The future of lj?

[brightly_lit]

So ... how are people feeling about this whole lj-servers-moving-to-Russia thing? I saw on the home page a lot of people were afraid lj would abruptly shut down without warning. Just in case that does happen, I made a dreamwidth account--brightly_lit, same as here--where I'd love to hook up again with you ladies if you make the switch, as well

Comments

[madebyme_x]

I've been largely absent from LJ due to the holidays, but I've seen a couple of people on my flist mention this.

I would hate to lose touch with all my friends here if something drastic does happen to LJ (I have files of my fics, but no friend back up!) I really don't know much about dreamwidth but I like the idea of opening an account as a sort of friends back up. I think I'll have to look into opening an account and seeing how easy it is to download all my fics too.

I certainly hope nothing will change, and I haven't seen any of my flist say they are leaving (yet!), but it's not great to hear about people leaving the platform.

[brightly_lit]

I know that opening a dreamwidth account is really easy, and I hear backing up your lj is also easy! I think they have a whole system set up just for that. (They use the same base code.)

It seems like business as usual among my friends here, which is great! But it's always good to have a contingency plan ...

[madebyme_x]

Agreed! I think it's a good idea to have a back up plan, as I really would hate to lose contact with all my friends here. I have no intention of leaving, but I'd rather play it safe than sorry.

I'm going to look into it, and try to get an account sorted. I'll be in touch in the near future. Take care :)

[cuddyclothes]

The LJ servers have always been in Russia.

[brightly_lit]

... But this just isn't true?? Livejournal was invented by an American (Brad Fitzpatrick). It expanded into an American company called Danga Interactive, which was headquartered in Oregon (you can google it, and all of this). In 2005, another American company called Six Apart purchased lj. Here is the post Fitzpatrick made about it: http://news.livejournal.com/82926.html As he explains in the post, lj then moved to San Francisco

[septembers_coda]

Yeah, I've noticed that my flist doesn't seem worried, either! Most of the posts and comments I've seen on this subject are elsewhere, and range from "the LJ sky is FALLING! Run to Dreamwidth as fast as you can!" to "they said LJ was over before, ignore them, Dreamwidth sucks". So who knows? But you're so right on "better safe than sorry," and as you've said before, LJ does get buggy at times and it seems like it's no one's priority to fix it... so when I get a minute, Imma make myself a Dreamwidth account and see about copying everything over.

I'm interested to see what others think about this... thanks for the PSA/poll. :-D

[brightly_lit]

It seems like most people never look at the homepage? I never used to, either, but I've started to, because sometimes there are interesting things there. If I hadn't looked at the homepage, I'd never have heard about all this! There wasn't a peep about it on my friends page.

As ever, as you mention, there's lots of opinions on both sides. And as ever, I'm trying to keep a rational middle approach. Mass hysteria seems kind of silly, but completely ignoring something a bit concerning also seems foolish. So yeah, making contingency plans is ALWAYS a good idea, imo. Better to do so at a distant early warning than when the shit hits the fan.

[septembers_coda]

Yeah, I'm noticing again in this exchange what our mutual journalism background does for us. Not that people HAVE to care about where the LJ servers are, but knowing the facts about something that's as important to me as LJ? It's worth looking at both sets of opinions, which I thought was well-represented by your very non-mass-hysteria AND non-blinder-wearing post. :-D

[brightly_lit]

Yeah, facts seem to be ... optional? If you're going to state something as fact--especially if you're going to DEBATE something as fact--then you better damn well have your facts straight. I think our journalism background makes that obvious to us, and the more I see people debate politics and everything else online, the more I see others just don't see it that way. But if people don't have facts to agree upon to start with, how can people ever come to a mutual understanding

[emmatheslayer]

Yeah I have herd a lot of lj Russia has been a hoax but it's always good to back up I don't know who will staying but I hope my flist does

Hugs I am on dw but have no post Same name as my lj

[brightly_lit]

I don't have any posts on dw yet, either. Glad to know you're over there and your user name there!

[ladygreytowers]

I know the LJ servers have always been in Russia. I think IMO that people are just running scared and not thinking things through. What with the investigation about the election hacking and trump being trump. I don't have a dw account and I find it hard to believe that people in Russia are all that interested; in what we all get up to, in our fandoms and talking to each other about our favorite actors/actresses. Russia is not going to be getting any state secrets from any of these things. Also if they want to waste time reading LJ journal entries. Go for it! It will bore them to death as well as keeping them occupied and out of mischief

[brightly_lit]

Actually, lj was owned by American companies until 2007, when it was bought by a Russian company, upon which some of the servers moved there, but others (seemingly those serving the English-speaking users) remained here. Here are some links where you can read up about it

[alyndra]

Woah, wait, when did LJ ever notify us of getting tagged in a post? I don't think it ever did!

I've had a dreamwidth account practically since it started, same name, love the site although SPN fandom doesn't seem to be active there at all!

[septembers_coda]

I always got notified if someone tagged me in a post, until recently. Now I do about 30-40% of the time, I'd say. I think you can choose whether you want to be notified or not in User Settings.