Release 80

[markf]

Release #80 has arrived! Here's the information about the new features and bugfixes that are now live on the site:

Features/changes:

• You can now have your friends page display content from journals and communities based on tags! You can set options to either show only entries with specified tags, or to exclude only entries with specified tags.

Comments

[haruno]

Users who have enabled Comment IP logging will now also see the Country and City information of the commenter. This information is only visible to the journal owner, community owner/maintainers, or author of the entry if it is posted to a community with this feature enabled (only those who can currently see IP information). This feature is providing the publicly available geo-location associated with the IP address in the same way the "location" feature on our Update page currently functions.

Pardon, but if you could please walk me through understanding how this is a positive feature, I'd be much obliged. I now not only can see the country and city of all posters to my journals and communities with IP logging activated, I can also, apparently, see when they've moved (as per say an above comment). And because I decided, or a community decided, to log IP addresses, that information is now granted to them. With no effort

[servidude]

I would love to hear the answer to all these questions.

[kangfany]

Seconded.

[servidude]

WE WISH TO KNOW WHAT IS UP WITH THESE SHENANIGANS :

[eatprettyhearts]

Ditto.

I-- please tell me that there is a reason for this. One I can understand and feel comfortable with. Even when, right now, this is really difficult to believe.

[halcyonism]

Agreeing with you 100%.

Personally, I feel it's an invasion of privacy. If we are not required to provide a valid location when signing up for LiveJournal, why does LiveJournal allow this information to be spread without the user's permission?

We have no option to opt out of this. Many users have been victims of stalking and harassment and this feature will only serve to encourage it. While it has always been possible to attempt to find the locations of IP Addresses, it can now be done without any effort on the user's part whatsoever.

Again, unless I am missing something in LiveJournal's Terms of Services, LiveJournal is breaching its usersbase's privacy by allowing this information to be posted without the user's consent and without any warning prior to this announcement.

[qable]

I can also, apparently, see when they've moved (as per say an above comment).

To clarify my above comment, the current setup shows as (From [IP address] (originally [IP address])), with the IP address numbers still intact and with no mention as to when the user changed IP addresses. The from is where the user currently lives, and the original is in reference to where the user was when they commented on my journal. The only reason I noticed this is because they were the only comments I was seeing that didn't have a city listed, presumably because there isn't enough room for that and a second IP in the same line. It's essentially giving me two locations, but still in IP address form.

It's still creepy and it's still very much a violation of privacy, but it does NOT list when a given person moved. Instead, it gives two IP addresses, which can be used to stalk someone from one location to the next.

[haruno]

Yes, I should have not used when as a time indicator, as it is the improper word -- thank you for clarifying!

[subtlety]

I haven't read absolutely everything said but even if you turn the IP address logging off, everything up until this point is still there. I turned mine off and I can still see the locations of people who commented years ago.

[haruno]

Yes, it is retroactively displayed -- and there is no way I've yet heard of to undo previous posts made with IP Logging turned on. Turning IP Logging off affects the future posts you make, not the past posts you've made or participated in while IP Logging was on.

[vayshti]

The retroactiveness bothers me greatly.

I mod a few communities with IP logging. It was a necessity because I wanted to keep the comms open to anon posters and commenters, but at the same time one of the comms in particular gets a whole lot of anon trolls and antagonistic sock puppets.

Rather than close the community and limit the voices, IP logging as a deterrent was preferable. I often used a 3rd party site to look up IPs but only for those IPs/user-socks who had made themselves problematicBut hey, what do you know, those posts which were made by socklets, who in the past would have had to laboriously compile IP locationgs of their attack victims (and know how to do so) now have an easy out... unless I start making massive holes in the community's history by deleting those posts outright

[forcryinoutloud]

but for *any* one living in a smaller community, if a comm poster or mod thinks their location is "interesting" (where they'd never have done that for a string of numbers) it makes it so much easier for stalking and real life identities being outed. It doesn't have to be malicious either to cause damage.

This, this, THIS!

[flashily]

This. All of this.

[smilecarnival]

You're icon sums this up nicely.

[margi_lynn]

Yes, this!

[goldenusagi]

I'm only seeing the IP address of the commenter, not the city listed. Not that I like that, either. But I can't seem to see commenters' cities. Is everyone else seeing cities (is everyone else seeing MY city, LOL?) Grrrr, LJ.