More ads on the front page biz.

[foxfirefey]

Not many people noticed the ads on news on the post around when they were introduced, but a quite a few have been noticing the new front page ads on the latest news post.

brad posts about being against ads on the front page, as well. But, as we all know, there are some issues you just can't win.

Comments

[ex_uniquewo]

If I decide not to renew my account (and I've just switched from undecided to 65% against renewing), I think I'll realize this had been the clincher. It doesn't affect me at all but, to me, LJ has now become one of those sites with ads and I don't wanna support it. I've just gotta fight against layout addiction. :)

[matgb]

I've just gotta fight against layout addiction.

Trust me on this one, Wordpress layout theming is just as addictive, and given WP's popularity, is a hobby you could actually make money at. I'm very sold on switching everything to Wordpress now, and now I'm online at my new place I can start catching up on stuff...

(theme Sandbox is my current favourite, it's like Expressive, but more flexible)

[ex_uniquewo]

The problem is that my lj is closely related to fandom - that's why I created it really - so unless 80% of my flist moves elsewhere, I'm stuck here.

[turlough]

I'm in the same situation. I created my journal because of fandom and fandom is the (almost) sole reason I use it, so moving somewhere else isn't an option for me. The more so since my fandom is one of those that's been concentrated to LJ since the beginning and have almost zero presence anywhere else (no central archive(s) at all, for example).

I might also add that so far I haven't noticed any lessening in activity in my flist. On the contrary, the fandom is actually on an upswing for the first time in several years.

[ex_uniquewo]

"I might also add that so far I haven't noticed any lessening in activity in my flist."

Same thing in my corner of the fandomverse. I don't think fandom will be moving anytime soon. And a good part of us are still paid (not to say perm) users and impressive gift givers. That being said, I've noticed an increasing amount of grouchy comments when it came to LJ. If something was good enough to justify switching to a new host I think people would seriously consider it. I wouldn't have said that a couple of years ago.

[matgb]

So if we can get lj2wordpress to offer all the functionality of LJ, with the greater flexibility of Wp, and full integration with other services (like LJ and clones), you'd consider it?

There's no reason why you can't do most stuff off site on your own server, and still have it on LJ and comment on those that remain. Hopefully, we can get it to work seamlessly, and with so many advantages.

Hopefully. I need to keep catching up with stuff and see where we're at though.

[ex_uniquewo]

"There's no reason why you can't do most stuff off site on your own server, and still have it on LJ and comment on those that remain. Hopefully, we can get it to work seamlessly, and with so many advantages."

No, that won't do (if I understood what you said correctly). What is interesting is being part of communities and it means being in the same place as everybody else. That's what fandom is fundamentally about. If we can have that somewhere else then we'd consider moving.

[matgb]

Communities no problem at all. In fact, people''l be able to log in at the community site with their LJ id, post and comment without an issue, and (hopefully) use all their userpics. So those that leave can leave, and those that don't jump immediately can test the waters first.

Your site can have as many journals on it as you wish, and alternately we can help with set up, etc.

Communities with their own domains will, I hope, be better medium to long term anyway, and they should fully integrate both ways.

(call this market research; attracting fandom generally to the idea of switching will be one of my big projects when we're ready, so asking this sort of thing and figuring out what you want, why and how it can be done better elsewhere is all part of the same thing)

[ex_uniquewo]

"people'll be able to log in at the community site with their LJ id"

Do you have to log in every time? Or is it just LJ users or what?

Who owns the comm? How is it managed? And the most important point: can it be free? (I doubt that)

Figuring out what we want is easy. We want what we have here: community and friends posts on your friends page, easy commenting, easy posting, memories and tags, privacy. There's a reason why we love LJ: it makes everything simple and easy and immediately accessible. (well, most of the time ;-))

[matgb]

Do you have to log in every time? Or is it just LJ users or what?

You can choose whether to be remembered, same as for LJ, but generally I've stayed logged in from day to day on sites I already log in using OpenID.

Who owns the comm?
Depends on how it's hosted, but if self hosted, the initial creator.

How is it managed?
Admin panel, there's a role manager system that means the principle admin (creator of comm) can set priviledges to others, and what each person can/can't do will be more flexible than LJ currently allows.

And the most important point: can it be free? (I doubt that)

I think there's a way it can be, for basic level stuff, yes; need to discuss the idea with foxfirefey first to see if it's even viable, but yes, I think it can be. Obviously, paid versions would be better.

But the ideal is it's hosted on it's own domain, so someone would have to pay, but given the amount of money fandom throws at at LJ already, the costs of self hosting are minimal these days.

Figuring out what we want is easy. We want what we have here:

[foxfirefey]

On the contrary, the fandom is actually on an upswing for the first time in several years..

Interesting! So is that just your particular fandom or fandom as a whole? (Curious is me!)

[turlough]

Well, I'm pretty monofandomish so I don't know from personal experience what's going on in other fandoms, but from the impressions I get from multifandomish people on my flist and from following metafandom I would say that taken as a whole fandom on LJ is much the same today as it was a year or two ago, neither larger nor smaller. What has happened of course is that some individual fandoms have flourished enormously - SGA and Supernatural are the two behemots but Doctor Who has been growing a lot over the last year and so has the spinoff Torchwood - and that others have waned - Buffy, Harry Potter a little, and others I probably don't know about

[blktauna]

The thing that I interject is that some people in fandom are so invested in Lj that any grumbling or complaint about how there isn't the privacy you think there is, or that posting your fiction in public communities makes it serchable by TPTB that are now _on_ LJ, or that TPTB do not in any way think your fanfic comm is free advertising... get you shouted at.

I don't like having my fannish stuff in the hands of some Corp who I do not trust to serve my privacy needs or to turn me over to TPTB when they demand it. I stopped posting screen caps here when I found out LJ sends feeds out containing my posts. I found my pictures in placed I didn't want, and my posts on aggregators. I don't want that so I had to friendslock everything since there's no way to stop them. I don't even trust that friendslocking works completely.

Modern fans are bizarrely innocent about this stuff and think the lawyers are happy to see them do music vids and fic and icons...

I hope fandom wakes up soon before anything bad goes on.