ziasudra

If you can only read one post today, go read this one.

As you may have noticed on news, voting for LiveJournal's User-Representative Election has begun. Check out the candidates' platforms here.

Me? I'm casting my first category vote for legomymalfoy. On a personal level, because I've "known" her from various online circles for a few years now, and she's definitely a person of integrity.

Specific to LiveJournal, she's a member of the LJ Abuse Team (a volunteer position), and despite much mudslinging against volunteers for playing a part in various LJ incidents in recent years, what I've learned is that legomymalfoy always stood her ground as an advocate for LJ users. She might not be able to override 6Apart's — and now SUP's — many recent head-scratch-inducing decisions regarding changing LJ's interface or infrastructure, but keep in mind, even brad's advice against elimination of new basic accounts could not stop SUP from taking that option away, so blaming LJ Abuse Team for instigating incidents such as Strikethrough is pointing the fingers at the wrong suspect, imho.

What's more, I got to know legomymalfoy a bit in a grassroots/social advocacy setting. Back when Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans in 2005, she created and ran one of the larger LJ communities dealing with getting words out about accessing various help efforts. It's a rusty community now, but through it I was connected to and got involved in building this wiki database that helped keep track of various colleges and universities offering help to displaced students affected by the hurricane. legomymalfoy knows how to mobilize the demographic of LiveJournal users to work toward a cause, and it's encouraging to know that a candidate running for a LiveJournal advisory position has a deep enough understanding of LJ's userbase to know how to play to its strengths.

Currently, legomymalfoy is ahead in votes. But she needs 50% of total votes to win outright (without the need to go into runoff elections). What I'm encouraging is for you to go read the candidates' platforms. Get to know them before casting your votes. And if you happen to agree with me that legomymalfoy is both a viable and qualified candidate, then I hope you would show your support through voting in the LJ elections.

Apparently, LJ has gotten rid of the option to create future Basic (no-pay, ad-free) Accounts. If you haven't heard yet, it's because this was—and in a way, still is—never announced. A small reference was made in this LJ news post that The Powers That Be have "streamlined" the registration process. Elsewhere, this was explained as "simplifying" the registration for a new account.

Um, yeah, I can see how *three* options was so very confusing that they had to pare it down to two choices: Plus Account, or Paid Account. [/sarcasm]

My main objection to this behind-everyone's-back move? There isn't a hint of communication between SUP and its user base, the LiveJournal account holders. I also object to what in effect was a decision to put making money in the short-term over capitalizing on the resources, content, and community that is LJ that would lead to more sustainable long-term revenues. But that takes a backseat to the total lack of official announcement about SUP's decision to do away with the option to create any more new Basic Accounts.

Others have put it much more eloquently. Here are some very useful links. Please do take the time to read and understand the current climate of LiveJournal under SUP. I value LJ as a community and would hate to see the sense of community gone because of some higher-up's management disasters.

Links, more or less in chronological order:

• On March 12, LiveJournal posted this rather innocuous looking news post.
  
  
• Somewhere in the comment threads of this post, we discover that it's no longer possible to create new Basic Accounts.
  
  
• More people start to notice.
  
  
• LJ staff jasonshellen was the only one responding to comments. He pointed people to this FAQ answer thread explaining the changes in account types available for new users. *Note: this is hidden in the FAQ section, never meant to see the light of day except through specific FAQ searches.
  
  
• For referencing purposes, here's a list of Jason's responses to the same news post here.
  
  Meanwhile, we find out the backstory:
  
• LJ founder brad posted an entry saying he advised against removal of Basic Accounts when he first heard it as a rumor, but didn't hear more about it despite being on the LJ Advisory Board.
  
  
• Similarly, another LJ Advisory Board member, danahboyd, was also against the idea.
  
  SUP's response
  
• The copious complaints were noticed, and SUP updated news with another entry—except they still didn't explain what regarding account structures were changed.
  
  
• Though a bit late, they did make the official announcement over at ru_news. According to this Russian user's comment, the reaction over at the Russian corner of LJ isn't pretty.
  
  
• C-News Russia has an article about this, in which SUP's Head of Blog Service Anton Nosik is quoted. It's all about the money, no surprises here.
  
  Some resource links:
  
• stewardess tracks past LJ "fiascos" since 2005.
  
  
• Someone linked me to this post. I find it eloquent and (regarding the community aspect) personally identifiable.
  
  

Now, as I stated in my comment to the second news post, my main gripes with SUP are their lack of communication and lack of understanding of the LJ culture. Making a change that would in effect alter the "landscape" of LJ? I consider this important news, and would like to learn about this publically and not through the grapevines or discover it hidden away somewhere in a FAQ answer.

The C-News article further solidifies my belief that The Powers That Be don't really understand the LJ culture. Anton Nosik defends the lack of announcement by saying,

"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."

Um, sorry to burst your bubble, but if none of us on LJ has opened a Basic Account in the past 9 years, then where do we come from? I've opened multiple accounts since I created ziasudra, a majority of which I don't use any longer, but that doesn't mean I won't wake up tomorrow and decide to create yet another LJ account.

At the end of the day, SUP will make whatever revenue it hopes to make through instituting all these "changes." But it'll do that at the expense of LiveJournal itself. By adding extra hurdles to attract users—the content providers and the eyeballs to see/click on the ads—to the site, SUP is diminishing the community aspect of LJ. And LiveJournal was founded and is known for its communities. Maybe down the road LiveJournal will become much more profitable than now as a cesspool of ads so that even empty journals might bring in more revenue per year through the "explore LJ" random journal-highlighting function. But rest assured that should LJ ever stoop to that level, I will have been long gone from being an LJ user.