Is this some kind of scheme to try to hide the fact that there are free accounts (because if you're totally new and have no idea where to go to get your account type changed) you'll just learn to live with it? Or is there a more rational, less coercion theory at work?
^^; Sorry, I didn't mean it like that. What I really meant to ask was this: is there anyway that I can possibly see this as being good, rather than coercive in nature (as I'm currently seeing it)? I'm trying hard to think of a reason why this is the default (other than LJ wants to force people to go into sponsored+ mode by playing on ignorance), but I hope that I'm wrong. I want to believe that there's another reason why this could be, but I can't find one. As such, I was hoping that someone would be able to point me in that direction. Would you, as an individual, have any ideas on how I could possibly view this in a more benign fashion than I'm currently seeing it? If not, it's ok. I'll just have to hunt about for more.
PS. I'm really sorry about the paragraphing. I know it's awfully chunky, but I can't see a place to split up the paragraph. I'm really sorry about that.
No kidding. There's enough for a person new to LJ to learn without trying to figure out why their layout is so adfugly upon singing up.
What do you wanna bet there will be people who sign up, look at their journal with the still problematic ad-layout issues, and head on over to Blogger, which won't slap ads on without giving you a cut?
I don't know about others, but if I saw something like this (as I was signing up), my reaction would be as such (in the following order):
1. put up a post on my journal requesting for help (which will totally unhelpful unless I get a lot of site traffic as soon as I sign up)
2. Attempt to read the FAQ (and give up)
3. Make one last attempt to meddle with it.
4. If all fails, I'll just find another site. After all, if I was promised a free ad-free account but saw an ad on my first posting, it's hardly breeds trust.
Actually, with ads on journals (that I come across), odds are that I won't even bother signing up for it anyway (since I know that there are alternatives that don't have ads on the journals to mess up layouts).
Ideally, you'd be signing up because you already had friends, and they could help you get the ads off. Also, since these people are new to the site; they probably never got promised a free ad-free account as such, unless they were reading old posts where the people were going "Yeah, and no ads!"
I do think Blogger makes a stronger case for itself now that LJ has advertising, because their default blogs don't have ads. Ads is an option you turn on, and you can also earn revenue from it, whereas you can't from LJ ads.
Mm, I guess in an ideal case people will sign up only because they know of friends--but my personal experience has been that there's a lot of people who don't have friends from the start--and they get to know people through LJ--so I think those will be the ones with problems. I would class myself under that group (since basically I started a livejournal on the spur of the moment, when people I kind of knew but didn't really know made their livejournals their homepages). That's why I categorised my reaction as such.
they probably never got promised a free ad-free account as such
Eh? But that doesn't look like what the FAQ says about accounts in the account types explanation, and the feature comparison chart says that they're free accounts, but are ad-free--and the bit that addresses who sees ads also suggest that there exists a level called "Free" accounts, which are to be free and see ads only on sponsored+ pages. If so, and you signed up for a free account (well, I've not done any account opening recently, so I really don't know
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I'm going to assume that if someone's reading the FAQs, they'll be able to figure out about the ads and Sponsored+ level, which have explanatory FAQs linked to on FAQs you linked to. So those people won't really have to be worried about as much as people who don't know how to read FAQs. (And the support folk know that's a lot of people!)
I think GJ is definitely at a stronger place now, since they're advertising isn't nearly as intrusive as what's currently going on, and the user can choose to disable most of it if they wish. However, it remains to be seen whether GJ has long term viability under it's current model or how many additional "refugees" it can take from LJ before it starts showing strain.
How many LJ spinoffs do you know about? I think we might want to start compiling a big huge list/guide to them as part of our migration tutorials.
We should also make a list of advertising free websites that accept donations, like Wikipedia and iBiblio. Since a lot of paid users of our frame of mind paid for LJ to try and help fund it since it was ad free and some have mentioned not paying for LJ now that it's taken this stance, we should provide alternative places for those people to help out.
I'm going to assume that if someone's reading the FAQs, they'll be able to figure out about the ads and Sponsored+ level,That might be a fair assumption to make (indeed it's one that I frequently make myself). But sometimes I'm a little hesitant about making such an assumption because I myself have been known to read some FAQ and not some. For instance, when I signed up, the first thing that I did was to read about the account types (since I came over from the deadjournal link--which said that you had to pay or get an invite code). So of course the first thing I wanted to check was if there was any such thing. And then if I was aiming for a free account (as I was when I joined), I would only read stuff associated with free accounts--to which non of the things on ad-disabling are linked
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PS. I'm really sorry about the paragraphing. I know it's awfully chunky, but I can't see a place to split up the paragraph. I'm really sorry about that.
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What do you wanna bet there will be people who sign up, look at their journal with the still problematic ad-layout issues, and head on over to Blogger, which won't slap ads on without giving you a cut?
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1. put up a post on my journal requesting for help (which will totally unhelpful unless I get a lot of site traffic as soon as I sign up)
2. Attempt to read the FAQ (and give up)
3. Make one last attempt to meddle with it.
4. If all fails, I'll just find another site. After all, if I was promised a free ad-free account but saw an ad on my first posting, it's hardly breeds trust.
Actually, with ads on journals (that I come across), odds are that I won't even bother signing up for it anyway (since I know that there are alternatives that don't have ads on the journals to mess up layouts).
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I do think Blogger makes a stronger case for itself now that LJ has advertising, because their default blogs don't have ads. Ads is an option you turn on, and you can also earn revenue from it, whereas you can't from LJ ads.
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they probably never got promised a free ad-free account as such
Eh? But that doesn't look like what the FAQ says about accounts in the account types explanation, and the feature comparison chart says that they're free accounts, but are ad-free--and the bit that addresses who sees ads also suggest that there exists a level called "Free" accounts, which are to be free and see ads only on sponsored+ pages. If so, and you signed up for a free account (well, I've not done any account opening recently, so I really don't know ( ... )
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I think GJ is definitely at a stronger place now, since they're advertising isn't nearly as intrusive as what's currently going on, and the user can choose to disable most of it if they wish. However, it remains to be seen whether GJ has long term viability under it's current model or how many additional "refugees" it can take from LJ before it starts showing strain.
How many LJ spinoffs do you know about? I think we might want to start compiling a big huge list/guide to them as part of our migration tutorials.
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best thing to search for is something like having "create new journal" or "public layers" in the title of the document. that should snag a lot of 'em
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