imc's manifesto
Good morning, LiveJournal! I am Ian and I would like you to consider voting
for me in the Advisory Board election.
I have been on LiveJournal since June 2003 (the account itself was created for me and has already passed its fifth birthday). I started paying for my account a while later and then bought a permanent account in the 2005 sale. I use LiveJournal almost exclusively among "social networking" sites (I have to admit I like some of the games on Facebook, but I don't use that for anything else). The majority of posts in my journal are public; I generally only switch to friends-only posting where it mentions specific named people or I'm ranting about my work (or, for a short period of last year, my personal life). I always try to write in proper English (and proper HTML!). I pretty much know my way around the site and was a support volunteer for a while; I've also reported bugs in the site and on maybe a couple of occasions helped to fix the code. I try to keep up with changes and new features by following lj_releases and a couple of the more technical LiveJournal-related communities. You may also have seen me commenting in suggestions. I know the difference between a moderator and a maintainer of a community. As a 39-year-old male from outside the USA I represent a significant minority among LiveJournal users.
I love the site and take a broadly pro-LiveJournal stance. However, I've not been afraid to speak out against LiveJournal when I disagree with their policies. Some of my views about LiveJournal can be found in my journal and in an early post in lj_policy (and the follow-up to that comment).
As a Board member I would like to try to keep LiveJournal on an even keel and rein in some of the excesses that its management tries to pull off from time to time. I would advise the bringing back of Basic Accounts in some form and a reduction in the volume of adverts on certain parts of the site that serve to attract new users to the site. I would like to get to the bottom of the interest search filter and, although I will almost certainly be forced to sign a Non-Disclosure agreement which will prevent me from relaying any information to the userbase at large, I would like to try to formulate a way of explaining what's going on in such a way that it doesn't trip up on whatever is restricting LiveJournal staff from explaining it properly in the first place.
Edit: If you want to ask me anything about my platform there is a post in my journal on which you are free to comment.
I have been on LiveJournal since June 2003 (the account itself was created for me and has already passed its fifth birthday). I started paying for my account a while later and then bought a permanent account in the 2005 sale. I use LiveJournal almost exclusively among "social networking" sites (I have to admit I like some of the games on Facebook, but I don't use that for anything else). The majority of posts in my journal are public; I generally only switch to friends-only posting where it mentions specific named people or I'm ranting about my work (or, for a short period of last year, my personal life). I always try to write in proper English (and proper HTML!). I pretty much know my way around the site and was a support volunteer for a while; I've also reported bugs in the site and on maybe a couple of occasions helped to fix the code. I try to keep up with changes and new features by following lj_releases and a couple of the more technical LiveJournal-related communities. You may also have seen me commenting in suggestions. I know the difference between a moderator and a maintainer of a community. As a 39-year-old male from outside the USA I represent a significant minority among LiveJournal users.
I love the site and take a broadly pro-LiveJournal stance. However, I've not been afraid to speak out against LiveJournal when I disagree with their policies. Some of my views about LiveJournal can be found in my journal and in an early post in lj_policy (and the follow-up to that comment).
As a Board member I would like to try to keep LiveJournal on an even keel and rein in some of the excesses that its management tries to pull off from time to time. I would advise the bringing back of Basic Accounts in some form and a reduction in the volume of adverts on certain parts of the site that serve to attract new users to the site. I would like to get to the bottom of the interest search filter and, although I will almost certainly be forced to sign a Non-Disclosure agreement which will prevent me from relaying any information to the userbase at large, I would like to try to formulate a way of explaining what's going on in such a way that it doesn't trip up on whatever is restricting LiveJournal staff from explaining it properly in the first place.
Edit: If you want to ask me anything about my platform there is a post in my journal on which you are free to comment.