The current LJ happenings and the choices that stand before us
Obviously most of you are (well) aware of the situation, but we'll go over the facts just to make sure everyone is on the same page.
► The most recent code push for LJ the other day added a new design for the comment pages.
The changes include:
● No subject line
● Removal of preview (They've, at least for now, enabled edit for everyone to compensate for this... sorta.)
● Removal of spellcheck
● Replaced the old browse button with a new icon browser that is slower to load, and glitchy.
● Removed pulldown icon chooser.
● Expand and collapse work very differently, and is incredibly slow to just load one comment.
● Expanding below in a comment thread, collapses the upper and expanding comments about where you're replying, will delete whatever you have already written.
► This site was designed by one of the Russian staff member's design studio. (tema) A guy who's apparently a rather famous designer.
► The other guy largely responsible for all this, Igrick is not just in charge of design, but in November became head of all of Livejournal Russia. It says so on SUP's management page. Unfortunately, what affects them, affects us. He's even now in charge of customer support.
► Igrick genuinely does not seem to care what anyone thinks, Russian or otherwise. http://manonon.livejournal.com/ and http://factionary.livejournal.com/2116.html have a lot of examples of his behaviour.
► This is just the beginning. http://manonon.livejournal.com/6816.html One major change is the removal of the extra line in icons that we use for crediting icons.
► Anyone with slower connections, older computers/netbooks, or who use the site from a phone, will find it to be particularly painful to nigh impossible to use.
► There's also numerous bugs and glitches. Some people can't even load it without their browser crashing. Firefox seems to be especially glitchy.
Suffice to say, this is heading towards being the straw that broke the camel's back.
The truth of the matter is, however, this isn't really about subject lines. That's just the tip of the iceberg. It's about the loss of basic functionality of the site and, most importantly, the lack of respect, care and customer service from those who are now in control of Livejournal. The general message we have been feeling is a severe lack of uncaring, to downright being ridiculed.
While the current news post states that they are looking into changes, Igrick said quite bluntly on his own Twitter, subject lines would not be coming back. He also is quoted saying that they do want to do the same thing eventually to S2.
Yes, they are planning to make an S2 layout based on the original default comment pages, but the question will be what will this layout actually look like for the actual comm pages? Plus Account S2 customization is limited. With a advanced paid S2 something could likely be hacked together, but I don't think anyone of us wants to give LJ money right now.
So, what now? Well, obviously the unthinkable might not be so unthinkable. Moving might be an option to place on the table. If nothing else, it deserves a closer examination, which is what this post is about; weighing our options.
Ultimately, there are really only two choices: InsaneJournal or Dreamwidth. (Too bad Inksome hadn't lasted a little longer...) There IS also another site called Scribbld, but it's definitely the most unusual of the three.
Both have their pros and cons. What I've observed is below, but also this post also weighs them both (plus scribbld) out and is more thorough, and includes pricing.
There is also this that describes the sites and points to the many scripts and what-not that fix up both sites.
Dreamwidth
Pros:
● Basic accounts do get one layer + theme custom layouts
● Have the ability to copy your journal, and they are currently also working on enabling community transfers! We don't know yet, however, what limitations there might be for that.
● Caring staff! DreamWidth is run by a LOT of EX-LJ staff. They know us far better than SUP does.
● 25 character length usernames
● Ability to re-do your keywords without screwing up old threads
● Have a lot of different little updated tweaks to LJ's code.
● When the load on the site got heavier the night of the codepush, they went and added another webserver.
Cons:
● Having had a disagreement with Paypal concerning censorship, they are unable to use Paypal, so anyone with no credit card will find this particularly troublesome.
● Base icons are only 15, and options for more are limited. Their are only two levels... paid, which gives you 100 icons, or premium, which gives 250. Paid works out cheaper than Livejournal with an icon pack, but there's nothing in-between 15 and 100. And, unfortunately, a-la-carte icons is not something they can do, but with a well explained reason. It's unfortunate, however, that there is no middle ground.
● The site IS going to also have changes, but they do it right. But yeah, they don't promise that there won't be changes, but they have no plans going in the direction LJ has.
● And one negative that bothers me a little is they've tried to change how enabled/disabled custom comment pages work. It's in the hands of the viewer now (in account settings) instead of the journal owner's (except with comms, and even then it can be overridden by a person's own options.) It's kind of confusing (I thought at first it was more limiting than it is.), and while it supports anyone who hates all custom comment pages, it makes it difficult if you like some, but dislike others.
InsaneJournal
Pros:
● 100 icons for basic accounts, and does have the browse button! This is easily the biggest draw.
● Inexpensive paid accounts. Also they often have sales!
● Also has userpic only options!
● Caring owner! Squeeky does tend to get a bit busy as he is a family man, but he certainly does his best.
● It's a more dated version of the LJ software. If you like the classic LJ, it doesn't get much more classic than this! Highly doubtful Squeeky would ever drop any drastic changes on us. (Though a little polish would be nice to see...) Even has the original profile pages! And none of those darn vgifts! XD
Cons:
● It's... a more dated version of the LJ software. This has it's downsides too, like the lack of expand/collapse.
● No built-in comment expanding at the moment. (Easily solved with a GreaseMonkey script that adds expanding.)
● The site itself is a bit ugly (but there are other layouts and, again, some GM and Stylish scripts really improve the look of the site.)
● Some find the theming of the site offensive. (The icons and the top header character can be changed/removed with stylish, however.)
► How this affects Paixao itself:
● For DreamWidth, we can move over Flexible Squares and make it almost indistinguishable from LJ and if we can even copy the contents over... it would be pretty nice. (However, it's not like the original comms will be going anywhere.)
You can see a demo of it in action here.
● On InsaneJournal... To make the comm completely identical, it would need paid time (although, considering a lot of us would be saving on paids, grouping together to keep a couple of our comm going wouldn't be a big deal at all.) However, something very close (hell maybe even better if I can figure out how this one person made the tags scrollable) is possible!
Here's a demo! Total work in progress cause I'm tired of slamming my head into CSS today, and everyone is antsy.
Whatever we decide, we aren't bailing quite yet. We want to see what choices Livejournal makes from here.
A new post was made today on lj-releases... http://lj-releases.livejournal.com/72149.html (The problem with an S2 layout with the old comment style is http://lj-releases.livejournal.com/72149.html#comments
Of course, there IS also the possibility of staying and setting the comms paid, so I can hack together a decent mix of Flexible Squares and a comment style similar to the original... but again, that involves throwing money at LJ. ~_~;
So that's the entire situation, guys. We want you guys to be comfortable and happy, but also many of us are getting to the point of becoming uncomfortable with supporting LJ at the moment (at least with Igrick at the helm... he got promoted in November... Didn't take long for him to really mess things up. And... I guess that explains why there was a drought when it came to news through November... But I digress.)
Have a read through everything and let us know your thoughts and ideas on all this, guys. Obviously there will be no way of making everyone happy, but we do want to come to a decision everyone can live with, if nothing else.
So, yeah. That's about it, I think. Man what a week... Talk about Worst. Christmas Present. Ever.
► The most recent code push for LJ the other day added a new design for the comment pages.
The changes include:
● No subject line
● Removal of preview (They've, at least for now, enabled edit for everyone to compensate for this... sorta.)
● Removal of spellcheck
● Replaced the old browse button with a new icon browser that is slower to load, and glitchy.
● Removed pulldown icon chooser.
● Expand and collapse work very differently, and is incredibly slow to just load one comment.
● Expanding below in a comment thread, collapses the upper and expanding comments about where you're replying, will delete whatever you have already written.
► This site was designed by one of the Russian staff member's design studio. (tema) A guy who's apparently a rather famous designer.
► The other guy largely responsible for all this, Igrick is not just in charge of design, but in November became head of all of Livejournal Russia. It says so on SUP's management page. Unfortunately, what affects them, affects us. He's even now in charge of customer support.
► Igrick genuinely does not seem to care what anyone thinks, Russian or otherwise. http://manonon.livejournal.com/ and http://factionary.livejournal.com/2116.html have a lot of examples of his behaviour.
► This is just the beginning. http://manonon.livejournal.com/6816.html One major change is the removal of the extra line in icons that we use for crediting icons.
► Anyone with slower connections, older computers/netbooks, or who use the site from a phone, will find it to be particularly painful to nigh impossible to use.
► There's also numerous bugs and glitches. Some people can't even load it without their browser crashing. Firefox seems to be especially glitchy.
Suffice to say, this is heading towards being the straw that broke the camel's back.
The truth of the matter is, however, this isn't really about subject lines. That's just the tip of the iceberg. It's about the loss of basic functionality of the site and, most importantly, the lack of respect, care and customer service from those who are now in control of Livejournal. The general message we have been feeling is a severe lack of uncaring, to downright being ridiculed.
While the current news post states that they are looking into changes, Igrick said quite bluntly on his own Twitter, subject lines would not be coming back. He also is quoted saying that they do want to do the same thing eventually to S2.
Yes, they are planning to make an S2 layout based on the original default comment pages, but the question will be what will this layout actually look like for the actual comm pages? Plus Account S2 customization is limited. With a advanced paid S2 something could likely be hacked together, but I don't think anyone of us wants to give LJ money right now.
So, what now? Well, obviously the unthinkable might not be so unthinkable. Moving might be an option to place on the table. If nothing else, it deserves a closer examination, which is what this post is about; weighing our options.
Ultimately, there are really only two choices: InsaneJournal or Dreamwidth. (Too bad Inksome hadn't lasted a little longer...) There IS also another site called Scribbld, but it's definitely the most unusual of the three.
Both have their pros and cons. What I've observed is below, but also this post also weighs them both (plus scribbld) out and is more thorough, and includes pricing.
There is also this that describes the sites and points to the many scripts and what-not that fix up both sites.
Dreamwidth
Pros:
● Basic accounts do get one layer + theme custom layouts
● Have the ability to copy your journal, and they are currently also working on enabling community transfers! We don't know yet, however, what limitations there might be for that.
● Caring staff! DreamWidth is run by a LOT of EX-LJ staff. They know us far better than SUP does.
● 25 character length usernames
● Ability to re-do your keywords without screwing up old threads
● Have a lot of different little updated tweaks to LJ's code.
● When the load on the site got heavier the night of the codepush, they went and added another webserver.
Cons:
● Having had a disagreement with Paypal concerning censorship, they are unable to use Paypal, so anyone with no credit card will find this particularly troublesome.
● Base icons are only 15, and options for more are limited. Their are only two levels... paid, which gives you 100 icons, or premium, which gives 250. Paid works out cheaper than Livejournal with an icon pack, but there's nothing in-between 15 and 100. And, unfortunately, a-la-carte icons is not something they can do, but with a well explained reason. It's unfortunate, however, that there is no middle ground.
● The site IS going to also have changes, but they do it right. But yeah, they don't promise that there won't be changes, but they have no plans going in the direction LJ has.
● And one negative that bothers me a little is they've tried to change how enabled/disabled custom comment pages work. It's in the hands of the viewer now (in account settings) instead of the journal owner's (except with comms, and even then it can be overridden by a person's own options.) It's kind of confusing (I thought at first it was more limiting than it is.), and while it supports anyone who hates all custom comment pages, it makes it difficult if you like some, but dislike others.
InsaneJournal
Pros:
● 100 icons for basic accounts, and does have the browse button! This is easily the biggest draw.
● Inexpensive paid accounts. Also they often have sales!
● Also has userpic only options!
● Caring owner! Squeeky does tend to get a bit busy as he is a family man, but he certainly does his best.
● It's a more dated version of the LJ software. If you like the classic LJ, it doesn't get much more classic than this! Highly doubtful Squeeky would ever drop any drastic changes on us. (Though a little polish would be nice to see...) Even has the original profile pages! And none of those darn vgifts! XD
Cons:
● It's... a more dated version of the LJ software. This has it's downsides too, like the lack of expand/collapse.
● No built-in comment expanding at the moment. (Easily solved with a GreaseMonkey script that adds expanding.)
● The site itself is a bit ugly (but there are other layouts and, again, some GM and Stylish scripts really improve the look of the site.)
● Some find the theming of the site offensive. (The icons and the top header character can be changed/removed with stylish, however.)
► How this affects Paixao itself:
● For DreamWidth, we can move over Flexible Squares and make it almost indistinguishable from LJ and if we can even copy the contents over... it would be pretty nice. (However, it's not like the original comms will be going anywhere.)
You can see a demo of it in action here.
● On InsaneJournal... To make the comm completely identical, it would need paid time (although, considering a lot of us would be saving on paids, grouping together to keep a couple of our comm going wouldn't be a big deal at all.) However, something very close (hell maybe even better if I can figure out how this one person made the tags scrollable) is possible!
Here's a demo! Total work in progress cause I'm tired of slamming my head into CSS today, and everyone is antsy.
Whatever we decide, we aren't bailing quite yet. We want to see what choices Livejournal makes from here.
A new post was made today on lj-releases... http://lj-releases.livejournal.com/72149.html (The problem with an S2 layout with the old comment style is http://lj-releases.livejournal.com/72149.html#comments
Of course, there IS also the possibility of staying and setting the comms paid, so I can hack together a decent mix of Flexible Squares and a comment style similar to the original... but again, that involves throwing money at LJ. ~_~;
So that's the entire situation, guys. We want you guys to be comfortable and happy, but also many of us are getting to the point of becoming uncomfortable with supporting LJ at the moment (at least with Igrick at the helm... he got promoted in November... Didn't take long for him to really mess things up. And... I guess that explains why there was a drought when it came to news through November... But I digress.)
Have a read through everything and let us know your thoughts and ideas on all this, guys. Obviously there will be no way of making everyone happy, but we do want to come to a decision everyone can live with, if nothing else.
So, yeah. That's about it, I think. Man what a week... Talk about Worst. Christmas Present. Ever.