Spam, Help Japan, Header design contest
Last week, we ramped up our spam-fighting efforts with several new tactics. As a result, we suspended more than a quarter of a million spam journals! Unfortunately, a number of legitimate accounts were inadvertently suspended in the process -- around 1% or so of those suspended. While this represents a very small percentage, we'd like to reduce that number to as close to zero as possible. We've therefore adjusted our search criteria, so the next round of suspensions should catch far fewer legitimate journals.
We're still working on the issue that's causing some notifications to get caught in spam filters. We've made considerable progress, but AOL still has a significant number of backed-up notifications. They're stored and will be delivered as soon as we can resolve the underlying issue. We thank you for your continued support as we combat spam and restore notifications on LiveJournal.
Frank's weekly giveaway
When we last tuned in, the alien ship was about to take off, with Frank on board! Meme took a flying leap and found herself in a kaleidoscope of flashing colored lights. The alien passed her a bottle. She swigged it down and transformed into an orange beam. "Where are we going?!" She bleeped at the alien. "Actually, I'm feeling kind of peckish," said the alien. "Do you mind if we stop by my mom's for a snack?" Meme is now panicked about what aliens eat (after all, it could be vaporized goat). Tell Meme whether she should sample the mystery meat or politely decline (a festive userpic is invited), and Frank'll send you a heap of avocados (up through the first 10 pages of comments).
Help Japan
Wow! Last week, we put up a vgift and two userheads to support relief efforts in Japan. We are thrilled to announce that we've already raised over $9,200, which will be donated to Doctors without Borders. Just a reminder that LiveJournal donates 100% of all money raised from the sale of charitable vgifts to designated charities (we cover all processing fees). We thank you for helping us make a positive difference!
Header design contest
It's that time of the month again! After painstaking review, we narrowed the headers down to 15 finalists. We invite you to vote for the design you'd like to see on the top of LiveJournal during the month of April. We'll begin accepting entries for the next header design contest next week. All submissions that come in after the deadline will be automatically entered into the next contest. We thank you, again, for making LiveJournal your canvas!
Did you know ...?
If you're looking for a quick way to post, message, send vgifts, and more, the Hover Menu is just the ticket. This menu appears whenever you mouse over a userpic or one of the following account icons: , , .
Here are some of the handy tricks you can do with your Hover Menu:
- Find out if/how you're connected to a user or community (e.g., see if someone's on your Friends list, if you're a member of a community, etc. If you're not connected, it will simply display the username.)
- See a journal's userpics
- Add or edit a Note for that journal
- Send a private message
- Add or remove the user from your Friends list
- Send the user a vgift
- Ban a user from commenting in your journal
- Report a suspected bot account
- Join, leave, watch, or stop watching a community
For more information on how to activate and use the Hover Menu, check out this FAQ.
For more fun with photos, Frank and Meme, and LJ_Scribe, we'll catch you under the cut!
Photo of the week
Congrats to cecelle, who won our 59th LJ_photophile contest! Click here to help choose the next photo of the week. FYI: We pick entries for the poll based on a combination of comments, +1 ratings, and staff input. The winner receives 500 LJ tokens. We thank you for sharing your talent with the global LiveJournal community.
Welcome back, dear scribes
Congratulations to jim_lonsdale, leni_ba, the_dust_bunny, and spiffynamehere, who won our LJ_Scribe contest! After aching deliberation, we've selected ten finalists for your review. In addition to the joy of sharing your well-turned phrases, the authors with the most votes will each win 1,000 LJ Tokens. Finalists will receive 500 LJ Tokens (a limit of one award per user). For our seventh contest, we ask you to respond in the form of a haiku, limerick, or an obituary (up to 100 words, excluding the prompt) to the following: "Around the back of the abandoned farmhouse, there stood an old red shed with a shiny new padlock." You do not need to include the prompt in your writing. Be sure to post your submissions as entries, rather than comments, to lj_scribe up through Monday, March 28th, at 4PM, PDT. You'll find the +1 rating link under each post, so remember to check back and vote for your favorites!
Frank and Meme's excellent adventure
Congratulations to spiffynamehere, whose chapter-- Lions and Tigers and Bears, Oh My!--was voted the next official chapter in the Frank and Meme saga! You can now start posting entries for the next contest to frankandmeme. Remember, the winner will be awarded 1,000 LJ Tokens. All other writers 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!