(Untitled)

[news]

When LiveJournal, Inc., was launched in December the new team made it very clear that LiveJournal was going to change. We also said that we would respect the values and legacy of LiveJournal. But, we can’t ignore the fact that as LiveJournal nears its second decade it needs to make some business decisions

Comments

[rm]

Okay, LJ, so you removed the filter we're still owed an explanation, an apology and the previously mentioned good will gesture towards the communities/interests/individuals you marginalized and demonized.

What happened?
Why did it happen?
Will it happen again?
Why should I believe you?

[marta]

I don't have a statement for some of your questions. I do know that it was a mistake, and not meant to be a judgment or company opinion of any kind. I will try to have better answers as the day progresses.

[rm]

Thank you for answering while I assume you guys are scrambling to give us a clearer answer

[rubylou]

I agree. Thank you for this.

[adarkheartdawns]

YAY it's Marta, the only person who gives a damn!

♥

[beckyzoole]

By "mistake", I hope you mean that management has realized that it was a mistaken business decision. After all, the developers didn't accidentally drop the filter in the code. Heh.

I do appreciate your post here, and your promise to have better answers later. Do you think you could get permission to turn this comment into a very brief news post, letting people know that more information is coming soon?

[marta]

I'm not sure about making a new post, but we're still communicating on this tonight.

[st_emma]

I think it's important that you do make a new post, and here's why: it'll show good faith. A lot of the anger and distrust you see around here right now is a direct result of LJ Inc.'s sneaky behaviour. If you want regain some trust, you (and by this I mean LJ Inc., and not specifically you, Marta) are going to have to demonstrate a commitment to having this conversation openly. Not in backchannels or comment threads that maybe only a handful of people are still reading, but in its own thread, where people who are interested in finding out what's going on can find it with a minimum of detective work.

[rm]

Building on this, it's the only way anyone is going to believe you (LJ). because certainly I'm not going to be evangelizing for you at this juncture.

[crowdog66]

See, that just raises a whole different set of questions.

You're still communicating on this tonight? Why weren't you communicating on it Saturday, when it was readily apparent that the shit was hitting the fan? Why not on Sunday, when it was even more clearly so?

This is one issue that you're going to have to address, because I'm not the only user who's wondering why nobody said a peep to us for the better part of two days.

[lastrega]

One small piece of free advice: no one likes a sneak. SUP, whether they mean to or not, is coming across as sneaky and underhanded. Is that really the business image you want to project? Yes, it's a pain when you make a post and you have 3000 users bitching at you, but you (plural you) are just going to have to wear that as a consequence of crappy business practices.

[crowdog66]

Thank you for responding to our concerns. However, as I'm sure you'll understand, after listening to ourselves communicate with LJ all weekend with no response, it will take much more than one post to satisfy us that something is being done and that we are being heard. In fact, a new post in the News community would probably be a good idea.

EDITED TO ADD: Considering that the code that filtered the interests was announced in changelog, you CAN'T claim that this was mistake. It was deliberate. Now, whether it was something deliberate that had the results intended, or something deliberate that had unexpected results... THAT is the question.

[marta]

There are several different kinds of mistakes, however. This falls into one or more categories, with several questions all around. The bottom line is that it was not a company-wide statement of what's acceptable and what isn't, and it will not happen again.

[rm]

The company needs to issue a statement to this effect, with a lot more detail.

If a rogue employee took this action upon themselves they need to be disciplined.

Finally, LJ could engender some good will (or at least diffuse the outage) by giving some money publically to organizations that support the social groups that felt atacked by this gesture. Some suggestions include Lambda Legal, PFLAG, The American Association for Suicide Prevention and The Organization for Transformative Works.

*ahem* and perhaps spare a thought for the totally confused bisexual community too . . .

[bialogue]

. . . because [sadly], we have sometimes found that the mainstream LGBT community is not always "In communion" with it's bi, pan, poly, omni, et. al. sisters and brothers. May we respectfully suggest Some Sort of Communication from LJ to say the American national bisexual right's group BiNet USA [who's current president blogs here at curriedspam]; or the venerable Bisexual Resource Center (BRC); or the American Institute of Bisexuality (AIB); or Bi Magazine; or Bi Media; or the plethora of bisexual LJ communities including but not limited to bi_people, bisexual, bisexual_world . . . well i'm sure you get the point.

Just some sort of dialogue would be much appreciated.

If it was a technical glitch . . . and since profit-making enterprises are NOT in the habit of driving away their revenue sources, we can hardly imagine it was anything but that . . . we are not clear about why LJ would not just say so. We can think of many, many innocent scenarios that might bring this about. For instance changing some algorithms to aggregate similar "interests", [for example bi, bi-

[rydra_wong]

it will not happen again.

Honestly? I don't believe that anymore. Okay, I'm sure this specific thing won't happen again, now that LJ knows people are paying attention to the "popular interests". But what else will?

And it's not "company-wide"? What does that mean: that only part of the management thinks people like me are a public embarrassment?

You seem like an intelligent, nice person who's trying to be as honest with the users as you're allowed to be. Do you believe this crap?

P.S. I hope LiveJournal gives marta hazard pay for this.