crowdog66

Was it effective? I don't know, and I doubt I'll ever know. I do know that membership at InsaneJournal has jumped by over 100,000 members in the last several days, and I think that that's a very telling number. If LJ is smart, they're paying attention to it.

I'm taking a wait-and-see attitude right now. Perhaps I'm overly optimistic to hope that LJ will actually get its act together. But I'm willing to give them another chance.

I'll be mirroring posts both here and on IJ until December, at which point I'll make my decision, and I think that's a wise course of action in general. I'd recommend emailing the relevant people at LJ:

marta@livejournalinc.com
feedback@livejournal.com

and letting them know what your concerns are, if you're so inclined. In the end that might be much more effective than the Content Strike.

There's no reason, at least in my opinion, to desert LJ just yet. I'll be putting the next several months to use by forming a solid Friends network over on IJ and keeping track of any LJ friends who jump ship.

However, if they pull another boneheaded maneuver like letting Nosik speak his mind, or censoring interests... I'll probably be gone so fast that all you'll see is a Laurie-shaped blur of dust where I used to be.

Finally.

LiveJournal apologizes to its user base... somewhat.

They're still not addressing the censorship issue or the antagonistic remarks of Mr. Nosik (who offers his rebuttal here), but at least it's a start.

They've bought themselves some time with me. For now, I'm not leaving LiveJournal, but I'll be mirroring all my posts over at InsaneJournal until further notice.

And I encourage people to participate in the Content Strike. I think we need to show LiveJournal that we are serious about wanting change and that we are willing to act on our convictions.

Apologies for the long and uncut post (insert all the double entendres you want), but as you've probably gathered by now I think this is an important issue. The following explains the Content Strike and more importantly, WHY it is taking place.

Thank you for your patience, Constant Readers. If you'd like to copy-and-paste the following into your own LJ, you can find the code at the bottom of this post in untasted's LJ.

*********************************************************************



For those of you who don't already know, there has been a strike scheduled for Friday, March 21st, 2008, during which we hope to have many members of LiveJournal provide LJ with absolutely no content for twenty-four hours. This means no posting and no commenting. If you post elsewhere and have it set up to be posted through a feed on LiveJournal, don't do it. Stay away from LiveJournal for twenty-four hours. That can't be too hard, can it? I know some of you are probably quite active on LiveJournal and will find it hard to stay away for an entire day, just as I will, but this is something that needs to be done, to show the people running LiveJournal that we're watching the changes they are making, that we're paying attention, that we're discontent, and that we want to be heard and taken in to consideration. We are not simply users who can be tossed to the side and ignored. We are the people who make up LiveJournal. Without us, without the content we create, without our words, our voices, our creativity, our participation, there would be no LiveJournal. This is a fact, and it needs to be realized and understood and then taken in to consideration when making decisions regarding the way that LiveJournal is run. The strike is only a few days away, so there isn't all too much time to prepare. While this is unfortunate, it isn't enough to keep this strike from taking place. It will take place, the second it is meant to, and it would be best to have as many people take part as possible. Please, spread the word. Spread it fast. There are only a few days to organize this. If you find that you care about LiveJournal or care about the people you interact with on LiveJournal or simply want it to remain a place where you can entertain yourself without constant censorship and money-hungry practices being thrown in without the consideration of those who use the service, act now. If you don't wish to spread the word, that is fine, but please: refrain from using LiveJournal on Friday, March 21st. Do something else for a change. It's for a good cause. (:

For background on this strike and why it is being held, please read the following posts:
http://beckyzoole.livejournal.com/394838.html
http://beckyzoole.livejournal.com/395310.html

To find out exactly when the strike begins and ends, depending on where you are located, please see this:
http://beckyzoole.livejournal.com/395125.html

What's this about?

* It's about free and ad-free LiveJournal accounts being abolished for new members, ignoring the advice from the newly-formed Advisory Board.
* It's about LJ staff trying to sneak this decision in under the radar, and when people found out, telling the users it was done 'to make the signup process less confusing'.
* It's about LJ staff failing to apologize for trying to hide the facts from view and for lying about the actual reasons for their actions.
* And finally, it's about the latest decision to hide certain user interests from the list of Most Popular Interests, some of them being fanfiction, bisexuality, sex and depression. This decision was not announced or explained in any way. Users found out for themselves.

-Taken from the journal of m03m

AND ICONS TO SUPPORT THIS:

Apparently the filter on the Popular Interests list, which screened out terms like "bisexuality", "depression", and "faeries", has been removed.

It's a start, but it still doesn't explain why the LJ staff put the filter in there in the first place.

EDITED TO ADD: Here is the original post on changelog about the filter being inplemented on March 6th:

http://community.livejournal.com/changelog/6258870.html

There's no way in hell they can claim that this was a "mistake".