Livejournal strike on Friday, March 21st
Frankly, I'm all for it.
Friday, March 21st, there is going to be a Livejournal strike, in response to two recent administrative decisions. One day of silence, from midnight to midnight. No posting, no commenting, nothing. The idea came from beckyzoole; see her LJ for a fuller explanation. Please spread the word to anyone you think should hear about it.
The strike is happening because of two things. One: LJ has ended the "basic account" service. Anyone starting a LJ from now on will have to either look at advertising or pay for an account with all the bells and whistles. That's the big thing, for me. They've managed to remove the reason I felt comfortable using LJ in the first place. My sense of cynicism tells me it was too good to last, but still--I thought LJ was better than that. Two: the admins have been removing popular interests from the popular-interests list, for no reason that they've seen fit to explain. Could be innocuous reasons, could be targeting fandom as undesirables. The thing what really gets my goat is that they didn't announce either of these changes in advance. They just went ahead and did it. It takes a lot to make me join a protest, but this has done it, all right.
*snarl* It's been pointed out that the LJ/SUP administration doesn't even want fandom around, and would be perfectly happy if we all got the hell out. It's even been suggested that these are moves intended to drive fandom users away from LJ. The way the owners have been acting, I even find that last part plausible. The current head of SUP was quoted recently:
In this situation, where they ["they"=strikers] attempt to blackmail and to intimidate us, threatening to destroy our business, there is a business-reason not to reward this behavior. This is not the simple reaction of being more resistant the more pressure is applied. The fact is that through history no successful enterprise runs by being subjugated by unfriendly forces. No change, even the most correct one, will not experience some resistance.
It would probably be best to reconsider the recent changes. But from our point of view it is now necessary to wait until after the boycott has faded. Let it pass and have the voices of protest fade. Then we can consider changing this policy.
Short version: "We have no need to listen to our customers, because it is good business sense to be as stubborn as a mule. Also, we're the poor oppressed little guys, you should pity us. LALALALALA I CAN'T HEAR YOU." The sad thing is that this is about par for the course, as LJ admins go. As I've said elsewhere, it's funny (in a not-really kind of way) how the LJ company manages to act as though we the fangirls are simultaneously (a) not at all important--why, there are hardly any of us, and (b) we're a giant, all-powerful international conspiracy of evil perverts. That's wot you call a dichotomy...
I'm going to make accounts at other companies, but that's only a stopgap measure. The best solution would be a fan-run journal service--I believe that astolat is working on something of the kind, and I'm going to see how I can help the efforts. Not that I know a blessed thing about coding, but perhaps I could go and bake muffins for the programmers while they design it...
People have questioned the efficacy of a protest against owners like the windbag quoted above. I guess I'd reply: maybe so, but we owe it to ourselves to make a protest. They're never going to change if we stay silent and put up with crap, so we should stand up and show them how we feel. It's up to them what they do with the knowledge after that.
In other news, I'll get to the next meme question tomorrow--my word, this is a fun one. I'd no idea everybody liked word posts so much, or I would have made them much more often.
Friday, March 21st, there is going to be a Livejournal strike, in response to two recent administrative decisions. One day of silence, from midnight to midnight. No posting, no commenting, nothing. The idea came from beckyzoole; see her LJ for a fuller explanation. Please spread the word to anyone you think should hear about it.
The strike is happening because of two things. One: LJ has ended the "basic account" service. Anyone starting a LJ from now on will have to either look at advertising or pay for an account with all the bells and whistles. That's the big thing, for me. They've managed to remove the reason I felt comfortable using LJ in the first place. My sense of cynicism tells me it was too good to last, but still--I thought LJ was better than that. Two: the admins have been removing popular interests from the popular-interests list, for no reason that they've seen fit to explain. Could be innocuous reasons, could be targeting fandom as undesirables. The thing what really gets my goat is that they didn't announce either of these changes in advance. They just went ahead and did it. It takes a lot to make me join a protest, but this has done it, all right.
*snarl* It's been pointed out that the LJ/SUP administration doesn't even want fandom around, and would be perfectly happy if we all got the hell out. It's even been suggested that these are moves intended to drive fandom users away from LJ. The way the owners have been acting, I even find that last part plausible. The current head of SUP was quoted recently:
In this situation, where they ["they"=strikers] attempt to blackmail and to intimidate us, threatening to destroy our business, there is a business-reason not to reward this behavior. This is not the simple reaction of being more resistant the more pressure is applied. The fact is that through history no successful enterprise runs by being subjugated by unfriendly forces. No change, even the most correct one, will not experience some resistance.
It would probably be best to reconsider the recent changes. But from our point of view it is now necessary to wait until after the boycott has faded. Let it pass and have the voices of protest fade. Then we can consider changing this policy.
Short version: "We have no need to listen to our customers, because it is good business sense to be as stubborn as a mule. Also, we're the poor oppressed little guys, you should pity us. LALALALALA I CAN'T HEAR YOU." The sad thing is that this is about par for the course, as LJ admins go. As I've said elsewhere, it's funny (in a not-really kind of way) how the LJ company manages to act as though we the fangirls are simultaneously (a) not at all important--why, there are hardly any of us, and (b) we're a giant, all-powerful international conspiracy of evil perverts. That's wot you call a dichotomy...
I'm going to make accounts at other companies, but that's only a stopgap measure. The best solution would be a fan-run journal service--I believe that astolat is working on something of the kind, and I'm going to see how I can help the efforts. Not that I know a blessed thing about coding, but perhaps I could go and bake muffins for the programmers while they design it...
People have questioned the efficacy of a protest against owners like the windbag quoted above. I guess I'd reply: maybe so, but we owe it to ourselves to make a protest. They're never going to change if we stay silent and put up with crap, so we should stand up and show them how we feel. It's up to them what they do with the knowledge after that.
In other news, I'll get to the next meme question tomorrow--my word, this is a fun one. I'd no idea everybody liked word posts so much, or I would have made them much more often.