Response to the Imperial Message of a journalling service going down the tubes

[lavendertook]

Here's what I left in my comment to tonight's monstrosity of LJ customer relations:

Specific problems that I still need addressed and corrected in order to
find LJ a tenable service to participate in are

1) Law does not require an immediate ban of a user who has posted illegal
content, merely removal of the illegal content in order for LJ to legally
protect itself. Is there any reason why LJ cannot remove the entry or
entries in question and permit the user to stay, especially if the intent
was not done with malice or foreknowledge (intent does matter in a US
court of law) ? This first strike and you're out policy makes for a very
hostile user climate.

2) Using terms of artistic merit as part of how LJ determines whether
material is acceptable or not creates an unfriendly user environment for
writers and artists. Setting up LJ Abuse as arbiters of LJ users artistic
endeavors is not acceptable and this is an insult to your customers. It
is not acceptable for LJ to use this as a standard for determining
illegality of a work--use clear legal criteria that does not set up LJ
staff as judges of the quality of creative endeavors.

3) The two LJ users who were suspended for illegal content last week were
following the terms set in prior comments stated on LJ_biz. You have now
said your TOS is not bound by this; however, there was no way for these
users to know that last week. If you wish to show goodwill to your
customer base, due to the lack of transparency clarifications made by
your staff members on LJ_biz caused, you will reinstate these users, with
only the works you deemed illegal deleted. This would have a large
positive impact on the morale of your fandom community user base.

I cannot in good conscience pay for any further services from your
company if these changes are not implemented.

----------------------------------------------------

That's my bottom line that needs to be met if I'm ever to be a paid customer on LJ again. LJ has met one of my prior numbers on the list--they are clear now on what they are banning. LJ is wrong to consider depictions of underage fictional characters having sex as child porn--even US law does not deem it such, but at least LJ's standard is crystal clear now. I deeply disagree with LJ banning depictions of underage sexuality of fictional characters in text and images, but I wouldn't fight them on this, until we fight US law back on this, which is very ambiguous on whether fictional depictions are included under obscenity charges.

And on burr86 who they excuse by "no one is perfect" (are they trying to tell us he's Jack Lemmon?). It's nice to know they excuse him, but that's not really their place. The issue is that fandom does not excuse him and required a really well written apology that we are never going to get because LJ does not seem to think they owe us inferior sorts one. Damn, I'm sorry for anyone who has any of these kind of people in their personal lives--these kind of people who don't know how to apologize are not the kind of people you want to get involved with, seriously. Despite the fact I'd like to see burr86's head handed to him and him kicked out of a job, it's really not an issue--it's for them to worry about their revenue plummeting, not me.

I'm very interested in seeing what response nobelia gets on her letter to the ACLU. *crosses fingers*



LJ STRIKE and FIELDTRIP

So anyone want to go on an LJ Strike with me around the 3 talking points I listed above? I read in some thread that LJ gathers stats for ad revenue on how many entries are being posted on LJ per week and wondering if this is true, but I'm having a hard time digging up info. I'd rather implement an entry strike rather than a temporary journal deletion strike because I think more people would be more comfortable with not posting entries than temporarily deleting their journals, but I still need info to determine if that would be at all effective.

I'm still planning and researching how best to implement a strike, so watch this space.


I hate that this is all coming down during IBARW--I got some entries I need to write up.

Also, I'm getting my GJ all set up here--still lavendertook on GJ, so friend me if you're there, my beloved flist-mates.

ETA: This is a disturbing little fact I had no idea about. If someone is banned, all their comments in everyone else's LJ's they've ever posted in are deleted. So fi you have some cherished conversations in your LJ with a bannded person, you lose those as well. Let's not call this a ban; let's call it cyber disappearing a user. This is so not acceptable--will tack that this porcedure must be revoked to #1.

Comments

[ithiliana.livejournal.com]

I could not believe they linked to a well written letter with clear requests for action and then asked for suggestions!

They make me think of my students when they do not read an assignment.

I'd rather do the entry strike than the temporary deletion--just myself--and given that they give a person 30 days before deletion is permanent, would the deletions even show up in less than 30 days?

I'm wondering how long anything takes to show up on their radar, really....

[lavendertook.livejournal.com]

They make me think of my students when they do not read an assignment.

They do, don't they? Didn't read a damn thing. They've gotten tons of suggestions already in the news and biz comments and many people have sent them emails. You know any new comments and suggestions are just going into their cyber waste baskets.

You're right about the deletions. That's the method the Nipplegate strikers used, and it sure didn't get them anywhere. I just don't know if an entry strike would have any effect yet--or if stopping all activity including commenting would be necessary, or even have an effeect. And yeah, it might make a difference in stats that are important for them, but you can't count on them even noticing with their oh so talented crew. Oy.

[ide-cyan.livejournal.com]

Do you have a direct link to your comment? Because there are 26 pages of comment right now, and your link goes only to the first page.

[ide-cyan.livejournal.com]

PS: There's a typo in a username above: it should read nobelia.

[lavendertook.livejournal.com]

Thank you for the catch--will go fix.

And it's here:
http://community.livejournal.com/lj_biz/241884.html?thread=12988124

[ide-cyan.livejournal.com]

I knew about all the comment disappearing from when it happened on my LJ after Yonmei was suspended over the breastfeeding/obscenity issue.

I mean, when a user is suspended for spamming or posting abusive comments all over the place, it makes sense, but losing everything someone has ever posted because of LJ Abuse's artistic judgement? Just, NO.

[ide-cyan.livejournal.com]

I may comment-spam you with links as I find them... this one's about another company based in San Francisco, but which produces pornography, relating to LJ's worries over obscenity:

http://community.livejournal.com/lj_biz/241884.html?thread=13153500#t13153500

[lavendertook.livejournal.com]

I would love the comment-spam. Thank you!

[ide-cyan.livejournal.com]

Here's an issue with regard to GJ:
http://liz-marcs.insanejournal.com/4747.html

And a good post on the subject of fandom & porn:
http://22by7.livejournal.com/500201.html

which links to this entry:
http://pandarus.livejournal.com/238878.html

[lavendertook.livejournal.com]

Looky at all this stuff below.

Whatchya think?

[ithiliana.livejournal.com]

Go me, I thought to check to see if you were watching or in this comm (I think not) before dropping another link!

http://community.livejournal.com/no_lj_ads/67819.html?style=mine

No lj ads--might have some useful info for you!

[lavendertook.livejournal.com]

Ty! I did scan through a couple pages of that community and the LJ_ad community but didn't turn up anything.

Due to your reminder that deletions have no effect for theirty days, I don't have to look at that option anymore. What info I'm trying to find is if we would be effective by just striking on entry use or would we need to stop all our LJ activity (like commenting on other Lj's) to have a real impact.

And look at this entry from last year from Nipplegate: http://cdaae.blogspot.com/2006/06/from-promoms-media-information-page-on.html

Doesn't it feel like Frodo's, "We're going in circles."

[lavendertook.livejournal.com]

And the comment thread here:http://ljabuse.blogspot.com/2006/05/livejournal-and-customer-relations.html

Bingo!

[lavendertook.livejournal.com]

Everything we need to know is here--an entry strike could indeed be effective. And people commneting when they needed to in other Lj's and old entries wouldn't hurt the stas we're trying to effect. And there's some interesting stuff in these links, especailly from insomnia.

http://www.technorati.com/weblog/2005/08/34.html

"Tomorrow I'll give an update on posting volume, which is a better statistic to track the growth of blogging. Lots of people who start new blogs are kicking tires and thus the numbers displayed above could be indicative of a fad in progress - but watching the posting volume shows how many people are actually blogging on a day-by-day basis. I think that is a much better indicator that people are making blogging a habit and a part of their daily lives. "


http://www.technorati.com/weblog/2005/08/35.html

"Onwards and upwards! This is part 2 of the August 2005 State of the Blogosphere. Part 1 covered the overall growth of the blogosphere in terms of new blogs created. Today I'll discuss the number of posts made each day, also known as posting volume. Just to keep everyone updated on that set of statistics, here's what I wrote back in March, 2005:

To expand on my post yesterday on the overall growth of the number of weblogs, today I'm going to look at another important measure of the growth of the blogosphere, posting volume. A single post is a single entry to a weblog, whether it be a long essay or just a short entry, each is a post, and the posting volume is the aggregate number of posts per day. Just as it is important to note the increased growth in the number of weblogs out there, it is as or more important to see if blogging is a fad or if people are blogging at a sustained rate. The chart below shows that posting volume has been growing. (Compare with the chart from October 2004)"

http://community.livejournal.com/no_lj_ads/48335.html

http://community.livejournal.com/no_lj_ads/48335.html?thread=1058511#t1058511

http://insomnia.livejournal.com/753868.html

http://www.livejournal.com/stats.bml

----------

Do you think Monday Aug 20th--that's a little over a week from now--would be a good time to schedule the strike start date for? I'm afriad if we wait until Sept 1st, we'll lose momentum.

(Though I guess, seeing the controversy originated in the HP community, Sept 1st, might be an appropriate time to start--would rally the HP community anyway.(-; )

Re: Bingo!

[ithiliana.livejournal.com]

Totally awesome! *hands you BINGO prize*

I'm wondering if there isn't a certain summer doldrums or slump going on at the moment anyway that will naturally pick up in September which might make the Augsut 20 date a better one--i.e. the strike plus vacation absences plus summer doldrums etc.--might add up to a bigger rate.

Of course my sense of this is entirely subjective!

And yes, I followed the Nipplegate conflict quite closely (no kids myself, supporter of women's choice, longtime boycotter of Nestles, etc., but something about it really resonated with me), and both strike and boldthrough are totally familiar.

Re: Bingo!

[ithiliana.livejournal.com]

p.s. and again this is just me, but it dawns on me that one um persuasive element we could use is that an entry strike doesn't mean walking away from LJ entirely--we could all catch up on comments we owe our flist!

and replies to comments....!

[delux-vivens.livejournal.com]

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/northcounty/20070808-9999-1mc8cat.html

[lavendertook.livejournal.com]

Thank you! I'm thinking what they're calling male torties should actually be called intersexed torties, though.

Phinny, however, doesn't care, as long as you don't call him late for dinner.