvements" to make the site faster and more responsive. They did the exact opposite. (Oh, and by the way, it's not actually the last of these "improvements" -- I can't find it now, but there were screencaps of a HIDEOUSLY ugly page of short entries with expanded versions to one side that looked more Facebookian than anything else. If I do find it, I'll add it here! Oh lord, there it is... http://tema.livejournal.com/1021672.html and then there's this http://manonon.livejournal.com/6816.html)
One of the thing that still pisses me off the most (other than the whole crippling-usability issue) is that they essentially snuck this change up on EVERYONE. It was discussed on the Russian side of things, where not only is there the language barrier but also the alphabet barrier. It was further discussed in member-locked posts on official LJ communities. Not once did the English-speaking/reading usership of the site get more of a warning than "Comment pages have been redesigned!" Users had to search and uncover all of this by themselves, and had NO say in the matter at all. A change that affects thousands of users, and it basically snuck in under cover of the glitch (sorry, local fannish reference...)!
Thousands. Literally thousands of comments saying this was a bad change, please switch it back, please fix it; many, MANY of them well-reasoned, sensible explanations of what the problems were and why they needed to be fixed. THOUSANDS of comments.
They were met by one update for a patch (88.2 - http://lj-releases.livejournal.com/72149.html) which included the "fix" for the lack of 'preview' function by suddenly allowing everyone to edit comments, not just paid users. And then the massive chirping of crickets. Crickets so large they could eat the world. For TWO MONTHS.
Now, keep in mind that at the same time, Dreamwidth had a 'free account creation' period, where invite codes were not needed. They started it on December 16th, and, well, take a look: http://g-shadowslayer.dreamwidth.org/226319.html
People turned off automatic payments, let their paid accounts expire, let their extra icon packages expire, and flocked to DW in droves. DW, in turn, welcomed us with open arms, transparent processes, and a whole hell of a lot of awesome customer service. They put their account import and community import processing into overtime, and before long had the community import process available for even non-paid comms.
LJ? Silence. Crickets chirping. Tumbleweed blowing across the dusty road...
[And re-reading all of these comments is hurting my eyes/head so much I have to stop for now. More later...]
start here - http://news.livejournal.com/140215.html?page=11#comments
start here - http://news.livejournal.com/140215.html?page=8#comments
Auto-pay issues http://lj-releases.livejournal.com/72149.html?thread=8298453#t8298453 and http://lj-releases.livejournal.com/72149.html?thread=8194261#t8194261 and http://lj-releases.livejournal.com/72149.html?thread=8212181#t8212181
That doesn't happen: http://lj-releases.livejournal.com/72149.html?thread=8300245#t8300245 and http://lj-releases.livejournal.com/72149.html?thread=8338133#t8338133
This entry was originally posted at http://g-shadowslayer.dreamwidth.org/227958.html. Please comment there using OpenID.