Barak Has Updated on *news* - LJ "Screwed Up"

[heidi]

They admit they screwed up and are looking into reinstatement and have announced an appeals process.

More as it transpires - as of 8 am eastern time, pornish_pixies hadn't been restored but they've said that things will be within the next 7 hours or so, and if they're not, an appeal still can be made.

Comments

[nicocoer.livejournal.com]

This part of the database is temporarily down for maintenance. Try again in a few minutes.

um?

[nicocoer.livejournal.com]

nm, it is letting me see it now. . .

I too feel optimistic about this whole thing. . .

[ani-bester.livejournal.com]

oops meant to post here ^^

I'm surprised they didn't address the "You only acted because we threatened youra dd revenue" aspect of the WFI bit.

It seems pretty naive not to realize that a lot of poeple might be ocnisdered over the fact that all you need to do to make LJ act like a chicken wiht it's head cut off is threaten their pockets.
Which jsut plays into the whole blow up voer having adds in the first place.

Still though, fair apologize. Actually more than I expected

[teawithvoldy.livejournal.com]

Heidi... I love you! You know it's great that people like you can fight for people's freedoms to express their opinions and creativity.

[msbhaven.livejournal.com]

That was fast.

[annearchy.livejournal.com]

I bet Barak got an earful from his actual customers. Actually I know he did - I saw his "explanation" a few minutes ago and it had over 4,000 comments o_O

[jlh.livejournal.com]

What a poorly written statement! Again I ask, where the hell are their corporate communications people? Did it take something like this to make them realize that they need some corporate communications people? They're too big for this shit.

[heidi8.livejournal.com]

I'm guilty of being one of those who's hoped that LJ wouldn't become too corporatized so the bizarrely naive attitude is a little endearing. But realistically, yeah, it shouldn't be. I recognize it was a holiday weekend, but if they had a corporate comm tean *in place* the fact that it was a holiday and Abuse Retreat Weekend shouldn't have made as significant a difference as it obviously did.

[ani-bester.livejournal.com]

You kinda gotta question the intelligence of the doing this *on* a holiday weekend when the powers that be wouldn't be there to keep an eye on things.

And seriously, a PR note explaining what they were doing and admitting this was a temporary quick fix to be sorted out once the Hounds O' Idiocy were called off mighta have made all this go a lot smoother. I will never understand a corproations need to try and slip things under the radar like this.

[jlh.livejournal.com]

Wow, I forgot it was an Abuse Retreat Weekend.

The bad treatment of the Abuse team by TPTB at SA/LJ is breathtaking. I mean, the overall effect of the inept corporate communications is to force the Abuse team to take the hits for all the decisions made, and given that the Abuse team is made up of volunteers that are also LJ users, that's just horrifically bad corporate practice. All three of these instances were actions of the Abuse team badly communicated to the user base.

Not to mention that they seem to be surprised at how fast word gets around when this is a website created to facilitate social interaction. So like, do they even understand what they've built here?

So much drama could be avoided if they showed themselves to be competent. And in the biggest corporate sense, if what they're selling is not services to us, but our eyeballs to advertisers, they're not doing a good job of that, either.

[roguebitch.livejournal.com]

I feel pretty good about this apology and now think I might go forward with renewing my membership. It's nice to see someone apologize and take responsibility for their screwups.

[dramawench.livejournal.com]

I'm glad they FINALLY said something. I'm still not satisfied by their explanation, but at least they have put an appeals process in place.

[heidi8.livejournal.com]

That's actually a question I posed to them a while ago - why don't they have an Ombudsman system in place? FictionAlley's had one since we started modding the forums, and news organizations of al sorts do as well, and from a PR perspective, I don't see a downside.

I hope they establish one.

Re: Barak Has Updated on *news* - LJ "Screwed Up"

[redina]

why don't they have an Ombudsman system in place

Huh, learn something new... I did not know what Ombudsman was until a few moments ago. {g}

Anyway, I was discussing this with deathisyourart and how fandom is typically comprised of a *vast majority* of gals and how this impacts media genre and vidding and... just look at the SPN 'sexy got scary' ads as an example of shifting demographics involving women... yadda yadda, it was a long discussion.

Fandom's demographics are mostly comprised of women, the same demographic often spotlighted as victims in violence and the same demographic considered the caregivers and protectors of children... and a corporation is telling these same women... what? We can't function without corporate guidance dictating what's 'safe' for us?

So, I can fully understand the outrage going outside 'freedom of speech' because it's, frankly, insulting, *especially* when they *knew* certain journals were for fiction and not some advocate for illegal activities to be performed in society.

Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, indeed.

Dina

[wishwords.livejournal.com]

Any time I see a company openly apologize I have hope.

[ivyblossom.livejournal.com]

This apology is patent bullshit. I realize everyone's going to just accept it and move on, but the reality is this: there is no plausible deniability this time. They knew exactly what they were doing; that's why someone on their staff knew enough to go warn fandom a few days before it hit. We knew exactly what would happen, and so did they. This whole "omg we had no idea this would happen!!11!" wide-eyed innocence thing is looking pretty ragged in light of that. It did *not* take them that long to realize. It only took them that long to understand that the undesireable elements they were attempting to purge were more numerous than they thought and bigger financial contributors than they had previously wanted to admit.

Heidi, if that warning is supposed to be super-sekrit you may want to screen this comment, but I'm just livid that the top brass are suggesting that this was an accident and they really didn't know that fandom would get hit. They're backtracking and stringing us a line.

[phoenixsong]

There was advance warning?

If it's semi-secret in that it might not be advisable to publish the link, could you e-mail me the URL at my LJ e-mail? I'm on the fringe of the fringes of all this, so it's mostly intellectual curiousity.

[ivyblossom.livejournal.com]

There was advance warning, but I skimmed over it, and I have no idea who posted it. I'm kind of scared to go back and look, because obviously it was someone on my flist and I'm sure they are not happy with me for mentioning it. It was certainly flocked.

[phoenixsong]

Just read your post -- fair enough.

This is just...ugh.