annathepiper: More on Strikethrough II: Electric Boogaloo

Anna the Piper (

annathepiper) wrote,
@ 2007-08-05 12:30:00

Entry tags:

lj, wtf?

More on Strikethrough II: Electric Boogaloo
From deadsong via suzene, a fairly cogent and objective writeup of the entire situation.

Y'all may have missed last night that a 6A staffer got spotted participating in a thread about the entire brouhaha on efw (a.k.a. Existential Flame War). The folks over on the JF community find it mock-worthy. Others are far less amused. And this appears to have spawned a still-ongoing attempt to spam the living daylights out of the posts on news; last I checked, the most recent three posts were maxed out on comments and they're working on the fourth one down.

Over here, the fandom_wank wiki page about both the first Strikethrough and this one. Links off to various wank reports.

(Post a new comment)

	suzene 2007-08-05 07:47 pm UTC (link)
	Isn't she good? I was quite impressed with how objective deadsong was over the whole thing. (Reply to this)(Thread)

	deadsong 2007-08-05 07:57 pm UTC (link)
	...he. (Don't mind me, I'm just poking at my referrers and watching the server to make sure it doesn't burp.) But thanks. I tried and was worried I hadn't succeeded. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	suzene 2007-08-05 08:08 pm UTC (link)
	Whoops! My apologies. I've gotten so used to fandom being predominantly female that 'she' has become my default pronoun when speaking of. And your latest update to the article is fascinating. Thank you for keeping up with this. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	technoshaman 2007-08-05 09:44 pm UTC (link)
	blink Fandom? Predominantly female? I must've missed something rather large, he said. That's ok, I think we need more females in the propeller-beanie crowd, just for the ever-lovin' perspective, for Seldon's sake, but I'm just sayin' I missed something... (Reply to this)(Parent)

	annathepiper 2007-08-05 10:30 pm UTC (link)
	Ah, hello! And let me add my voice of thanks to suzene's; that was an excellent objective writeup of the situation. Well done. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

deadsong
2007-08-06 02:14 am UTC (link)

Thanks. Though now thanks to a reader freaking out and making excessive conjecture about the updates at the bottom of the article (complete with posts to the various communities chronicling this), I'm being made out to be a drama-feeding rabble-rouser because I said "a reader reports _____, may or may not be related to the issue" and this other person flipped their cheetos and, when people told them to stop freaking out, pointed and said "the article made me do it!"

~bangs his head on the wall~ Remind me of why I got into journalism?

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	annathepiper 2007-08-08 06:37 am UTC (link)
	Ooof, about the comments. I'm not surprised that the drama of it all spilled over into your article, but sorry to hear that it did. But you're welcome, regardless. Voices of sanity are good things in journalism. :) (Reply to this)(Parent)

flashfire
2007-08-05 08:59 pm UTC (link)

While I sympathize with people like you and

solarbird who are just trying to be careful, I admit I have little to no sympathy for the attention whores trying to spam the hell out of

news. Is that supposed to make people suddenly start agreeing with them?

The worst of all might have been the YouTube video of someone going by Aja, I think, who I guess has some history with Cassie Claire or whoever wrote those LotR diaries. The video basically slams LJ/6A for censorship, ignoring that they can do what they want with their site and servers (though the PR for this has been crappy), ending with trying to burn a LiveJournal t-shirt.

Just a little overboard, to me.

(Reply to this)(Thread)

suzene
2007-08-05 09:23 pm UTC (link)

One of the things that most encourages the spam, though, is that LJ/6A's responses are so sluggish, so ill-timed, and so full of nebulous platitudes that it seems that what they're really hoping for is that people will just go away if they ignore the problem long enough. At this point, it seems what the users are trying to drive home is that they're going to keep making noise until someone in charge makes a statement to address the latest idiocy on the service's part.

I get what you're saying, though. Actual useful suggestions and legitimate concerns get lost in the macros, and more reasonable users don't want to be lumped in with the ones posting random porn. I'd much rather the user base kept making their concerns known via letters to sponsors, e-news outlets, and the BBB than spamming nonsense, since those are things that might have greater impact than simply visibility.

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	flashfire 2007-08-05 09:26 pm UTC (link)
	Yeah. Being annoying isn't going to get results. It's just going to end up being ignored. The things you mention at the end have a better chance of doing something. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

solarbird
2007-08-05 10:17 pm UTC (link)

Is that supposed to make people suddenly start agreeing with them? ... Being annoying isn't going to get results. It's just going to end up being ignored.
Actually, it kind of did, last time.

The thing is that 6A/LJ has already been ignoring them. Quite heartily, in fact. Turning to absurdist protest is one of the ways historically shown to at least get acknowledge. So is obstructionist protest. This is both.

(Reply to this)(Parent)

	annathepiper 2007-08-05 10:31 pm UTC (link)
	I have heard rumblings of at least one serious attempt to get a fandom-friendly LJ clone site going; it'll be interesting to see whether that gets done, or whether people will just continue to jump ship to the established other clone sites. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	flashfire 2007-08-05 10:34 pm UTC (link)
	I think that's a good idea but depending on who they use to host it, I wonder what chances they run that the ones hosting it could deem things unfit, too - unless it's hosted by one of them, I guess. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	annathepiper 2007-08-05 10:40 pm UTC (link)
	twocorpses is apparently the one leading the effort--the site's intended to be called scribblit.com, I believe. Dunno if they're putting the code up on their own server or not. (Reply to this)(Parent)

technoshaman
2007-08-05 09:49 pm UTC (link)

I have to say I'm fifty-split on this issue. On the one hand, the comment spammers *are*, for the most part, being obnoxious. OTOH, there is a place for civil disobedience; I frankly think it's a useful experiment, just to see what if anything they can get out of 6A.

Now, it remains to be seen what exactly they *will* get out of 6A, and what they'll do with it. I'm going to wait on that result before passing judgment on their actions.

Overboard? Perhaps. We all need a few radicals to keep us honest. (It also makes the less overboard of us look good. I'm not above admitting that :)

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

annathepiper
2007-08-05 10:33 pm UTC (link)

Yeah, for my money, there's fail on both sides here. Under other circumstances, I might normally actually side with 6A; they certainly do have the right to say what you can and cannot post on their servers. However, their ability to actually explain their policies and enforce them in a reasonable manner leaves a lot to be desired.

Meanwhile, I'm standing back and enjoying the performance art of this entire affair. ;)

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	flashfire 2007-08-05 10:34 pm UTC (link)
	LJ/6A is definitely not handling this well. (Reply to this)(Parent)

technoshaman
2007-08-05 11:56 pm UTC (link)

The other thing that I need to investigate is the allegation that 6A is in violation of California law, i.e. that your current TOS be clearly posted in an obvious place on your website. Since LJ, both leadership and servers, absconded off to the BA, they're subject to that not-necessarily-so-niggly rule.

If they are in violation, I think one of the alphabet freedom outfits might be interested in a little legal mojo...

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	annathepiper 2007-08-06 12:48 am UTC (link)
	Yeah, I saw those bits going around in the whole kerfuffle. The part that amazes me in conjunction with that is that I'd been given to understand that 6A had started working with EFF after the last go-round, and I'd think EFF would have handed them a clue... but perhaps not. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	technoshaman 2007-08-06 12:59 am UTC (link)
	You and me gotta meet for lunch sometime. I gotta story to tell you about just how clueless corporations can be. Starfleet regs, and all that. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	annathepiper 2007-08-06 01:16 am UTC (link)
	You're on. Just let me know when and where! (Reply to this)(Parent)

annathepiper
2007-08-05 10:29 pm UTC (link)

Eh, really,

solarbird and I don't have a real horse in this race; the main issue for either of us here is whether LJ/6A is still reliable as a data locale. And that's really kinda more Dara's concern than mine; I don't post anything on LJ I couldn't ever live without.

Me, I'm just standing back watching this whole shebang with unbridled awe for its performance art value. Because I mean, damn. ;) There's epic fail on both sides, here.

(Reply to this)(Parent)

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