Post begun 4 minutes after content strike ends; yes, I am an addict
I am starting to get annoyed by the assumption that I'm seeing people make about my participation in the content strike. In all fairness to them, they don't know my life of the last month, so let me explain.
I am barely home. When I am home, I often volunteer or have writing group meetings or appointments. I am gone on the weekends. When I do have a free weekday night, I merely have time to decompress, do the dishes and some cleaning, laundry, and whatever other necessary humdrums of life I have been neglecting.
Through all of this, I have been fairly good at keeping up with LJ. I have been able to, periodically, catch up on my friendslist and make what comments I can, and post myself every few days about something or other. But my level of attention and the time I have to dig deeper into whatever issues I see are both quite non-existent at the moment.
Regarding the latest LJ hoopla, I haven't paid much attention. I still get the news updates in my inbox, I click on the notices, glance over the post and the first few comments, comment quickly if I feel the urge, and then I kill the page. All in maybe 10 minutes or so. Gone are the days when I would spend a week straight posting macros and indignant (but reasoned, well-thought-out) comments to show (then) 6A my discontent. Right now I feel very much like someone standing on the sidelines of whatever is going on (but supporting, obviously), which is actually kind of nice. Not being part of the angry crowd this time, I can better see both sides, and take a "there are worse things going on in the world" approach; not that legitimate concerns about the way LJ is run are trivial, but I have a very good sense of perspective due to my lack of time and attention as of late. It sucks that the new LJ company got rid of (ad-)free accounts, and I think the decision is a mistake (as Brad and many others have pointed out), but I am more concerned with the way they tried to hide this decision than the decision itself. To be honest, I haven't had much time to reflect on the decision so I haven't quite formulated a position on the matter, but my inclination is to say that - when it comes right down to it - I don't really care. It will affect my efforts to get friends to sign up (that is no longer an option) and I still think it's a mistake, but oh well. They have every right to make that decision, but next time I hope they are more forthright about it. They did offer a nice apology a couple of days ago, so hopefully that bodes well. I was really impressed with the efforts SUP made when they first bought LJ, so hopefully that crazy Russian interview everyone has been citing is (not only a bad translation but) a reflection of cultural difference, and thus the apology might be more reflective of how they actually intend to treat the LJ public.
When I saw notice of the strike, I simply thought "Hey cool! If we succeed in a substantial slowdown of LJ activity, then we at least have the numbers to back up our assertions that a small minority of LJers create the content on LJ" (i.e. SUP and whatever future owners would hopefully learn that they really should try to keep us happy, or at least to deal with us in a forthright manner so the majority of the thinking LJ public will see where they're coming from). I saw this strike as part of the ongoing effort to "make LJ listen" (whoever the owners may be) that is all a part of the LJ-activism of the last few years: Breastfeedgate, Strikethough, Boldthrough, etc. Maybe it's my history background that makes me see this as One Big Issue that is ongoing and that we must continue to address in whatever way we can. I don't see it as This Issue and That Issue, which leads to the "This Strike Is About ONE ISSUE" mentality.
Finally, I must say it REALLY pisses me off when people criticize this strike by saying that trying to overload LJ's servers would have been a better way to protest. Um... Haven't we already tried that? Like, many times? So, are you saying that was a great idea and it worked and we should just keep doing that? If so, fair enough. But it strikes me that people are being negative for the sake of being negative, because I'm pretty sure if strikers WERE trying to overload LJ's servers, these people would still be complaining how THAT was a bad idea, and maybe even saying "Hey, what about a one-day strike? Wouldn't that be a better idea??"
I dunno. When it comes to these issues (people who are trying to make their voices heard to LJ vs. people who think it doesn't matter/won't work anyway/is stupid) I'm starting to think there's no room for dialogue between these factions of LJ. It's like we've picked a corner and now we're sticking to it. No civilized dialogue allowed. I think that's incredibly sad. If we can't even talk to each other, how on earth are we going to communicate with (ever-revolving) LJ owners? If we ever do get Evil Overlords (tm), they're going to be quite happy that we already have the "divide and conquer" strategy down pat ourselves.
I am barely home. When I am home, I often volunteer or have writing group meetings or appointments. I am gone on the weekends. When I do have a free weekday night, I merely have time to decompress, do the dishes and some cleaning, laundry, and whatever other necessary humdrums of life I have been neglecting.
Through all of this, I have been fairly good at keeping up with LJ. I have been able to, periodically, catch up on my friendslist and make what comments I can, and post myself every few days about something or other. But my level of attention and the time I have to dig deeper into whatever issues I see are both quite non-existent at the moment.
Regarding the latest LJ hoopla, I haven't paid much attention. I still get the news updates in my inbox, I click on the notices, glance over the post and the first few comments, comment quickly if I feel the urge, and then I kill the page. All in maybe 10 minutes or so. Gone are the days when I would spend a week straight posting macros and indignant (but reasoned, well-thought-out) comments to show (then) 6A my discontent. Right now I feel very much like someone standing on the sidelines of whatever is going on (but supporting, obviously), which is actually kind of nice. Not being part of the angry crowd this time, I can better see both sides, and take a "there are worse things going on in the world" approach; not that legitimate concerns about the way LJ is run are trivial, but I have a very good sense of perspective due to my lack of time and attention as of late. It sucks that the new LJ company got rid of (ad-)free accounts, and I think the decision is a mistake (as Brad and many others have pointed out), but I am more concerned with the way they tried to hide this decision than the decision itself. To be honest, I haven't had much time to reflect on the decision so I haven't quite formulated a position on the matter, but my inclination is to say that - when it comes right down to it - I don't really care. It will affect my efforts to get friends to sign up (that is no longer an option) and I still think it's a mistake, but oh well. They have every right to make that decision, but next time I hope they are more forthright about it. They did offer a nice apology a couple of days ago, so hopefully that bodes well. I was really impressed with the efforts SUP made when they first bought LJ, so hopefully that crazy Russian interview everyone has been citing is (not only a bad translation but) a reflection of cultural difference, and thus the apology might be more reflective of how they actually intend to treat the LJ public.
When I saw notice of the strike, I simply thought "Hey cool! If we succeed in a substantial slowdown of LJ activity, then we at least have the numbers to back up our assertions that a small minority of LJers create the content on LJ" (i.e. SUP and whatever future owners would hopefully learn that they really should try to keep us happy, or at least to deal with us in a forthright manner so the majority of the thinking LJ public will see where they're coming from). I saw this strike as part of the ongoing effort to "make LJ listen" (whoever the owners may be) that is all a part of the LJ-activism of the last few years: Breastfeedgate, Strikethough, Boldthrough, etc. Maybe it's my history background that makes me see this as One Big Issue that is ongoing and that we must continue to address in whatever way we can. I don't see it as This Issue and That Issue, which leads to the "This Strike Is About ONE ISSUE" mentality.
Finally, I must say it REALLY pisses me off when people criticize this strike by saying that trying to overload LJ's servers would have been a better way to protest. Um... Haven't we already tried that? Like, many times? So, are you saying that was a great idea and it worked and we should just keep doing that? If so, fair enough. But it strikes me that people are being negative for the sake of being negative, because I'm pretty sure if strikers WERE trying to overload LJ's servers, these people would still be complaining how THAT was a bad idea, and maybe even saying "Hey, what about a one-day strike? Wouldn't that be a better idea??"
I dunno. When it comes to these issues (people who are trying to make their voices heard to LJ vs. people who think it doesn't matter/won't work anyway/is stupid) I'm starting to think there's no room for dialogue between these factions of LJ. It's like we've picked a corner and now we're sticking to it. No civilized dialogue allowed. I think that's incredibly sad. If we can't even talk to each other, how on earth are we going to communicate with (ever-revolving) LJ owners? If we ever do get Evil Overlords (tm), they're going to be quite happy that we already have the "divide and conquer" strategy down pat ourselves.