No more linking to naughty things on LJ

[maeglinyedi]

Some linkies:

IJ has decided to increase the number of friends for free users to 250. I appreciate the gesture, really, but 250 is still not enough for me. Seriously. My flist on GJ is already 328 and there's still a ton of people I have to friend back. Why not just make 750 like on most other LJ-clone sites? Why this limit in the first place

Comments

[viverra_libro]

Re: IJ's number of friends -- there were only what, 4300 users on IJ last week? I think IJ is the most willing to work with us, but you have to give the guy some time to get the equipment in place to accomodate the influx of people and increased traffic. That just isn't going to happen in 24 or 36 hours. Give him a week or two.

[maeglinyedi]

Oh, I'm sure the guy is willing to make a few changes, but I need an alternative journal now, not two weeks from now, especially with LJ's latest stunt of no more linking at all. So it's GJ for me.

[viverra_libro]

oh, are you going to delete most of your content on LJ? I didn't realize that, and I can understand how you'd want to move it all right away. (and I guess that makes sense in light of the new no-linking-rule). If you decide you want to change later, I suppose it would be just as easy to repost everything to IJ via Semagic as to GJ. I think I'm just prejudiced because IJ seems small and shiny and comfortable to me. :)

[maeglinyedi]

Also something that worries me about IJ...they have quite a few ads in place, and some of them are Google ads. Now correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm quite sure Google doesn't want ads on sites that host adult material.

If that's the case, this is just another ads/user conflict in the making.

[aubrem]

re linking - oh crap. That is very bad. The net is widening.

[maeglinyedi]

yep, it's bad for everyone, but especially for us fandomers there's no options left. I'm not even sure what to do with my recs journal at this time.

[annephoenix]

I'm guessing that right now, the IJ guy simply doesn't have the money to allow for more friends per journal, although he does offer users the possibility of paying for the extra costs themselves (and you actually get more friends with paid IJ than with LJ). GJ I am wary of simply because they have in the past deleted a fanartist for forgetting to lock a post, which makes me fear that if we run from LJ that'll set a precedent for other non-fandom focussed sites to act in the same way ... All in all it's a shit situation and hard to decide what to do right now! :((

[maeglinyedi]

See my next post. If IJ needs money so badly, they won't be taking down their Google ads, and Google doesn't allow ads on websites that host adult content.

[annephoenix]

Ah.
I agree then, a brewing problem :(. Although I think it's less a case of needing money "so badly" than of regulating bandwidth in a sensible manner. We are talking thousands of dollars here, which most individuals would find hard to support on their own.

At the moment, journalfen is the site I trust the most, but it's not really a feasible solution for everyone and there are rumours that they're having trouble paying their bills even without a mass immigration of fandomers.

I'm testing scribblit at the moment, but it's such a baby that there's no way to know when/how/if it will become financially viable and established.

[fleurrochard]

(and you actually get more friends with paid IJ than with LJ)

Ah, that's actually not true: on IJ you get 1000 friend with a paid and 1500 friends with a permanent account; on LJ you get 1000 friends with a Basic or Plus account and 2000 friends with a paid/permanent account.
http://www.livejournal.com/support/faqbrowse.bml?faqid=61

[cluegirl]

Dominus had a very insightful observation on what 6Apart might think they're doing here, and it's one which I had not considered.

He says that 6Apart itself, is a purely business network, mainly used as communications between corporate entities. When they purchased LJ, they were looking at the software, and the humonguous userbase, not at the intensely personal content, and the proprietary interest its users take in it.

He also says that, in his opinion, 6Apart wants to hammer LJ down into the same corporate blog shape that their original product is, and that means total sanitization -- not just on the basis of legality, but on the basis of marketability to the dominant financial class.

It itches to consider it true, but the more LJ abuse keeps talking, the more I am beginning to believe he may be right.

And can I even begin to say how much I hate that?

[maeglinyedi]

Sadly, I think Dominus is right. And yeah, I hate it, too, but 6A is a business. They want to make money, and that's all that matters to them.

also...

[kaiz]

I definitely agree with his observation. I'm going to post about an additional aspect to their actions later today. Namely, that like Google (Youtube), Myspace, and Facebook, LJ/6A is wrestling with how best to make money from user generated content and not: 1) alienate their user bases, 2) run afoul of law enforcement, 3) lose revenue from advertisers, 4) piss off (potential or actual) shareholders/buyers, and 5) expand their line of business. Because of LJ/6A's utter ineptitude at customer relations, they are doing a spectacularly bad job of walking that fine line. The fact that this struggle to accommodate those 5 factors is an industry-wide phenom. bodes ill, imo, for any LJ users whose content is not corporate-friendly.

Re: also...

[kaiz]

Oops, #5 should be: "and yet also expand their line of business"

[kudra2324]

FWIW, i've seen enough conflicting posts by random staffers to think that lj doesn't actually have an official policy on offsite links yet. granted that this is demonstration number eleventy million of lj's inability to communicate a clear and consistent policy, but i'm not sure that the comments from lj staffers on the topic should be considered official. at least not yet.

[maeglinyedi]

http://violet-quill.livejournal.com/337040.html

Except that they said the same thing in reply to a question from Violet. And this is a big thing for not just fandomers, but for everyone, if linking to stuff can now get you suspended. I'm not willing to risk that, uness LJ confirms it's not true in an official and public post. Which I doubt they'll ever do.

[kudra2324]

yeah, my comment here is now outdated :). i've noted elsewhere that if they really mean that no one can link to anything which might possibly have some mention of possibly illegal material on it, we may as well just chuck the whole internet, according to livejournal's theory.