talking about that thing.

So. Lj's new "flag content" approach to keeping the kiddies out of porn and away from offensiveness. Your thoughts?


It seems like they've tried to think this one out, but still comes across like they're trying to be the internet mommy. And it still seems like there's massive potential for abuse and far too much subjective terminology. "Offensive content," what?

And though members who put their real ages down (as underage) when creating a journal can't get into flagged-and-cut posts, members who put down fake ages are a-okay. Which makes me wonder if there's been any change in policy towards the pro-anorexia comm's encouragement of underage users to create journals with fake birthdates.


Either way: Not likin' it.


ETA: Lj's trying to clarify things rather quickly this time: There's already a post on flagging concerns. The post says that the adult content label you can put on your journal is voluntary; that the user's age is based on how they signed up, not what they put at whim; that flag abusers will lose flagging rights and that only a certain number of flags may come from a journal per day.


Problems, still:

There's still been no clear-cut content policy, but we're still supposed to tag and filter our (or others') work based on its level of appropriateness.

There's still no appeals process.

"Hate speech" is somehow limited only to speech against ethnic, racial, and religious groups.

The "safe search" option for viewing offensive/adult/whatever content is automatically put on all journals, rather than giving the user a chance to choose what they'll see--something that people who don't watch news or lj_biz may never notice. There's a big contradiction, as dormouse_in_tea pointed out: If Lj claims this isn't supposed to affect anyone over 18, then why is the filter automatically on?

Options/coding FUBAR, ahoy! We're to report personal harassment with a button that doesn't exist.

We still don't know if banned users can flag your posts/journal.

We still don't know what would stop a group with a vendetta from sweeping through the journals of people with posts or ideologies they dislike and getting everything of theirs bumped out of the average user's search results or put under a lock which, for all it shows from the front, may contain anything from political commentary to Bush/Cheney watersports & scatfic?

We still don't know how many flags it'll take to get a journal reviewed.

We as journal owners will not be informed if a post of ours is flagged, locked, filtered, or any of the above--only if our full journals or communities get locked.

Lj says it's voluntary now. How long until it's mandatory? Have we any reason to trust that it won't ever be mandatory? (Do I really need to answer that question?)

And who's to say that people with content flagged as "adult content," "explicit content," or "offensive content" won't be the first ones to get the boot should Lj start another Great Internet Cleansing attempt?

The discontent, it grows.

Semi-unlinkable and definitely uncommentable announcement

Press release

Movable Type founder Mena Trott's blog entry

New CEO's statement (full of hot air & signifying nothing). Somehow I doubt he'll get fandom and LiveJournal.

(ETA corrected Mena's company name)

Details and links in my journal.

Slashdot: Your Rights Online: LiveJournal Says Users are Responsible for Content of Links.

Currently on the front page.

over on LJ, liz_marcs asks for clarification on the linking policy. the answer MELTED MY BRAIN.

full back-and-forth with support at the link, but these are key quotes from the abuse team:

LiveJournal's policy regarding links in user journals and communities is that posting links must be treated in precisely the same way that posting the material itself would be treated.

(and)

Since LiveJournal users are held responsible for the content of their journals and for the material to which they link, and due to the fact that the internet changes frequently and links may change or become outdated, it is a good policy to check and update your links frequently.

sigh.

eta now with screencaps.

femmequixotic has posted a summary of her conversations with LJ's "Rachel" who has answered some (though not all) of her questions regarding what content is/is not allowed on LiveJournal, and how further violations will be handled. Rachel has yet to provide her promised response to the remaining questions.

We begged and begged, and begged some more, and then had to delete every subsequent post for being exactly what we'd begged you all not to do. In hopes of giving everyone what they're looking for, we've set this community on moderated status, and have created a new, off-topic community where you can say all the stuff you are clearly itching to say. We have also edited our community info to better express its purpose.

Here it is: eljay_expats

marginalia and I have set it up, and we're hoping some of you might offer to take it over for us. *dangles keys* Comment if you're interested.

Enjoy!

People are getting the new warning letters from LJ, and someone sent me links to two: cluegirl (here) and vikingcarrot (here).

Note (edited 8/16): One user received her letter for an image she had already voluntarily deleted before the new policy was announced. The other had previously edited her post to add a statement of the character's age.

I'm making this statement, because I think there is a bit of misunderstanding about what this community is actually for. This community is not for discussing 1001 Ways LiveJournal and/or Six Apart are Wrong/Stupid/The Man. We may think they are Wrong/Stupid/The Man. You may think they are Wrong/Stupid/The Man. This is, however, not what the community was created to discuss.

From the community's user info:

This community is for discussing and sharing information about the recent fannish journal suspensions at LiveJournal and subsequent related issues of LiveJournal policy.

Please feel free to join and contribute any new info you have. Feel free to write up summaries, give links, or suggest a response. Please only create a new post if you have information to offer that has not already been shared, or further insights that you believe would be truly useful or enlightening to the community.

I am here now to make a plea. Please, please consider the purpose of this community before making a post. We have been fairly lenient so far in allowing questionably on-topic posts, and have let through some fairly tangential discussion with a view toward making this place as friendly as possible, but we're becoming weary, and our good will is waning.

If you think your post may be off-topic, don't post it. Please. If you are looking for a place where your post might be on-topic, check out the_lj_refuge.

ETA: what she said.

On a separate note, we're hearing reports of users freezing discussion in their threads. This is not on. Please stop it. ETA: For the record, as far as we're concerned, disallowing comments entirely on an entry is the same thing.

ETA: (hopefully the last) Please, please just post actual news, or at least things that are actually new. Please do not make a post with the sole purpose of complaining about or to LiveJournal. I don't know how to be any clearer about this.

Thank you.

If this is out of line, please delete but I thought this would be a good place to share the insights of a fellow fan who has been more on the outskirts of all this mess, which I think lends her a bit of perspective.

Semantics: Pr0n vs. Fanart

( Images may not be worksafe )

The two icons under the lj-cut are, one, a default icon in use by a current member of various racist communities on livejournal, which depicts a woman's naked torso with black swastikas concealing her nipples: the other, a photograph of a newborn baby suckling, mouth so small it cannot cover the areola of the woman's nipple.

I recently got myself unsuspended from livejournal to save everything I could to various locations, which I have now done, and then got myself suspended again. Given the mess Six Apart are in trying to persuade people to stay, I wondered briefly if they'd change their minds about the obscenity of public breastfeeding, but evidently not.

Six Apart: where breastfeeding is obscene, but Nazis are tolerable.

Yes, as I thought when I first saw that little diddy about linking has no been confirmed. If you LINK to a site that contains 'objectional material', whether you linked to that image or not, you can be banned. Even if you didn't know the 'objectional material' was hosted on that site.

Link to posting on LJ

Just when you thought LJ couldn't get more stupid.


ETA An apology and clarification from Anildash (sp?)

Firefox News: Editorial -- Livejournal Tries Again to Placate Fans

elaboration is back!

LJ has just updated lj_biz with "Process Change for Non-Photographic Images" here: http://community.livejournal.com/lj_biz/242136.html

Go read. It'll be interesting to see what people have to say.

Me, I'm currently in the too little, too late mindset. Not to mention, what's to keep them from (yet again) changing their policies on the fly in the future, especially if it fits their needs? Seems to be a trend with them, no? Hmm...

IJ has upped their limit on Friends List and links.

http://asylums.insanejournal.com/announcements/34573.html

So many of us have been disappointed if not actually repulsed by the unattractive choices of site viewing options offered at InsaneJournal. (If you're unclear what those are, at LiveJournal they are Horizon, Dystopia, Lynx, etc. and are found here. At GJ they are found here).

Well ... you all know who you are! No matter how friendly and welcoming InsaneJournal and its admin Squeaky have been, it's difficult to want to spend much time at a place that hurts the eyes to view.

I've officially requested additional site viewing options to be created. But until this can be done, Snakeling over at IJ has come up with temporary fixes that will work on Firefox, Epiphany and Opera browsers (unfortunately, not on IE):

IJ Site Schemes and How to Modify Them.

I use Firefox and the instructions for installing extensions and creating an eye-pleasing site scheme were a *breeze* to follow. I'm more pleased than I can tell you. Of course ... anytime I want to check IJ at work this won't help, but it'll do until Squeaky manages to update the site opts choices (and I believe he will; he's very customer-friendly and increased the friends limit on unpaid accounts from 100 to 250 nearly as soon as it was requested).

- So the first issues, with regard to the TOS is simply this: do not include anything sexual in relation to those under 18. This is the policy, in simple concepts. Thus -- just don't do it in relation to fandom.

And:

- Is posting a link to prohibited content that is posted elsewhere going to receive the same punishment as it would if the prohibited content were posted on LiveJournal servers?

And this was the response:

In general, yes. In certain cases, for example if there is indication that the content present on the page being linked to was changed to include the prohibited content after the link to it was posted, the actions taken would likely change. In such a case, we would allow the person to remove the link rather than suspend their account, assuming suspension was the normal course of action. Other factors, such as whether or not the user is intentionally linking to content in an attempt to circumvent LiveJournal's Terms of Service, or if some part of a link just incidentally happened to contain a violation, may also effect a decision.

Not happy about that last one, particularly, as I'm sure a lot of people who have been posting their fic/art in other journals and linking to it won't be.

I've been exploring all journaling sites I have right now: JF, IJ, GJ and LJ.
I made a little list about what they can offer and not. I am Free account user, so I can't tell much about Paid and Permanent ones.
You already know LJ, so I didn't make any list for it.

This is not comparison list, no pros and cons, just a list of what they offer.

( JournalFen )

( InsaneJournal )

( GreatestJournal )

I hope you all understand what I meant by some terms, i.e. that I explained right. If you don't understand, feel free to ask.
And if any of you know better, or if I listed something that is wrong, just say. I'll change it. :D

If I find some more I'll add it...

I hope this is okay to post here. And feel free to plug this anywhere you see fit.

On the off chance that anyone wants to relocate to Blurty for whatever purpose, here is a comunity you will want to see.