telophase | (no subject)

You could write a letter ... I'm going to do so.

They can't strike if they don't work for the company. Their little demonstration really does seem like a tantrum --an ill-informed one at that.

And if they're properly observing the "strike" they can't even defend themselves today. Teehee.

Yeah, I think it dilutes the concept of striking to apply it to this. This is more properly a boycott. But it won't do anything, anyway, as it's lost in the statistics - there are enough people not bothering with it to drown out the noise in static.

I don't have a problem with a company supporting itself from ad revenue. I don't have a problem with a company changing the way it does things - the TOS, after all, says that they can change whatever they want whenever they want. I don't particularly like the way their PR department ~~fails to~~ handles things, but if I had really strong feelings about that, I'd write a letter explaining why I was leaving, and leave.

But the crux of the matter is, even with their cockeyed way of announcing changes after the fact, LJ supplies what I'm looking for in a blogging site better than anyone else. Journalfen comes a close second, but its 18+ only rule means that a chunk of the people who come by my LJ and participate in it couldn't participate there. So I'm pretty much here unless they screw up the commenting system enough that it's impossible to hold a conversation.

I'm not sure my feelings on the matter are strong enough to do so. XD

Eh, I'm a little tetchy about their idea of corporate/customer communications, so I'll write them a nice little letter on that. That's all.

We've been around the internet long enough to know that anything awesome and free doesn't remain awesome and/or free for long. If something because popular, most companies are going to want to cash in on it. There are only a few, outstanding projects that remain non-profit, but those are the exceptions. I don't know why people expect this simple philosophy of the internet to change. LiveJournal has been a business for years now.

I agree. In the end, all you can do is cope or leave. It's their service provided on their terms. It's not like people can't create their own webspace and blog (especially now with feeds) to network with their friends. It does take time, some 'net savvy, and upkeep, but that's the price you pay, right?

Heeeeey, I thought you had some work to get done ;)

I basically agree with this. Plus, I also think the idea of 'striking' is a silly one. I do think, however, that they mishandled the situation. Touting your transparency and then making a self congratulatory announcement that ignores a fairly large change in your business practice is not terribly endearing.

That said, I vented my frustration in comments on the original announcement and have been done with this for a while.

And given the opportune timing, any blip in the daily statistic (not that it counts for anything) could be attributed to the lack of activities during holidays.

Also, I don't post very much, and I'm not sure I like the fact that my silence is taken advantage of in this case - it feels like if I didn't post something, then I would be part of the strike, and if I don't want to join, then I have to make an obligatory post saying so. Ugh.

I know - Mondays are the busy time and would be a way better day to make a statement.

Heh. I debated about it, then decided to make the Token Post. XD

Heeeeey, I thought you had some work to get done ;)

Yeah, yeah, yeah, rub it in. :P

Yeah, I considered a private post as a way to rebel. HAH, take that! XD;;;

Of course, if I were to do that, I'd be the same as the protesters with the same amount of impact.

My personal and blunt opinion on the strike is that the ones most devoted to it are people who just love having something to protest against and will do so as long and as much as they can find an excuse to, and then the rest are people they've worried into thinking they need to either join in to be true to fandom, or that they're going to lose their friends and be scattered because of it. And, really, no one is going to go anywhere unless they can find a place where everyone in all their fandoms is going to.

(I've been reading the various comment threads on it this week, and my tolerance level was reached when I saw strikers saying they "shouldn't discriminate" against non-strikers even though they'd be "approving of homophobic censoring" and "endorsing discrimination against new users.")

Amusingly, my f-list seems to have barely slowed down(including a few communities where someone made a "We should all strike" post.)

I am experiencing slightly more traffic on my f-list than I usually do on Fridays, possibly because of the people who decide to make a token post. It's rare on Fridays that my f-list has gained half a page of new entries by the time I've finished reading back to where I left off Thursday.

I went to "skip 60" which is about normal for me. It did gain more entries, though I'm not sure how many.

Now, what are the chances that work involves NSFW doujin pages?

I'd say those chances are pretty damn good. XD

And that reminds me - I ought to close the window that can sort-of see my computer; I'd really rather not have to explain to concerned parents why I have certain ... reference materials up on the screen that kids might see if they looked in the window.*

* Since my cat usually sits in that window, there is a surprising amount of kids who look through it.

>> I ought to close the window that can sort-of see my computer; I'd really rather not have to explain to concerned parents why I have certain ... reference materials up on the screen <<

The ones Rachel was finding for you? >snickers<

*wiggles eyebrows suggestively*

*choke*

indeed

And, hopefully, it'll be posted at a time when I can look at it...

I'm not posting much more 'cause we're printing it up to sell at cons and such. :D

My reaction to that post was "ooo...what are Renji and Rukia going to be up to, here?"

Personally, I support the boycott on the grounds that I support boycotts in general because I am one of those dirty pinko tree-huggin' liberals (tm), but I'm not participating. I don't think it's going to accomplish anything, but I also definitely wouldn't call it a temper tantrum. A temper tantrum would be the macro spamming of the news posts with porn and nasty photoshops of the VP that happened during boldthrough. >_>

I'm using "tantrum" because I think it fits exactly what

theferrett described it as: a case of a child holding its breath until its face turns blue.

Honestly, although I'm not denying

meganbmoore's experiences, most of the tantrum-y behavior that I have seen has been from non-strikers. "Waaaah, I don't like this strike/boycott thing, I'm going to post three times with spam and talk about how wanky the strikers are!!!!111!!!!1" Uh ... okay then.

(Not saying that's what you're doing, by the way.)

That's wank, not tantrums. I haven't seen wank on any side on my friendlist (note that I have avoided the officialy LJ communities like the proverbial plague). I'm using "tantrum" to refer specifically to the act of "striking" - in quotes because it's a boycott, not a strike - as a metaphor, like a child holding its breath until it turns blue. Won't do a thing to get what it wants, and reinforces the belief that the person doing it is irrational in the eyes of the person it's attempting to convince.

Mind you, as most of the threads I read were on manga comms, it's entirely possible that it was just a couple people repeating themselves all over the place, but still, once was enough. And I also just saw someone make a "flame me if you want, I'm still posting" post in one comm, which I like just as much.

(Personally, I think the proposed porn battle makes a lot more sense than the strike/boycott.)

Well, except that some of their pr0n rules are to avoid trouble with Federal regulations, and I don't see much point in arguing with that. And they apparently told folks in the Intarwebs industry (see here) that the interests craziness was a "technical issue" - so now they say they've fixed it, and there doesn't seem to be much point in trying to rub it in their faces.

For me the main thing is I don't like how Nossik was holding (and using) his mouth, and I don't like the creepy "they're too dumb to notice" obfuscation about how the basic accounts option removal was handled. Customer service issues at a high level, basically. They need better press people, and Nossik needs to learn to listen to them. (There's a reason why, at our place, statements to the public get run through Public Affairs, and why working as webmaster@OurAgency.gov was both an exhilirating and terrifying job for me during the late 1990s.)

Oh, believe me, I know perfectly well why the pr0n is a no-no...it's just that the reaction makes more sense to me(plus, that would give me amusement while the boycott deprives me of amusement, but that's another subject altogether.)

But mostly, it boild down to crummy customer relations.

I liked the porn battle idea, but I'd think it would need to spread farther than the, er, porn battle comm. Otherwise, er ... But then that's just spamming.

Hmmm, quandaries.

Puppy pictures battle?

Yes, I was hoping it'd spread all over the place and entertain me with what they came up with, but, sadly, such was not to be. (You'd think they'd advertise more...)

Also fun. Or kitties.

Heh. I gave my RP group the option to participate in the protests or not out of respect for my fellow players, but since we're scattered all over the planet and we're beezy people anyway, the 24 slow down didn't really affect us at all. =-P

I didn't post in my own journal 'cause, jee whiz, I had nothing to say. X-D

Yah. I've stuck with LJ precisely because a) it offers everything I want with a free account and b) I'm too lazy and pressed for time to bother starting all over with a new account and building a new circle of acquaintances and fan communities. The advertisements don't bother me because I've been ignoring ads on free accounts everywhere on the internet for umpteen years. It's a free service for Pete's sake. Of course it's going to offer less snazziness than a service that's paid for. Now, if I were paying for the service and promised features such a "no ads spoiling my pages" were taken away, then I would pitch a fit. As for the interests list thing, I don't care a hill of beans because the majority of my interests are not on the popular list. I've never been one to give a darn how many gazillion people like the same things I do so long as I can find at least one other fan to squee with. Sheesh. I don't need LJ's popular list for that. Good ol Google search works just fine.

Meh. Defending freedom of speech against tyrannical censorship is fine, but in the long run, we the proletariat are going to do what we bloody well please and the tyrants are going to do whatever they can to stop us. Guess who's going to win in the end. ^_~