An Open Letter to LJ
Aug. 4th, 2007 09:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kennahijja(sent in response to the automatic message inviting me to reconsider the turning off of automatic payments, originally with an apology to the accounts desk person receiving it for definitely not being its target). Yeah, it won't change anything, but...)
I hope you're not surprised at my automatic payments cancellation, which will be followed by a non-renewal of my paid account once my paid time runs out. I have considered this before, during Strikethrough, but was willing to give LJ/6A the benefit of the doubt. It has now destroyed any goodwill I still had.
You will, of course, see more of the same as a lot of people are making plans for a fan-run LJ derivate that will not be slave to advertisers and will respect and understand its members. The money I have to spend on internet services will, in the future, go to this effort.
I am not sure if you comprehend the sense of betrayal LJ/6A's behaviour is producing in its users, especially those 34 000 plus connected to fandom who have listed themselves on![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
fandom_counts. Like many others, I've used LJ for almost five years now, and a lot of my time and effort over those years has gone into it. It is a sort of home, a base of communication with like-minded people whom I would never have met or gotten to know as well as I do without LJ, some of which have become very good friends. It isn't only creative energy that's invested in my LJ, it's also emotional energy – I *liked* the place, and I like my friends and my community.
It is *not* a place where I want to be forced to look over my shoulder in fear, worrying for the safety of my own LJ and for that of my friends and comms while waiting for ever-new attempts by LJ/6A to intimidate, curtail and limit my community. I don't have much time for fandom, and what I have I want to spend creatively in a community I care about, not wasting valuable time figuring out LJ backup software, how to protect my comms, or fighting censorship attempts - all so that 6A can create and batte strawmen in order to please its advertisers. While I think the fight against this is worthwhile and (sadly) necessary, it's *not* what I'm on LJ for, or pay money for.
Time, energy and emotions wasted because of LJ's behaviour is only half the problem, and the lesser half at that. What I, and undoubtedly very many other LJ users in fandom find infinitely insulting far beyond LJ's behaviour are the underlying implications made. Perfectly innocent people are branded as criminals, associated with some of the vilest offences known to humankind.
And for what? For writing fictional stories or producing artwork about fictional characters. Which is on the same level of absurdity as calling published novelists Stephen King and JRR Tolkien mass murderers, romancier Joanna Lindsey a rapist, Mario Puzo and Agatha Christie murderers and criminal masterminds, or Richard Adams and Jacqueline Carey pedophiles and murderers. There is *fiction* and there is *reality*. Convoluting the two means constructing fictional expression into a thought crime worthy of Orwell. It is just plain wrong wherever it raises its ugly head in the 'real world', and it needs to be fought, not pandered to as LJ/6A seems hell-bent to do at the moment.
The over-riding question is – do we want to give our loyalty and money to a site that criminalises us like that? For myself, the answer is definitely no.
And finally, there's LJ's trail of broken promises. From "no advertisements, ever!" to "we won't ever be dictated by advertisers' money!" to "we'll never resort to deletion of accounts without warning again!" (honestly, would it be so *hard* to contact a user with the request that something be removed rather than deleting their accounts without warning? I left ff.net, my first fandom home, over exactly that, as it's the shoddiest way a site can treat loyal and paying users), to "we won't go after fandom!"
And now? We have advertisements, LJ/6A is valuing advertisers' money over the interest of its users, deletions without warning are back only two months after you've apologised for doing it the first time, and the HP fandom is the first under attack - and for dodgy reasons at that. From my end, the upper elechons of LJ/6A look like a bunch of compulsive liars, and if I needed a final straw on top of the above to break faith (and financial support) with them, this would be it. It's sickening and disappointing, and I won't be sad if fandom packs off and moves to a better place. LJ was a lovely place once - it's not any longer. And that's a real pity.
I hope you're not surprised at my automatic payments cancellation, which will be followed by a non-renewal of my paid account once my paid time runs out. I have considered this before, during Strikethrough, but was willing to give LJ/6A the benefit of the doubt. It has now destroyed any goodwill I still had.
You will, of course, see more of the same as a lot of people are making plans for a fan-run LJ derivate that will not be slave to advertisers and will respect and understand its members. The money I have to spend on internet services will, in the future, go to this effort.
I am not sure if you comprehend the sense of betrayal LJ/6A's behaviour is producing in its users, especially those 34 000 plus connected to fandom who have listed themselves on
fandom_counts. Like many others, I've used LJ for almost five years now, and a lot of my time and effort over those years has gone into it. It is a sort of home, a base of communication with like-minded people whom I would never have met or gotten to know as well as I do without LJ, some of which have become very good friends. It isn't only creative energy that's invested in my LJ, it's also emotional energy – I *liked* the place, and I like my friends and my community.It is *not* a place where I want to be forced to look over my shoulder in fear, worrying for the safety of my own LJ and for that of my friends and comms while waiting for ever-new attempts by LJ/6A to intimidate, curtail and limit my community. I don't have much time for fandom, and what I have I want to spend creatively in a community I care about, not wasting valuable time figuring out LJ backup software, how to protect my comms, or fighting censorship attempts - all so that 6A can create and batte strawmen in order to please its advertisers. While I think the fight against this is worthwhile and (sadly) necessary, it's *not* what I'm on LJ for, or pay money for.
Time, energy and emotions wasted because of LJ's behaviour is only half the problem, and the lesser half at that. What I, and undoubtedly very many other LJ users in fandom find infinitely insulting far beyond LJ's behaviour are the underlying implications made. Perfectly innocent people are branded as criminals, associated with some of the vilest offences known to humankind.
And for what? For writing fictional stories or producing artwork about fictional characters. Which is on the same level of absurdity as calling published novelists Stephen King and JRR Tolkien mass murderers, romancier Joanna Lindsey a rapist, Mario Puzo and Agatha Christie murderers and criminal masterminds, or Richard Adams and Jacqueline Carey pedophiles and murderers. There is *fiction* and there is *reality*. Convoluting the two means constructing fictional expression into a thought crime worthy of Orwell. It is just plain wrong wherever it raises its ugly head in the 'real world', and it needs to be fought, not pandered to as LJ/6A seems hell-bent to do at the moment.
The over-riding question is – do we want to give our loyalty and money to a site that criminalises us like that? For myself, the answer is definitely no.
And finally, there's LJ's trail of broken promises. From "no advertisements, ever!" to "we won't ever be dictated by advertisers' money!" to "we'll never resort to deletion of accounts without warning again!" (honestly, would it be so *hard* to contact a user with the request that something be removed rather than deleting their accounts without warning? I left ff.net, my first fandom home, over exactly that, as it's the shoddiest way a site can treat loyal and paying users), to "we won't go after fandom!"
And now? We have advertisements, LJ/6A is valuing advertisers' money over the interest of its users, deletions without warning are back only two months after you've apologised for doing it the first time, and the HP fandom is the first under attack - and for dodgy reasons at that. From my end, the upper elechons of LJ/6A look like a bunch of compulsive liars, and if I needed a final straw on top of the above to break faith (and financial support) with them, this would be it. It's sickening and disappointing, and I won't be sad if fandom packs off and moves to a better place. LJ was a lovely place once - it's not any longer. And that's a real pity.
no subject
Date: 2007-08-05 09:28 pm (UTC)