I support the LiveJournal Abuse Team.
(reposted from solcita's journal with her permission - I, too, was a member of the LiveJournal Abuse Team, and the people I worked with do a thankless job to the absolute best of their ability. I've seen 10+ people working desperately at 2:00am to find information on a potential suicide, and I know they've saved more lives than anyone truly realizes.)
Those who are newer to my journal may not know that I was once a member of the LiveJournal Abuse Team. For two years I volunteered my time because I enjoyed the work and loved the people on the team. In my time on the team I saw everything from Tubgirl to the Passion of the Christ comment-spambots. I witnessed my fellow team members spending hours researching account-hacking rings and making desperate searches for information when suicide threats were reported to us. Though I'm no longer a member of the Team due to a lack of free time, I have a great deal of respect for the Team's members and management.
This whole kerfluffle over default icons of babies breastfeeing has been blown so far out of proportion as to be unrecognizable from the original issue. I have seen members of the Abuse Team -- some of my dearest friends -- subjected to unwarranted vicious personal attacks and insults. Why was that necessary? Why must people be so awful to each other instead of engaging in civilized debate and discourse? LJ did not make an "attack on women and mothers", and to claim that they did is nothing short of ridiculous, as well as being a gross misrepresentation of the facts.
The last thing I will say on this matter is that deleting your journal for 24 hours in some sort of silly boycott is about as useful as not buying gasoline for 24 hours. If you really feel so strongly about the issue that you want to take your ball and go home, there are plenty of other journalling sites out there that you can use.
I support the LJ Abuse Team. It's very likely that you have been affected for the better by some action of theirs without your knowing it, but of course it's only when someone disagrees with them do you ever hear anything about them at all, and then all you hear is how evil and unreasonable they are.
The people on the team work hard to make sure you can tell all your friends what flavor of ice cream your cats are this week. Theirs is a thankless and vitally important job, and they do it for free, because they care about the site. Please try to remember that.
Those who are newer to my journal may not know that I was once a member of the LiveJournal Abuse Team. For two years I volunteered my time because I enjoyed the work and loved the people on the team. In my time on the team I saw everything from Tubgirl to the Passion of the Christ comment-spambots. I witnessed my fellow team members spending hours researching account-hacking rings and making desperate searches for information when suicide threats were reported to us. Though I'm no longer a member of the Team due to a lack of free time, I have a great deal of respect for the Team's members and management.
This whole kerfluffle over default icons of babies breastfeeing has been blown so far out of proportion as to be unrecognizable from the original issue. I have seen members of the Abuse Team -- some of my dearest friends -- subjected to unwarranted vicious personal attacks and insults. Why was that necessary? Why must people be so awful to each other instead of engaging in civilized debate and discourse? LJ did not make an "attack on women and mothers", and to claim that they did is nothing short of ridiculous, as well as being a gross misrepresentation of the facts.
The last thing I will say on this matter is that deleting your journal for 24 hours in some sort of silly boycott is about as useful as not buying gasoline for 24 hours. If you really feel so strongly about the issue that you want to take your ball and go home, there are plenty of other journalling sites out there that you can use.
I support the LJ Abuse Team. It's very likely that you have been affected for the better by some action of theirs without your knowing it, but of course it's only when someone disagrees with them do you ever hear anything about them at all, and then all you hear is how evil and unreasonable they are.
The people on the team work hard to make sure you can tell all your friends what flavor of ice cream your cats are this week. Theirs is a thankless and vitally important job, and they do it for free, because they care about the site. Please try to remember that.