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Coming To The End of My LiveJournal Experience - A Thinkpost
I haven't been posting "normal" entries in my LJ Account for awhile now, using it only as the place where I post my LJ Idol entries for the writing competition. Likewise, I haven't been reading your entries, since my time was spent reading through the entries of the other contestants and making comments there. I feel like I have failed my LJ friends because of this, and I do apologize for that, but there is an element behind it.
The whole "Яussian" issue - the fact that we were acquired by the Russian side of LiveJournal definitely has had an effect. Really, I have a bellyful of Russia right now. I hear about Russia every night. And let's face it. We don't really know much of anything about what's going on with our Russian owners. I can tell you that a few of my long time LJ friends deleted their journals specifically because of this.
When I purchased a permanent account, I really thought it would outlast me, or at least would last longer than I would find a use for it. Now, even though it's likely an irrational fear, I don't feel completely safe sharing on this platform anymore. We don't know anyone who is in charge of this service. We don't know what issues those that are in charge of it examine. And it's within the unease of all that we don't know about what happens here that creates a place that is the opposite of where you would want to put your most intimate thoughts and share your most personal stories.
The current LJ Idol season is coming to a close. Tonight is a voting results night, and it's possible I will not survive. I have resolved to stop using LiveJournal at the end of the current LJ Idol competition, and I suspect that end will come before the end of the year. That means I have to make some decisions.
I have to decide if I want to delete this journal and if I do delete, do I use the nuclear option, that deletes every comment I ever made to every journal and community I ever visited. Or do I friendslock the entire journal? Or do I just leave it in place, as is?
A reason not to delete is being able to access journals that I was friends to, anyone that had their own journal locked that I was on the list for would be lost to me forever. But does that really matter, if the friends are no longer posting here?
Another reason not to delete is that I said I never would. Under normal circumstances, I thought deleting was a selfish move, that hurt the other people who were still here. And especially the nuclear option that deleted the comments posted in everyone else's journal. Part of me still believes it's somewhat selfish to delete - especially nuclear style. When people comment to your journal, it's not just "YOUR" journal anymore. I absolutely believe that.
But I do have my mirrored account at dreamwidth. Basically everything that is here got moved there (and I'll likely do another transfer over of the entries from the Idol season also). All is not lost.
But there will be loss. Some people who are still here aren't going to leave. I know this because I floated the concept in my entry titled: Let's Just Deal With... where I suggested we needed to make a break from this place and collectively move to Dreamwidth. "Lukewarm" would be a gross exaggeration of the response.
Or just not use this type of platform anymore. Facebook does have the option for writing essays, and they have the possibility of going viral, if they're publicly posted.
I do know that my LJ time is now severely limited, no matter what happens, meaning that this will be one of my final thinkposts here on the old El Jay. But maybe I'll make a go of it on DW.
http://penpusher.dreamwidth.org/
The whole "Яussian" issue - the fact that we were acquired by the Russian side of LiveJournal definitely has had an effect. Really, I have a bellyful of Russia right now. I hear about Russia every night. And let's face it. We don't really know much of anything about what's going on with our Russian owners. I can tell you that a few of my long time LJ friends deleted their journals specifically because of this.
When I purchased a permanent account, I really thought it would outlast me, or at least would last longer than I would find a use for it. Now, even though it's likely an irrational fear, I don't feel completely safe sharing on this platform anymore. We don't know anyone who is in charge of this service. We don't know what issues those that are in charge of it examine. And it's within the unease of all that we don't know about what happens here that creates a place that is the opposite of where you would want to put your most intimate thoughts and share your most personal stories.
The current LJ Idol season is coming to a close. Tonight is a voting results night, and it's possible I will not survive. I have resolved to stop using LiveJournal at the end of the current LJ Idol competition, and I suspect that end will come before the end of the year. That means I have to make some decisions.
I have to decide if I want to delete this journal and if I do delete, do I use the nuclear option, that deletes every comment I ever made to every journal and community I ever visited. Or do I friendslock the entire journal? Or do I just leave it in place, as is?
A reason not to delete is being able to access journals that I was friends to, anyone that had their own journal locked that I was on the list for would be lost to me forever. But does that really matter, if the friends are no longer posting here?
Another reason not to delete is that I said I never would. Under normal circumstances, I thought deleting was a selfish move, that hurt the other people who were still here. And especially the nuclear option that deleted the comments posted in everyone else's journal. Part of me still believes it's somewhat selfish to delete - especially nuclear style. When people comment to your journal, it's not just "YOUR" journal anymore. I absolutely believe that.
But I do have my mirrored account at dreamwidth. Basically everything that is here got moved there (and I'll likely do another transfer over of the entries from the Idol season also). All is not lost.
But there will be loss. Some people who are still here aren't going to leave. I know this because I floated the concept in my entry titled: Let's Just Deal With... where I suggested we needed to make a break from this place and collectively move to Dreamwidth. "Lukewarm" would be a gross exaggeration of the response.
Or just not use this type of platform anymore. Facebook does have the option for writing essays, and they have the possibility of going viral, if they're publicly posted.
I do know that my LJ time is now severely limited, no matter what happens, meaning that this will be one of my final thinkposts here on the old El Jay. But maybe I'll make a go of it on DW.
http://penpusher.dreamwidth.org/
no subject
What I love about LJ is the flist. I've had wordpress blogs in the past and the silence is just about deafening. I've been writing since I was thirteen, if I want to write to my own audience of one, I can do that in a comfy armchair upstairs in the library in a notebook...LiveJournal allows the connection that has been the best promise of the World Wide Web. The idea that the village has become global.
For me, LiveJournal was an improved newsgroup. I miss threading...but loved the gaining of more personal interactions with individual entries.
Once Myspace hit the scene, I quaked. So not my thing. We have some similarities in our school year experiences and I don't particularly want/need to be in touch with anyone from my past. I never signed on for that platform.
Of course...the natural extension of so much psychic nudity, was FaceBook and I personally find it to be on par with satanic intervention in our lives. I think it's a very, very, very bad and negative thing. Anectodatally and statistically. What surprises me most about the slow death of LJ is the fact that so many have left for FB while claiming "fear" of LJ for political reasons. HELLO? FB is the political animal here. The ideologue that is really a pack mentality. UGH.
We also have Instagram and tumblr and twitter. All of those things have pulled writing, photographing flisters away. And I just don't understand THAT at all. (FaceBook is moderately understandable for quantitative reasons.) All flash and bang and no real substance. Definitely no interaction on a word level.
We are a LANGUAGE species. LiveJournal is a bastion and defender of language!
no subject
But seriously, The design of LJ was always a draw. And having a friendslist, where you selected people who were worth reading and put them on your feed and then interacted with, referenced, commented to and commented to the comments to, really is genius.
The problem is that so many abandoned LJ. I started examining ways of promoting LJ a couple of years back, trying to get some of the staunchest users to return. I talked about a lot of what you were talking about here, there... most especially in the first of these entries.
Promoting LiveJournal - Step One
Promoting LiveJournal - Step Two
Promoting LiveJournal - Step three
and, just to prove I'm a realist, I tackled a situation that I felt would prevent all efforts to revive LJ for some users:
The Rank Fakery of LiveJournal
You raise a cogent point about Facebook and its political tentacles. But this is the problem with anything new coming along. They will bake in advertisements and information gathering and/or elements that you really wouldn't agree to, if you thought about it, but you want to be a part of the scene so you won't think about it.
In that sense, maybe LiveJournal is the place to stay, because it's just a hole in the wall now, and nobody is paying attention, and the owners aren't trying to increase the usage, or perhaps aren't paying attention, themselves.
I think the first essay in that series of promotional ones really handles the issue of LJ's demise and the rise of FB, Twitter and IG...
Celebrity.
People really want to interact with celebrities, sports figures, politicians, their favorite tv stars. LJ can't offer that. Okay, yes, we have
You would think celebrities would flock to a place like LJ, if only for the filters. But that might be too complicated a skill set for the pop stars and their management teams to handle.
LiveJournal requires actual thought. So, if you're not into thinking, you probably won't brave posting an entry. That's another reason why twitter is so popular: it's the blogging space for people who can't blog!