State of the Community (12/10/07)

[imaria]

Hello everybody!

Just posting to keep everyone updated on any changes to the community, or any news on the front.

1. The community has now turned on moderated posting. It was something I had considered from the outset, and has been recommended by fellow moderators and members alike. Since a community like this shouldn't be making new posts all the

Comments

[hummingwolf]

"Scrap it completely" because there is no possible way to block all "bad" interest searches while allowing all of the legitimate searches. I would love to believe there's a way to keep noxious racists and such from finding each other (and their targets) while letting survivors find each other for support, but there simply is no easy way.

And I would like to be able to search for fellow fans of raccoons again.

[amokk]

We can't allow you raccoon fans to congregate. We don't want to find the garbage overturned in the morning. ;)

[hummingwolf]

We don't want to find the garbage overturned in the morning. ;)

Well, if we ever get the chance to eat crackers and spicy foods again, we won't need to root around in the trash cans, will we?

[matgb]

I ticked 'fix it' but only because I'm unsure on the legality. IIRC, during strikethrough, the thing that WFI managed to hook on LJ was search terms-by allowing searches for key words, the site could, under some interpretations of either US or CA law, be illegal.

Pretty sure it was one of those "would need a test case to find out" issues, and Lj/6A sure as hell don't want the (negative) publicity surrounding such a case, so they went with the cautious interpretation.

But it would be VERY good to see proper clarification of the issue, or at least a holding post somewhere saying "something appears to have gone with something we've been running since June and we're investigating". Silence is making it all worse, even though I'm pretty sure all the staff are stressed out ATM-do we even know who the LJ staff are currently?

[amokk]

Scrap it. It's a poor attempt to "protect the children" but infringes upon the rights of adults. LJ could very easily have made a post saying "these terms in these configurations are banned" when they put the system in, but they thought they could just sneak it on through and no one would ever notice, yet again.

Hopefully all that BS goes with 6A leaving.

"addition to the terms"

[speck]

Even more fodder for the class action lawsuit hinted at by former LJ staffers.

And hey, turn on OpenID, please.

Re: "addition to the terms"

[imaria]

Er. OpenID might pose a problem, in that LJ blocks OpenID when it blocks anonymous comments. (Obviously an issue in its own right, but that's more a technical matter for suggestions.)

Given that many people who would be very interested in this community may have already left LJ, I see exactly where you are coming from. But given how volatile the issues brought up here are, allowing non-member commenting opens up a big opportunity for... troublesome postings, to put it mildly ;/

If you've any suggestions on this front, please let me know. Until then, I recommend simple Basic accounts. Hopefully, if this community does what it is meant to do, LJ will be worth coming home to at the end of the day.

Re: "addition to the terms"

[speck]

add a mod who can screen comments.

the combo is:

Anon comments on, but screened. This allows OpenID comments, though screened. May need to add some mods.

OpenID contributors (Can't make main posts) can give a showing of who is just about to have the door hit them on the ass ...

Re: "addition to the terms"

[imaria]

Good idea.

Because there are no other mods right now, I'm going to hold off on this for the moment. But once we DO have extra mods, I think this would be a very acceptable solution.

I do plan to take on some moderators in relatively short time, as soon as I can see that people are getting a sense of what the community is for as a whole. When that happens, there will be another announcement.

[gamahucheur]

Let's cut to the chase: LJ administration introduced the change ina sneaky manner because they knew that they'd be accused of stepping on a slippery slope, but they were sure that their shoes were sufficiently sticky.

What has happened is that they have demonstrably slid down that slope.

The open question now is whether they will crawl up that slope with as much dignity as they can muster, or insist that where we are now is Just Fine.

[thebipolarcat]

scrap it. entirely. i've said it before, and hummingwolf said it again: there is no way possible to keep everyone happy when filtering content. if someone absolutely has to have their content filtered, turn on your browser's parental controls; that's what they are there for.

all jokes aside, it is getting rather annoying when trying to search for people named maryanne or cooking communities.

@ imaria: did you see this yet? i know you're probably super busy. i just wanted to make sure it didn't get lost in all of the other comments. (:

[imaria]

I did see it; I just feel it might be preemptive at this time. First, I'd like to make sure we're all together on what the content of such a letter would be; hence the poll.

But secondly... until the Advisory Council is functioning, brad doesn't have a say. It's unfortunate, but true. Instead, we need to focus on gaining NEW sympathetic ears on the current staff.

The underlying concept is good, but the community will need to mature a bit more first. I mean, brad has to know people are unhappy if he's read the comments of any news post made in the past year. To really change things, we don't just need to say "Things are broken", we need to tell them what to fix.

However... this is just my view on the situation. If you do go ahead with this on your own, I would be happy to link over to it with best wishes. While it may be too soon for ljspeaks, I don't see how giving it a try on your own could hurt anything at all ;]

[mercurychaos]

I, for one, have been unable to take brad seriously ever since I read this post. And even when the advisory council is functioning, it's not really going to make me feel any better about this.