Oh, Livejournal.

[slumber]

You really enjoy pulling the rug out of everyone, and I bet you wonder why everyone hates you. Minus the supremely slick hipster site vibe I'm getting from the design, so far I'm actually liking all these changes.

There's a section that makes Communities easier (possibly) to advertise and browse, which is great because LJ needs its users to use

Comments

[cyn_ful]

My favorite so far was them asking me to give them feedback before ever actually seeing the new changes. It looks like they are trying to copy facebook, BUT still don't have my favorite feature on facebook the "Like" button. I want to like it!

What I find funny is that I have been on LJ for over 10 years now...I ventured forth to other places. Maybe they need to stop and think about the reasons why people have stayed.

[slumber]

LMAO I didn't even give that a second thought when I first logged in, but you're right.

I'm pretty sure a like button isn't far away in the future -- they're definitely trying to keep up with the times, which I can understand, but they're just not doing a very good job communicating anything else.

[cyn_ful]

Exactly - when do they ever communicate with us though? I have been wanting the like button for years now. One of these days. Maybe they will listen and give a dislike too!

Yeah, and I don't think it has popped up for me again.

[slumber]

I KNOW RIGHT?

I don't think anyone will ever get a dislike button but one of the commenting systems I've always really thought was super slick was the one that sbnation.com created -- you had a subject still, and if you were logged in you could 'rec' a comment or flag it. Flagging it sends it to the mods, but if a comment received a certain number of recs it turned the comment green so it got more visibility, which is great for what SB Nation is about (a group of sports blogs basically -- you sign up to comment/join the communities but it's not a blogging platform).

[bowl_of_glow]

If Livejournal acted like it thought of its users before it did anything, I'm pretty sure it wouldn't annoy so many people as much as it did. But the time to start reaching out was not last week. It was not even last year. It was years ago, when they did this first. Maybe even the second time they did this. But they've done it so often and so unapologetically that the reaction, by now, is Pavlovian. LJ changes something? Fuck, they don't know what they're doing; Of fucking course they did; etc etc.

I think it's pretty much this. Just listen to your users, they have many interesting suggestions and they're the ones who are going to actually, you know, use the site. *rolls eyes*

I love LJ, I really do, but ugh I hate when things change from one day to the next for no reason.
I opted out, I hope I can continue to use the old layout indefinitely but uh, I fear not.

[slumber]

I understand the philosophy behind doing things that you think users won't ask for, but find they eventually need. But I think you need to have your users trust your judgment on that, and you earn that trust by a track record of some kind. They don't really have that -- the relationship between LJ and its users is so frayed that it's not surprising how badly user rates have fallen over the years, which SUCKS SO MUCH because I love the people here.

[la_loony]

Honestly I thought I had a typo or something in the searchbar because I didn't recognize LJ at all! A heads up with a screenshot of what the layout probably will look like would've been nice since they changed it quite a bit. I am not in the mood to venture into the new stuff so I switched back to the old layout, but I assume that won't be possible forever. I get that some things need to be improved, but damn they never learn to communicate stuff.

[slumber]

Hahahaha I think someone can really make a killing out of using LJ's old style and calling it oldlivejournal.com.

I think LJ caught me at a good time too, tbh-- normally I'd just switch back until I can't stick to the old design anymore, but today I guess I was just feeling more curious than usual.

[la_loony]

Now I imagine how I'll have a blog on oldjournal.com when I'm idk 70 or soxD

Opposite for me, I'm rather busy trying to kick my own ass to finish my exposé draft so I can send my application for the master program soon and I am therefor in no mood for changesxD

[slumber]

LOL we'll still be ranting about LJ then.

Yeah, see, that's really where a warning would have come in handy. It's like they haven't learned a single thing all these years, oy. o.O

[surmise]

I personally don't have that big of a deal with LJ but, as you so eloquently put it, it's the problem that they do not warn their users >________O;;;; I mean I know I would have been a bit annoyed at the change, but some warning would have lessened the effect, I think :\ Sigh. I haven't gotten to see most of the features, yet, but yeah.

[slumber]

It's funny to me, because LJ is actually REALLY good at not spamming users with email. But holy fuck, sometimes we would really like to know these things before they happen??? I know you can opt out of certain communications and that's probably why I didn't receive anything but HUGE site-wide changes like this need more than a "SURPRISE! What do you think?" from them. I'm not asking them to ask for permission. I just want to know what to expect.

[scatteredintime]

But the thing is that there's not even an announcement in the news comm. Which is what their news emails quote when you do get them. Nor is there anything in lj-releases, which is where they have ~sekrit~ posts for their new site releases. (Cause if they put it in news, they'd be spammed with thousands of hateful comments, as opposed to just a few hundred -- if they even manage three digit numbers -- you know?)

If anyone knew, it may have been the Russians from one of their news comms, but otherwise everyone should've been like "WOAH BUT WHY CAN'T I FIND ANY DOCUMENTATION ON THIS AT ALL".

[slumber]

"We'll pull the wool over them! They'll never know something's up! Kekekekekekeke"

[wasureneba]

I agree with you on a lot of this. A lot of the changes I've played with so far have been good -- although this font needs to die immediately, because it's far harder to read than I'd like. I don't like a few things about the user pages, but a lot of the changes SHOULD make the site more functional.

Just, you know, ASK us please, guys? -___-

[slumber]

It's practically white on white, I'm so annoyed. >:( But yeah, once the initial WTF died down, I thought it was smoother. I don't know how other people use the site, obviously, but I didn't feel like I was missing anything.

[wasureneba]

>:{ Definitely the one really crappy thing (but also, one of the most easily changed things, if they actually do something about it).

I don't feel like I'm missing anything either -- and goddamn did we need better community promotion and management on this site. It was way, way too hard to find comms with particular interests there for a while.

[slumber]

It's just CSS so I hope the option to edit the default viewing layouts of updates and profiles pops up, but it is LJ. XD