Content Strike on LJ on Friday, among other things. s

[heidi]

First, before the serious stuff, Happy St Patrick's Day to all who celebrate and/or enjoy it.

Second, gacked from supernatural_tv, Circuit City has Supernatural DVD sets for seasons 1 and 2 for $19.99 each. Cheap! Share the love!

Third, there's a plan afoot to match Terry Pratchett's 500,000 pound donation to Alzheimer's research. (If you're in the US and want to give in dollars using paypal, click here.)

Now, the time-sensitive issue of the day - in a follow-up to LJ's dropping of Basic Personal Accounts, LJ has also removed various Interests from the Popular Interests list includng "bisexuality", "fanfction", "fandom", "boys", "girls", "depression" and "faeries".

Yep, "fandom" no longer exists as a popular interest on LJ.

W?T?F?

What sort of warped business decision led them to think that "fandom" was some sort of danger to the LJ community such that newcomers and interested outsiders and registered users couldn't know that it was popular as an interest 'round these parts?

If you're interested, there's going to be a strike this coming Friday here on LJ. Keep reading for more info.

ONE DAY CONTENT STRIKE

For one day, Friday, March 21, make no posts. Make no comments. Let there be NO new content added to LJ.

SUP obviously does not realize that Basic users have given something of value to them, that it is content that drives the site.

So, for one 24-hour period, from midnight GMT to midnight GMT, let's see how many people we can get to pledge to contribute NO CONTENT.

This will create a permanent downward spike in the daily-posts statistics, a permanent reminder of the power of the userbase.

Full information at The Fox's Den.

SPREAD THE WORD!


<b><center>ONE DAY CONTENT STRIKE</center></b> For one day, <b>Friday, March 21</b>, make no posts. Make no comments. Let there be NO new content added to LJ. SUP obviously does not realize that Basic users have given something of value to them, that it is content that drives the site. So, for one 24-hour period, <a href="http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/fixedtime.html?year=2008&month=3&day=21&hour=0&min=0&sec=0">from midnight GMT to midnight GMT</a>, let's see how many people we can get to pledge to contribute NO CONTENT. This will create a permanent downward spike in the daily-posts statistics, a permanent reminder of the power of the userbase. Full information at <a href="http://beckyzoole.livejournal.com/394548.html">The Fox's Den</a>. <b>SPREAD THE WORD!</b>

ETA at 3:50 PM - the interests seem to be back on the list - I wonder if the griping and threat about Make No Content Friday made a difference. I'm still taking Friday off from content-generation, and also from generating page views on LJ, because if you're here and logged in and doing something like reorganizing your tags or userpics, you're creating page-views, even if you're not making content. Instead, I'm going to spend an hour or so with a list of the RSS feeds I currently read on LJ, and import all of them to GoogleReader. Good to have another option, at least.

Comments

[schmoo999.livejournal.com]

Hee..just a heads up, I have Fan Fiction listed still in my interests. So with the two words separated it still can be listed as for the others. LJ..for shame:P

[heidi8.livejournal.com]

You can still list them and clicking on them still enables you to find others with the same interests. It's just that LJ is screwing around with the matrixes that showcase what interests are listed as most popular - and I bet that if a few thousand of us changed ours to say "fan fiction" instead, they'd bar that too.

[phoenixsong]

I'm on board, and I just reposted the links in a public post on my LJ.

This is insane on their part. *rages*

[annearchy.livejournal.com]

LJ hates faeries?? But...but...that's just stupid.

This content strike sounds like a plan.

[spare-change.livejournal.com]

I've talked about this elsewhere, but I really think putting this in a broader context would help. Russian users have been complaining for years now about SUP's contempt of its userbase. SUP doesn't care about its customers, and it certainly doesn't care about fandom. It's interested in advertisers and competing with Myspace and Facebook.

I believe in protest where it can be effective, and I don't think this will be. Even 6A didn't blink an eye when many people deleted their LJ for a day during the breastfeeding userpic kerfluffle. And when it comes to SUP ... keep in mind these are the same people who called the Russians who complained about them "assholes." Yes, they called their customers assholes. In a public post. And they've stated publicly that they are not answerable to their customers.

[heidi8.livejournal.com]

I definitely agree with you that on a personal level, or a professional level, SUP won't care, but a significant drop in posts and comments, even if it's for a single day, will mess with their stats and their ALEXA numbers, and even if they try to mask that in the docs they provide to potential advertisers, Google Stats and ALEXA are outside determinors, and it'll show up there for years and be very obvious for at least a month or three.

[spare-change.livejournal.com]

Oh, I didn't know that. Thanks for explaining1 I agree that in this way, the protest will definitely have an impact, but it does still seem like a rather oblique way of achieving it. I mean, if it makes such a big difference, then why didn't the breastfeeding protest work? And to what extent are such numbers going to be mitigated by all the people posting about the protest and posting directly before and after to remind people about it?

So why not extend the protest for a week? Or, since LJ is only going to get worse, not better ... why not just extend it permanently and leave for another journaling service? ;D When SUP bought out LJ, people brushed aside the concerns and warnings of Russian LJ users, even though they have far more at stake than we do. So I guess at this point I'm thinking of that old fable about the scorpion and the frog -- if we continue to stay here, are we really entitled to surprise and outrage when SUP continues to act exactly as we were amply warned it would? :/

[sundancekid.livejournal.com]

Do you have a link to where they've called customers assholes or stated that they're not answerable to their customers? I'd be interested in seeing it straight from the horse's mouth.

[spare-change.livejournal.com]

Both were in Russian, which I don't speak, but they were linked and discussed by Russian LJers in English. I'd have to do some searching to find the one about SUP calling his users assholes (it was right after the 2006 buyout, and one of them posted to his personal LJ that he didn't care about the thousands of Russian "assholes" who were complaining). My browser is being super-slow right now, so I'd rather not do that search because it's going to take me a long time and I have a lot of work to do this morning. No-LJ-ads and LJspeaks would probably be the places to look, if you want to do it yourself.

As for the second one, I just went to get the link from the discussion in LJspeaks and ... it's been deleted! WTF? It was available a day ago. I have no idea what's going on or why that was deleted. >:(

Anyway, the post itself was quoting a news article in which Nosik defended deleting the accounts and said that there was no reason to have informed customers beforehand. In the comments, a Russian user said that he had had a conversation (which he linked to, but it was in Russian) with Nosik several months back in which Nosik argued that he shouldn't have to answer to customers, under the logic that you wouldn't go to your bank and expect your bank manager to explain the bank's policies. (??? Um ... why not?)

Anyway, those are just a couple of minor examples, really ... the problems with SUP go much much much deeper than that, as some quick googling will show. So I've been really confused as to why fandom hasn't been paying attention to everything Russian LJers have been trying to tell us about SUP for years now. :/

[sundancekid.livejournal.com]

OK, thanks! I appreciate you checking. :)

If that's really true, that's pretty disheartening. I knew Russian users weren't happy with SUP, but I admit, I was so pleased with their advisory board I really thought our new corporate overlords might not be so evil. *sigh*

[spare-change.livejournal.com]

Actually, I ended up doing an "asshole" search anyway, and I did find more references to it by Russian LJers. The problem seems to be that it was *so* well known amongst Russian LJers unhappy about the SUP sale that it's hard to find an actual link to it! I could just skim through the LJ in question, but again, I don't read Russian.

I was so pleased with their advisory board I really thought our new corporate overlords might not be so evil.

Well ... think of it this way. Russia is in the top five most dangerous places for journalists in the world. LJ is the primary blogging platform in Russia, and is a big part of alternative media/civil society there. SUP is a successful company in a country where business corruption is the norm. One of its heads is an oligarch with ties to Putin. Putin wants to crack down on journalism (and some don't think it's a coincidence that the sale was publicized on the same day of the controversial Russian election results). LJ is now subject to Russian laws that permit the successor to the KGB to datamine its data. There have already been privacy issues with SUP. Etc.

You can find better summaries here:
http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/10/25/opinion/edmorozov.php
http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/2006/10/25/turmoil-in-the-zhezhe/
http://www.informationweek.com/blog/main/archives/2007/12/is_livejournal.html

But my point is, if we look at the larger context of civil society in Russia, the fandom complaints seem a bit parochial, to me.

Anyway, have some more links:

http://eng.cnews.ru/news/top/indexEn.shtml?2008/03/13/291948
There is nothing unusual in closing of basic account registration, says Anton Nosik, head of the blog service at Sup. [...] ‘We do not consider it necessary to inform those, who have not opened a basic account during 9 years of LiveJournal’s existence, that there is no such an opportunity any longer’.

info on sleazy things that SUP has done to their Russian userbase in the past:
http://community.livejournal.com/no_lj_ads/tag/sup

kgb datamining:
http://krow.livejournal.com/567226.html
"since the segment is controlled by a company based in Russia, they must provide information to FSB (Federal Security Bureau (former KGB)) such detail of information about the users, that it would probably be constituted a privacy violation by US laws. Now that whole LJ is owned by a Russia-based company, all accounts are subject to this."

one Russian user's response to all this, which I think applies to a lot of fandom as well:
http://brad.livejournal.com/2368071.html?thread=14793799&format=light&style=mine#t14793799
When the first deal with SUP was in progress (and yes, you did participate in it), did you hear about the discussion in the Russian-language sector of LJ? Did you notice that people were desperately trying to find other platforms - and, true, there are none that could harbor not a set of separate individuals but a working network? Did you understand that people were worrying about a good (sometimes huge) part of their social existence, a part of their life? And that no Russian intellectual, or even an approximate intellectual, independently of other tastes, political stance, or anything else, had any trust whatsoever in SUP? If you did notice that, tell us why you endorsed the deal. If you did not, then you are, I am sorry, an incompetent after-the-fact mourner.

[ani-bester.livejournal.com]

Yep, "fandom" no longer exists as a popular interest on LJ

See I find it odd that so many fandomers are upset over that. Bisexuality and what not ok, but the fandom specific stuff?

Why?
here's the thing, when people have the LJ's found by people IRL, 90% freak like the world ended, pull the LJ lock it up, go underground, and more general flailing.

Fandomers themselves are not wanting The World at large to know we exist on a personal level, so given our own attitude why do we expect SUP to want The World at large to know about us?

Why are we upset that SUP just made it harder for us to be noticed. Based on people's reactions when they are noticed by unwanted parties, we should appreciate that.

Heck the entire initial fall out with LJ was because crazy fanatics found fandom and did not approve and put the pressure of the legal system upon LJ.
To me, this looks like SUP just took steps to protect fandom for that happening again . . .

So I mean I don't know, either we are a secret handshake society and should appreciate SUP efforts to hide us or we are not and IMHO people should be a bit more willing to be a bit more open with fandom.

But I think this attitude I'm seeing is kinda ironic.

Now the other things, again, ok yeah, my point is just about the fandom and the fanfiction and such.

[heidi8.livejournal.com]

No, they all matter - and I'm more affronted by the removal of Depression and Bisexuality and Boys and Girls than I am by the removal of "fandom". I highlighted "fandom" because I'm not one of those who thinks that fannish participation is something to default to hide-and-do-not-talk-about because it's very difficult for people to first discover fan-communities unless someone talks about it. Some fandomers don't want the World At Large to know about fandom - I don't feel that way. I don't want fandom to be a secret handshake thing. If the Washington Post hadn't posted about the Yahoo community Harry Potter for Grownups back in the summer of 2000, I wouldn't have found fandom, or at least I wouldn't have found it when I did - so I credit the mainstream media for enabling me to find this community that's shaped my life in such amazing ways.

[ani-bester.livejournal.com]

highlighted "fandom" because I'm not one of those who thinks that fannish participation is something to default to hide-and-do-not-talk-about because it's very difficult for people to first discover fan-communities unless someone talks about it

My issue is still though, that a lot of people in freak out moral outrage mode over this are and have hidden their stuff. To me it strikes me as disengenious, in all honesty, the way fandom is handleing this (except in cases of A: open fans, B: non open fans protesting the other isses, but I don't see a lot of that)

However, my big issue is I think it's really ultimately, not that important. The outcome of what SUP did is . . . certain things no longer look popular on some place that most people, judging from comments, didn't even know existed.

Fandom has freaked over every minor thing and at this point, I think we lost credibility. LJ/6A/SUP can't sneeze without fandom loosing it so at this point if I were an admin I'd be like "yeah well, fandom will freak, but so what, the freak out no matter what we do." There's no way to tell what is important to fandom and what is just hysteria. I mean what'll we do to protest if they make those things unsearchable?

And also *meh* I don't know. I just can't get so worked up over what some Russian company is doing on a site that I can just leave if it comes to that.

[boniblithe.livejournal.com]

This strike idea sounds to me like it has the same weakness as the "don't buy gas" idea. To be effective, it has to be widespread; the spreading of it means an increase in posting prior to the "strike" day, then a 24 hour pause - which will be interestingly affected by worldwide time zones, of course - and then an increase in posting the day after as everyone makes up for the day off (LOL).

And ultimately, you're either leaving, or you're staying. A permanent downswing carries a lot more weight than a one day hiatus; from a stats reporting standpoint, that one day gets averaged (or median-ed, making the outlier even less relevant) into a weekly/monthly/quarterly/yearly number in reporting, and is unlikely to have significant impact on the overall given the prementioned spikes in posting before and after.

[heidi8.livejournal.com]

I'm staying because I have too many images here to really want to spend the time moving them, and I have a permanent account so I'm not giving them any more $ to keep those photos here, organized with consistent urls.

But the thing about the "gas" issue is this: I definitely agree with you that on a personal level, or a professional level, SUP won't care and it won't make a long-term difference, but a significant drop in posts and comments, even if it's for a single day, will mess with their stats and their ALEXA numbers, and even if they try to mask that in the docs they provide to potential advertisers, Google Stats and ALEXA are outside determinors, and it'll show up there for years and be very obvious for at least a month or three. If they have advertisers who are lookng at real-time numbers on Friday and seeing them to be lower than what LJ has led them to expect, they might not be so willing to spend mega-ad-dollars here on LJ, which will impact LJ. Alas, I think that if something like that happened, we'd probably never know about it.

[boniblithe.livejournal.com]

but a significant drop in posts and comments, even if it's for a single day, will mess with their stats and their ALEXA numbers,

But really, how much more than servers going down for maintenance, or a holiday slowdown? Friday March 21st is Good Friday, after all. And also, as I said, any dip would likely be offset by a slight surge before and after while everyone who participated, talks about it.

Advertisers don't look at single days. They look at long term usage, and they look ahead at forecasting - are upward trends likely to continue, will they get bang for their buck by getting on the train now? What happened on one day is a drop in the ocean.

I'm not saying people shouldn't do it if it makes them feel better, just that, I don't expect anything to come of it in the bigger picture. The only way to make a real difference is a decline in the number of users, esp. in desirable demographics, and less money from users to the pockets of SUP.

[takemejustasiam.livejournal.com]

I don't understand the removal of "fandom" from the popular interests list. That was one of the main reasons for joining LJ in the first place. So I had somewhere to talk about my pop culture interests with like minded people as well as not subjecting my family to my fandom craziness. Though I do find the removal of "bisexuality", "boys" and "girls" to be more offensive. Shouldn't this be a place where you can be yourself? Ugh, I don't know. It seems like LJ is always doing something to piss off their customers. Maybe one day everyone will move over to greatest journal and never look back.

[heidi8.livejournal.com]

GJ has pretty much crashed, though. IJ has traffic and usability at the moment, but I'm not in love with the name and the theming.

I agree wiht you about the terms removed - but the good news is, it looks like they're back! Yay for LJ (did I just say that out loud?)

[kennahijja.livejournal.com]

Yay for the box! I just saw that on the refugees comm over on IJ and was about to write it up as a post :). You're a worksaver ;).

[heidi8.livejournal.com]

And you! Thanks for discovering that the interests are back! Hurrah!

[lunalovegoddess.livejournal.com]

Posted to mine. Thanks for the heads-up. It seems like I hear everything from my flist before LJ.

[heidi8.livejournal.com]

: sings "That's what flists are for!"

[jiggery-pokery.livejournal.com]

The interests are back. Turns out that fandom as such was never censored (well, it might have been, but it never made the "most popular" list so we shan't know); it was fanfiction instead, and fandom is merely a widely-propagated typo.

I am still very tempted to strike in response to the removal of Basic accounts going forward and just for having filtered at all, even if only very temporarily.