LJ Feedback Regarding Proposed Release 88
I may be making the permanent paid move of this account to DW shortly. (I've bought time for other accounts here before, but for reasons listed below, have retained LJ as the main space for this account. Do you think if enough of us show up with cash, Denise will be able to upgrade the servers and maybe finally fix the span/cut tag bug I've sent eleventy-billion bug reports on? I still don't want to lose my comments over there or have to change all of my internal links manually, but it's looking pretty grim.) Anyone who needs a DW invite code, I have a few. Anyone else who just doesn't feel like going through the pain in the tuckus of moving their internal links, I suggest you start sending individual feedback or just make your feelings known on the latest LJ news post.
To whom it may concern,
I am a paying user. All of my stuff is here. I don't want to move it to a new service-- it would be an incredible headache. I am going to try very hard to be civil and courteous and use capslock only when necessary.
If the proposed Comment System changes go into effect, I DON'T HAVE ANY CHOICE. I WILL HAVE TO STOP USING THIS SITE. IT WILL NO LONGER PROVIDE THE SERVICES I NEED. THIS IS A STATEMENT OF FACT.
But that's actually kind of secondary to my main issue. Here's the thing:
I'm a native English speaker
Puedo leer en español.
Ich kann Deutsch lesen.
أنا أتكلم وأقرأ باللغة العربية
אני קוראת גם עברית
That's five languages and three alphabets which I can read and understand. Among the languages I can't read? Russian. I can't read the Greek or Cyrillic alphabets - so I can't even make intelligent guesses about word meanings.
I understand that Livejournal is currently a Russian enterprise, but its original founder and much of its userbase remain English-speakers -- and many of them are ONLY English speakers.
So why is it that the details of a proposed major site overhaul were released exclusively to the general public in Russian and Russian only? (igrick.livejournal.com/528687.html)
I even tried running that post through google translate, Russian to English. It's incomprehensible. (http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=auto&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Figrick.livejournal.com%2F528687.html)
I had to search out a Russian speaker to give me an idiomatic translation before I realized that the post proposed changing the comment system to eliminate subject headings on comment threads (something which several of the communities I belong to REQUIRE all commenters to use) because I had no clue what "have no more comments field "issues", and claims at this time are not accepted;" was supposed to mean.
It appears that your main site designer igrick is a native Russian speaker. That's fine. He's an engineer - I don't expect them to know how to communicate in their native language, much less a second one - but at least one of your marketing people should have put out ANY form of prior notice in English (or Spanish or German or Arabic or Hebrew, or-- I dunno, SANSKRIT - ANY OTHER LANGUAGE) would have been appreciated before the mysterious line "Comment pages have been redesigned! More information about specific changes will be announced in the next few days." was announced FIVE DAYS prior to the implementation.
Prior notice certainly would have saved igrick a lot of time coding and programming an entirely new commenting system that a large and vocal portion of your customers DO NOT WANT. And when I say "DO NOT WANT" I mean: the proposed new system which will FORCE many of us to migrate to other services. It will no longer be possible to use LJ to hold the discussions, competitions, and games that many users play here - the way we've done so for nearly a decade. It's not just "DO NOT WANT," it's "If you make this change, I no longer have any use for your services and will cease paying to access them." If we'd known his intentions earlier, pehaps igrick could have used his time fixing glitches that users had actually complained about?
Furthermore, you should peruse the comments on igrick's aforementioned post. I have no idea what the Russian commenters are saying, but around page five or so, English language replies begin to appear (I suspect as user translations started to trickle down). Mr. Igrick's responses vary from unprofessional to downright condescending and snide. In particular, this thread (http://igrick.livejournal.com/528687.html?page=6&view=7804975#comments) reveals him to be... less than optimal at dealing with the general public, much less the angry mob that is rapidly forming.
And if you have any doubts about whether I (and others who use this site for similar purposes) will walk out on this place, please look into the very recent past and what happened when delicious.com drastically altered its interface and usage system and the amount of web traffic and paying accounts which it lost permanently as a result.
tl;dr: Implement the new comment system and you will lose thousands of paying customers who don't really want to go, but have no other choice. Including me. Please take this under advisement and consider pushing Release 88 (or simply the comment system change) back until your designers and marketers understand the full impact of what they propose.
Good luck sorting out this fine mess you've made,
MM
This entry was originally posted at http://moragmacpherson.dreamwidth.org/73958.html because DW is where I set up crossposting first and I'm lazy. Feel free to comment wherever you prefer. This post has
comments on DW.
To whom it may concern,
I am a paying user. All of my stuff is here. I don't want to move it to a new service-- it would be an incredible headache. I am going to try very hard to be civil and courteous and use capslock only when necessary.
If the proposed Comment System changes go into effect, I DON'T HAVE ANY CHOICE. I WILL HAVE TO STOP USING THIS SITE. IT WILL NO LONGER PROVIDE THE SERVICES I NEED. THIS IS A STATEMENT OF FACT.
But that's actually kind of secondary to my main issue. Here's the thing:
I'm a native English speaker
Puedo leer en español.
Ich kann Deutsch lesen.
أنا أتكلم وأقرأ باللغة العربية
אני קוראת גם עברית
That's five languages and three alphabets which I can read and understand. Among the languages I can't read? Russian. I can't read the Greek or Cyrillic alphabets - so I can't even make intelligent guesses about word meanings.
I understand that Livejournal is currently a Russian enterprise, but its original founder and much of its userbase remain English-speakers -- and many of them are ONLY English speakers.
So why is it that the details of a proposed major site overhaul were released exclusively to the general public in Russian and Russian only? (igrick.livejournal.com/528687.html)
I even tried running that post through google translate, Russian to English. It's incomprehensible. (http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=auto&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Figrick.livejournal.com%2F528687.html)
I had to search out a Russian speaker to give me an idiomatic translation before I realized that the post proposed changing the comment system to eliminate subject headings on comment threads (something which several of the communities I belong to REQUIRE all commenters to use) because I had no clue what "have no more comments field "issues", and claims at this time are not accepted;" was supposed to mean.
It appears that your main site designer igrick is a native Russian speaker. That's fine. He's an engineer - I don't expect them to know how to communicate in their native language, much less a second one - but at least one of your marketing people should have put out ANY form of prior notice in English (or Spanish or German or Arabic or Hebrew, or-- I dunno, SANSKRIT - ANY OTHER LANGUAGE) would have been appreciated before the mysterious line "Comment pages have been redesigned! More information about specific changes will be announced in the next few days." was announced FIVE DAYS prior to the implementation.
Prior notice certainly would have saved igrick a lot of time coding and programming an entirely new commenting system that a large and vocal portion of your customers DO NOT WANT. And when I say "DO NOT WANT" I mean: the proposed new system which will FORCE many of us to migrate to other services. It will no longer be possible to use LJ to hold the discussions, competitions, and games that many users play here - the way we've done so for nearly a decade. It's not just "DO NOT WANT," it's "If you make this change, I no longer have any use for your services and will cease paying to access them." If we'd known his intentions earlier, pehaps igrick could have used his time fixing glitches that users had actually complained about?
Furthermore, you should peruse the comments on igrick's aforementioned post. I have no idea what the Russian commenters are saying, but around page five or so, English language replies begin to appear (I suspect as user translations started to trickle down). Mr. Igrick's responses vary from unprofessional to downright condescending and snide. In particular, this thread (http://igrick.livejournal.com/528687.html?page=6&view=7804975#comments) reveals him to be... less than optimal at dealing with the general public, much less the angry mob that is rapidly forming.
And if you have any doubts about whether I (and others who use this site for similar purposes) will walk out on this place, please look into the very recent past and what happened when delicious.com drastically altered its interface and usage system and the amount of web traffic and paying accounts which it lost permanently as a result.
tl;dr: Implement the new comment system and you will lose thousands of paying customers who don't really want to go, but have no other choice. Including me. Please take this under advisement and consider pushing Release 88 (or simply the comment system change) back until your designers and marketers understand the full impact of what they propose.
Good luck sorting out this fine mess you've made,
MM
This entry was originally posted at http://moragmacpherson.dreamwidth.org/73958.html because DW is where I set up crossposting first and I'm lazy. Feel free to comment wherever you prefer. This post has
comments on DW.