Four years is a good, long time...
You know what, I don't slash, and even if I did, I don't think Snarry would be my cuppa. I'm not into Weasley twincest (although I would totally join a Jaime/Cersei comm if one existed), or even any erotic fan art. My fannish existence on LJ is not at all threatened by the immediate goings-on. However, this is not the case for a lot of you, and LJ is nothing to me without you. And even though the target of this witch-hunt is HP fanartists, it doesn't mean that the next time it won't be Supernatural Wincest fans or something else that more directly affects my flist. LJ has made one thing, and pretty much only this one thing, clear: Friends-locks will not protect us anymore.
I have joined fandom_action, fandom_flies and leavin_eljay. And I've signed up over at fandom411, which is, to me, a whole lot easier to use than The Directorium, even though it's good to use both services.
For the time being, I intend to x-post to IJ, GJ and JF (once I get it set-up). I'd love to just walk away from LJ/6A all together, but I would never walk away from all of you. As long as some of you are still here, I'll (at the very least) be lurking and reading my f-list, but I'll certainly not ever again pay to use this service. Initially, I was just creating additional accounts in order to friend those of you who were fleeing, but now, I'm one of you. What really pushed me over the edge was LJ's refusal to update the TOS, even though the TOS have clearly changed. Basically, they acted on a set of guidelines not acknowledged by the current TOS, and they've realized that they can't change the TOS to reflect these new standards after the fact, because that just opens them up to a whole new dimension of fail.
FWIW, I'm convinced that JF is the safest current community alternative for fandom. By all accounts that I've come across TPTB there have fought for their posters in the past, and they continue to host fandom_wank despite not loving the comm, simply because they believe it has the right to exist. That makes them a-ok in my book. And I know that JF has its drawbacks:18+ only, closed registration (which means that you need to be sponsored by a paid member in order to get an account), etc., but I just like their track record better. GJ has lots and lots of user pics, but I understand that they do a semi-regular purge of inactive accounts, and y'all know how sporadic my posting can be. I like IJ better than GJ, and even though Squeaky has said that IJ is not affliated with and will not be selling out to 6A, well, we've heard that stuff before, right? IJ is still small, and they just don't yet have the track record of standing up for fandom that JF does. I'm still interested in given them a chance to prove themselves as fan-friendly, but I'm not committing myself to any one site yet, even though I'm planning to purchase paid/permanent accounts as soon as possible from each journaling alternative.
Still not sure what's going on? Here's a few informative links:
How Six Apart's Greed Allied Them With Neo-Nazis - From Round One of Strikethrough
Fiver didn't know the language on that notice board. Fiver only knew that something bad was coming.
Saved (now deleted) thread from EFW community wherein burr86 fails spectacularly by publicly making fun of the customers while still wearing his work uniform.
Brad reportedly leaving LJ/6A and this is confirmed in his own journal.
Collected "official" statements from the recent lj_biz comments thread. - Includes such gems as "we allow pro-anorexia communities to remain because they are, in most cases, serving as support groups for the members" and "it's not illegal to aspire to be thin." RAGE!
/. sums it up.
So, maybe you're thinking, "Oh, crap. I didn't know about any of this, but I don't like it, and I have no idea how to back-up my LJ or find my friends if they leave here. What can I do?" If that's the case, you should check out this post, which has all kinds of helpful hints. I used LJ Sec to move all of my LJ posts over to GJ and IJ, and it was rather simple.
I have joined fandom_action, fandom_flies and leavin_eljay. And I've signed up over at fandom411, which is, to me, a whole lot easier to use than The Directorium, even though it's good to use both services.
For the time being, I intend to x-post to IJ, GJ and JF (once I get it set-up). I'd love to just walk away from LJ/6A all together, but I would never walk away from all of you. As long as some of you are still here, I'll (at the very least) be lurking and reading my f-list, but I'll certainly not ever again pay to use this service. Initially, I was just creating additional accounts in order to friend those of you who were fleeing, but now, I'm one of you. What really pushed me over the edge was LJ's refusal to update the TOS, even though the TOS have clearly changed. Basically, they acted on a set of guidelines not acknowledged by the current TOS, and they've realized that they can't change the TOS to reflect these new standards after the fact, because that just opens them up to a whole new dimension of fail.
FWIW, I'm convinced that JF is the safest current community alternative for fandom. By all accounts that I've come across TPTB there have fought for their posters in the past, and they continue to host fandom_wank despite not loving the comm, simply because they believe it has the right to exist. That makes them a-ok in my book. And I know that JF has its drawbacks:18+ only, closed registration (which means that you need to be sponsored by a paid member in order to get an account), etc., but I just like their track record better. GJ has lots and lots of user pics, but I understand that they do a semi-regular purge of inactive accounts, and y'all know how sporadic my posting can be. I like IJ better than GJ, and even though Squeaky has said that IJ is not affliated with and will not be selling out to 6A, well, we've heard that stuff before, right? IJ is still small, and they just don't yet have the track record of standing up for fandom that JF does. I'm still interested in given them a chance to prove themselves as fan-friendly, but I'm not committing myself to any one site yet, even though I'm planning to purchase paid/permanent accounts as soon as possible from each journaling alternative.
Still not sure what's going on? Here's a few informative links:
How Six Apart's Greed Allied Them With Neo-Nazis - From Round One of Strikethrough
Fiver didn't know the language on that notice board. Fiver only knew that something bad was coming.
Saved (now deleted) thread from EFW community wherein burr86 fails spectacularly by publicly making fun of the customers while still wearing his work uniform.
Brad reportedly leaving LJ/6A and this is confirmed in his own journal.
Collected "official" statements from the recent lj_biz comments thread. - Includes such gems as "we allow pro-anorexia communities to remain because they are, in most cases, serving as support groups for the members" and "it's not illegal to aspire to be thin." RAGE!
/. sums it up.
So, maybe you're thinking, "Oh, crap. I didn't know about any of this, but I don't like it, and I have no idea how to back-up my LJ or find my friends if they leave here. What can I do?" If that's the case, you should check out this post, which has all kinds of helpful hints. I used LJ Sec to move all of my LJ posts over to GJ and IJ, and it was rather simple.