Games, Header design contest, Tags, Community management, Comment screening
We want to thank you, again, for joining together to support flood relief efforts in Australia and Brazil. Our charitable vgifts have already raised over $1,250! Frank is celebrating February babies this week. If you were born this month, tell him your birthday wish (a coordinating userpic is always welcome), and he'll send you Valentines surprise vgift, which will open on February 14th (up through the first 10 pages of comments).
We've got games!
We're pleased to announce the beta-launch of social games on LiveJournal. In partnership with i-Jet Media, an international game studio, we've released four new games--Farm Frenzy, Crazy Cars, Hospital, and City Gangs--with additional titles to be added. You can check out our games on the homepage or at the Games Center. For more information, check out this FAQ.
Community owners
In order to improve community management, LiveJournal is introducing the role of 'owner' for communities. The owner of a community is the only maintainer who will have the authority to remove other maintainers, rename the community, or delete the community. Over the next few days, community owners will be determined. In most cases, the user who created the community will be the community owner. For communities created after today, the user who creates the community will automatically be the owner of the community. For communities created prior to today, the community owner will be determined as follows:
- For communities with a single maintainer, that maintainer will be automatically selected as the owner.
- If the community has multiple maintainers, the user who created the community will be made the owner, assuming the user is still a maintainer and has been active on LiveJournal within the last three months.
- If the community has multiple maintainers and the user who created the community is no longer a maintainer, then the current maintainer who has been a maintainer the longest will be the owner (if that can be determined and the user has been active on LiveJournal in the last three months).
- If the system is unable to determine who has been a maintainer the longest, an election poll will be created. The current maintainers will be emailed a poll link so they can choose the community owner. Only the maintainers who have been active on LiveJournal within the last three months will be eligible to be made owner. Once all maintainers have voted in the poll, the maintainer with the most votes will be made the owner. If three weeks pass and not all maintainers have voted, the maintainer with the most votes at that time will be made the owner. If there's a tie at the end of three weeks, the poll will remain open until one maintainer has a majority.
Please note that the ability to add and remove community maintainers was disabled yesterday in preparation for this new management role. For all communities, once an owner is determined automatically or selected through a poll, the maintainer list will be unlocked again. For more information, please read this FAQ.
Important stuff to know
- We increased the maximum number of tags for Paid and Permanent communities and journals to 4,000 tags.
- In order to help you manage your communities more efficiently, community moderators now have the ability to accept and reject members, freeze or screen comments, and add tags.
- To help combat spam on LiveJournal, newly-created journals will now screen comments with links from non-friends by default. You can modify your settings on the Privacy page in your Account Settings.
- We've implemented this month's winning header design. Congratulations, again, to spikaleido!
Header design contest
Congratulations to scatteredintime who won our monthly header design contest with this awesome design. We look forward to seeing this header on the top of LiveJournal in March! We'll accept entries for next month's contest up through Monday, February 21st, at 4PM, PDT. The winning submission will grace LiveJournal throughout the month of April. The winner will be awarded 2,500 LJ Tokens. Finalists will receive 1,000 LJ Tokens. All other participants will get 500 LJ Tokens (limit of one award per user). FYI: All entries that came in after the deadline will be entered into the next contest. You can learn more about the header design contest guidelines here. We thank you, again, for making LiveJournal your canvas!
Photos of the week
Congrats to lostcitadel, who won our 53rd LJ_photophile poll! Click here to help choose the next photo of the week. Another round of praise for hepkitten, who won our themed contest on the subject of Internet with this photo and selected our next themed contest on the subject of Graffiti. FYI: We pick entries for the polls based on a combination of comments, +1 ratings, and staff input. Winners of both polls receive 500 LJ tokens. We thank you for sharing your talent with the global LiveJournal community.
Frank and Meme's Excellent Adventure
Congratulations to bethan_b_bad, whose entry-- If Indiana Can Do It...--was voted the next official chapter in the Frank and Meme saga! We'll start accepting submissions for the next fanfic contest at frankandmeme. The winning author will receive 1,000 LJ Tokens. All other contributors will receive 500 LJ Tokens. On behalf of our quarreling darlings, we thank you for keeping the drama alive!
Thanks, again, for joining us. We'll see you next week!