First Think, THEN Ink.

In 2017, I talked about how nobody is actually using Dreamwidth for their blogs, HERE, one of my entries in that year's LJ Idol, back when I tried to get people to leave the Russian owned LiveJournal for more American pastures.

Of course, everyone was completely resistant to the concept. It is hard getting folks to change their habits, especially when the audience I was playing to mostly consisted of people participating in a competition that celebrated the platform on which we were located! Not to mention I had an LJ permanent account, or, in the Яussian method of description: "Account with Permanent package of service" (which I can't help but hear in my head in a broken English style stereotypical Muscovite accent). Here, I'm just a second class nobody, with more than half of my icons and tags unavailable to me because I'm not a paid subscriber.

I'm not going to bother to make the case to leave the old El Jay again, even here at my new blog home, but I do have some observations on being a Daily DW user, with a mostly LJ reading page.

If the people you read on DW are actually writing from LJ, there are two big problems that occur.

The first is that LJ writers mirroring their journal on DW won't see any comment you make on their post until they come to DW directly and either see it in their "inbox" or find it on their entry.

To that, I say DW needs to institute email alerts, as LJ has had from the start, so folks can know when someone has responded to their entries as it happens. That's a major reason why it's more like a ghost town over here.

Conversely, LJ writers already have a community that is writing and responding to them, there. So, tramping over to DW to see the five, two, one(?!) other people, or person you may want to read is, in fact, a chore.

And it's a somewhat thankless chore. Because what if you check in every day? And days go by and there's nothing? The negative reinforcement will likely drop that down to once or twice a week, once a month or eventually, to whenever you think of it, which could be, never.

But today, I noticed on my DW reading page, a bunch of new entries... Well, new to me, but they were dated with dates from last week.

That means that either the interface from LJ to DW is slow to load - the entries that are being forwarded from LiveJournal to Dreamwidth aren't getting there fast enough. OR, more likely, it's that entries that are mirrored have a slower time populating on your reading list and instead of posting there as they come through, they show up in your feed... When they do.

That's a problem because I may miss days of posts, then get flooded by entries I simply didn't see until long after they were written.

And that contributes to the downward spiral. I check my reading page, comment where appropriate, receive no comments on my entries because no one is here reading them, check my reading page and find nothing new, but then, a day or two later, I see a bunch of entries all at once and feel compelled to answer them all, even though it might be days before anyone knows I did.

So DW needs to fix the reading page feed to make sure these mirrored entries get listed in a timely manner. At least that would help the feeling of isolation here.

I know there is resistance in moving from the old place over here. What I don't know is why.

I mean, I do know why. You are already at the old place and so are the people you read and who read you. And predictive text in your searchbox sends you right there. But I have to say, once you get over here, it's pretty much business as usual. You read through your friends posts (it's called your "reading page" instead of your "friendslist"). You comment. Post. It's all pretty much the same. It does feel slightly clunkier at first, and there are other different names for things. But you can figure this stuff out! And a couple of the people who deleted their journals at the old place are here and posting.

I didn't mention that I'm commenting on anything I can on any posts on DW. I'm here and I want to be here. This is the best way to establish that.

I need to begin exploring communities. I'm sure that's a good way to find active users here that I don't already know. But I know that's going to take some time and I'm kind of pressed because I have three writing projects going on all at once. I'll have to tell you about that when I get a free minute.

Meantime, come find me and add me to your reading page!

Back when I was interviewing LJ users for my little project I called talk_show, one of my interviewees was a guy named Ryan Estrada. He had just started drawing his "Frank the Goat" comic at that time, which was gaining popularity. Frank the Goat, if you didn't know, was the long time mascot of LiveJournal so having a comic based on the character was both a natural fit and a boon to both the site and the artist.

When the site was bought outright by the Russians, in the wake of the SixApart debacle, Estrada discontinued his comic, and I presume, like many, left the site. But more recently he came back and posted a new comic speaking directly to the issues of freedom of speech, of rights for LGBTQ members and supporters and of why a so-called long form blogging site has rules in place that do not permit opinions of specific sorts.

Thanks to tamar for calling my attention to this, even though it occurred in July, so a full season ago. Still, it's a topical take on what's happening around here and is worthy of consideration as we continue to move forward on a platform that feels like a raft made of very thick cardboard on a very troubled sea.

The article about Ryan's action is posted HERE, but here's the comic.



For the record, the comic above is still available on the frankthecomic account.


And if you want to go more in depth about this, there's the website listed at the bottom of the comic:

https://gimletmedia.com/episode/100-friends-blasphemers/

That allows you the choice of listening to a podcast or just reading the transcript to delve more deeply into this topic. Just to give you an overview of what this podcast/transcript is: they go into more detail about how Russia was angry about the criticism of their government by their own citizenry and by some in the west and how they actively sought to shut down the criticism by buying LiveJournal. It's a fascinating report and one that will send you reeling if you didn't know the details.

Still, for my sense about it, the facts are pretty clear: there is no "western" division of LiveJournal. Previously, there was a board that worked in concert with the Russian element. That hasn't been true in years, as far as I can tell, possibly dating back as far as when other talk_show interviewee marta, who acted as a liaison between the Non Cyrillic and Cyrillic sides, left her position with LJ, about 2011 or 12.

That all leads us to the inevitable questions: "what does it mean?" and "what does it matter?"

For the first question, keep in mind, if the folks running the Russian servers of LJ are determined to disallow us from making certain kinds of statements, they can. We signed their ToS and they have every right to shut us down without any notice and without any recourse. You have to know and understand that when you're examining this situation. Will they shut us down? It's unlikely, because they have other things far more important than the blog entries of some westerners that probably have nothing to do with them. But we know that when it came to the dissidents within their homeland, they definitely cracked down on those posts and perhaps used LJ as a method of locating the people responsible to bring them to "justice." We don't know all the details because we never will.

This, to me, is why I feel unsafe remaining on LiveJournal. No western influence, Russian servers and a proven track record of abuse based on their standards. Will everything remain the same? It might, but we can't, with any kind of certainty, say yes.

To the second question, the most accurate answer I can muster is it depends on what you're willing to accept. We have a documented record of what has already taken place. To simply ignore that record and continue as if nothing has happened? That seems very shortsighted.

Based on what we know about the history of how Russia views LiveJournal, we know two things:

1. The Russians will never let LiveJournal out of their control.

They see LJ as a potential threat to their power and will not release it to some other entity at any time. They worked very hard to get LJ and to prevent people from using it as a platform to air their grievances against the Russian government. There is no price that would permit anyone from buying it back now. LiveJournal, now and forever, is a Russian entity.

2. The Russians could literally pull the plug on LJ at any moment.

Granted, it doesn't seem imminent, nor is it likely to be, but there is nothing that states that, just as they arbitrarily threw up that ToS for all of us westerners to sign ten months ago, they won't just shut down and destroy LiveJournal if some Russian government figure thinks that would be the best choice.

I'm trying to envision a scenario where it makes sense to remain on LiveJournal, knowing these facts. If you think of any, let me know.

I can remember, way back to the day when I was setting up my Dreamwidth Journal account. It was during the madness that was the SixApart era, when we all believed that company was going to destroy LiveJournal with advertising and its overt capitalist practices.

Little did we know.

But that threat passed and things seemed to be a bit better when 6A sold LJ to SUP. Sure they were a Russian company, but the two halves of LJ were operated separately and nobody said much of anything to us. In fact, I started to see some Russian posts by users and it seemed like a way of seeing into a different world!

My DW account sat dormant with a single entry for about 5 years until the scramble over the LJ servers being migrated to Russia occurred at the end of 2016. Currently, my DW is *sorta* a mirror of my LJ account. I say sorta because I transferred my account over there via the transfer tool they have at DW. I did a post about the transfer, but to sum up the pertinent points:

1. It was very easy to do.

Despite having 16 years worth of LJ material, the transfer was simple, didn't seem to interfere with my being on the internet doing other stuff while it was happening and, even now, seemed to have gotten all of my entries properly - as well as the vast amount of comments. It took about 3-4 hours for the transfer to go through completely.

2. Could it be because I have a paid DW Account and a permanent LJ account?

I did spring for a year's worth of paid service from DW which I'm sure didn't hurt the process of transferring all my material. I have heard that some people have had problems with the transfer but I don't know a lot of details. It could have to do with other factors specific to those journals.

3. All of your LJ Links are unchanged.

If you reference a link to another LJ post in an entry, the link will continue to point to that LJ link in DW. If you want to make your DW "self contained," you'll have to meticulously go through each and every entry you made with a link to any LJ entry and manually transfer those to your new DW link. Sounds like fun? Try it for 16 years worth of entries.

Of course, that makes sense, because if you're referencing a journal outside of your own, it might not exist on DW or might exist under a different name. But it's just something to remember when you're considering this transfer.

Not to mention the photo hosting, which, if you're anything like me, would require another massive series of transfers and posts, and that's just to get the photos visible! Then, you'd have to link them to your entries.

4. LJ Username links remain unchanged.

This is sort of specific, but if you have referenced someone's LJ username in a post somewhere, and that person changed their name - here on LJ the username is updated to the new name or at least it was... on DW the original username is linked and again, it points to the LJ user, not to a Dreamwidth account. This is more anecdotal than anything because this issue won't come up that frequently, but if you're reading through an old entry, it might be a surprise to see a "former" name listed for a person you mentioned.

5. When you edit your entry on DW, it is automatically updated on LJ!

That's a huge time saver: If you edited a post on DW that was linked to your LJ, it automatically also updated your LJ with the edit! I tested it again and that interface still works. You can still post directly to LJ from DW and make edits. The reason I wasn't sure is because I posted a DW entry that didn't go through to my LJ, but that was because I hadn't yet signed the Russian TOS.

Now that I covered the technical, the bones of the story, let's get to the meat: the psychological. Here's where the story gets a little spooky.

Let's be brutally honest. DW is not really a community. It's a storage container. It's an attic. It's a safety net for your words and entries and memories of the glory of LJ long since past. If something were to happen to your LJ account, Lenin forbid, at least you still have the cadaver of what you created. And really that's what it is, because nobody is interacting with your past entries. And the problem is nobody on DW is really posting stuff that's current, unless it's just a mirror of their LJ entries, which people are still reading on LJ.

Several of my friends on LJ opened accounts on DW at the same time as my transfer and for the same reason, but there hasn't been any real interaction between us there. Everyone prefers to stay on LJ because this is home.

Now, I think if LJ actually were to disappear, DW *might* become something like a community. But, for now, that process is like attempting to colonize another planet. Why would you do it if you didn't actually need to do it?

Sure, there are always going to be the daring and intrepid few who are willing to leave behind the familiar and boldly go somewhere where nobody is. But that's sort of the opposite of what a social media site is supposed to be about. You're supposed to go to where people are!

So.

I have an idea. We could make Dreamwidth work. But it would take a drastic step. Here's the plan.

We have to make a pact.

We'd have to agree to go, to leave LiveJournal and we'd have to never look back because that's really the only way we could make it work. We'd have to drink this Kool-Aid together, all of us, or it won't happen.

If we all don't go, it will collapse, because we know that people stayed behind in the old place and the temptation to return would be too great. And once a few people started going back, then everyone would. And it would be over.

Doing this will not be easy. It's going to feel a little bit like killing a parent. After all, we all grew up with El Jay. It's like a constant, always there for us, ready to accept us as we were, to listen to what we had to say, to share our stories with people who cared about them. Now, we're talking about turning our back on it completely? This is a harsh choice.

But LiveJournal isn't that blog service any more. It's LiveJekyll and it feels like it's time to Hyde. Think about it. If you won't go now, with all that has happened already, what would it take to make you leave?

Yes, it's possible that everything will remain as it has. But when they migrated the servers to Russia, we were told that the "western" side of LiveJournal would remain its own entity, and we now know that is no longer true, as we all had to sign that Russian TOS to retain our journals. Who can say what other "adjustments" are on the way?

Okay. I mixed up a batch of Dreamwidth Drank. Here it is.

http://www.dreamwidth.org/

But, and I'm completely serious about this, we ALL have to drink it, and drink it freely, because we think it's the right choice to make. This isn't an ultimatum. You can still say no and ignore it all. Remain on LiveJournal until Vladimir gets tired of allowing it to exist.

But if you want to retain a blog community on a platform like LiveJournal and be free of whatever Russian influence is about to happen, think seriously about where we're going.

Those are the alternatives as I see them. So tell me. How will this story end?

//

This entry was written for LJ Idol using the prompt Campfire stories

So, I'm really annoyed and disturbed by the LiveJournal Terms of Service, introduced, as far as I know, April 3rd, 2017.

First of all, the whole damn thing is in Russian, and though I suppose we all should start thinking about learning that language, based on the actions of our government's current Administration, why are we being required to answer to this? After all, we were told that the Russian side of LJ (aka Zhe-Zhe) was a separate entity from the Western version.

Then they made a note stating that you would get a bonus if you agree to the TOS... but if you choose to ignore it, they attempt to log you out of your account!

So, the obvious question here is what's going on?

And the obvious problem here is... there's no way to find out. We have no idea who the "western" directors of LiveJournal are or how to contact them, or what they are doing, or who they actually care about.

I did note that one of the translated elements of this all Russian TOS stated, and I quote:

"this translation of the User Agreement is not a legally binding document. The original User Agreement, which is valid, is located at the following address: http://www.livejournal.com/legal/tos-ru.bml."

In other words, you can't really agree to the translated version of this document. You can only agree to the Russian version.

WHERE ARE THE NON CYRILLIC LIVEJOURNAL DIRECTORS?!?!

Believe it or not, there currently is some sort of LiveJournal wave of nostalgia taking place. It sort of began on Facebook where someone created a "secret group" to which LJ members were added. And, similar to the old "invite codes," other people started bringing in their friends who had (or have) an account to talk about, read about and think about the elements that they liked about it. What kicked it into overdrive was when Brad Fitzpatrick showed up with the three word comment: "I love this."

Suddenly everyone on FB who had an LJ was ready to chat it up with both Brad and with each other, and even though there were other attempts to relaunch things on this platform a number of times since SixApart moved out, nothing ever quite got it moving with this much gusto.

Why is it happening now? It could be a number of factors... not the least of which is we're getting sick of social media as seen in these other formats. Between the trolling of internet fiends on twitter and the ridiculousness of everybody you know on Facebook, LiveJournal suddenly looks like an oasis from the desert heat of hateful rhetoric, a storm cellar against that vast tornado of twisted words and concepts, fake news and biased views. It could be that there just is a desire to go back to a place that feels more safe, more secure. Or maybe people simply got bored and decided to come back here now.

For the record, the community of note is 2017revival, where people are posting memes about who they are, what they have done on LJ and what they might be looking for here, again. Active users on the old El Jay? It's starting to happen.

But...

There seems to be a little thorn on this rose, or, maybe more accurately, a worm in your glass of vodka.

LiveJournal has migrated its servers to Moscow.

What exactly does that mean?

The most honest answer is, we don't really know.

We do know that the Russian government has been targeting their citizens who have a Zhe-Zhe (that's how they refer to LJ there) who have been critical of them. But we have been constantly told that the Russian side of LJ and the Western side are two different animals... mirrored, yes, but separate.

Still, the fact that "Russian government officials now have access to the private information of people with these accounts," is definitely a damper on wanting to return here.

But that, in and of itself, might not affect us. After all, this is still a separate part of LJ. Have we been hacked by the Russians already? Have they already made copies of our LiveJournals? Do we need to pack it in?

Actually there is a likely threat. If the Russian government steps in and decides that Zhe-Zhe is simply too incendiary for their tastes, they might just shut the whole thing down, on their side. While that wouldn't affect us immediately, the question would be, wouldn't it affect us eventually? Even if our side of the servers remained running, who is paying for it, how is it being maintained and what happens to it if something happened to it?

And that brings us to the other issue that can't be overlooked... where are the Western LJ administrators?

As this story began to snowball, I decided to take a walk around LJ Land to see what I could find out about the people running it.

Turns out, I couldn't find out anything! I mean, we have people who are working as volunteers, very much like back in the late 90s early oughts, who fix any tech problems with the site for users. But what we don't have are representatives... the people who are the liaisons between the user base and the Board of Directors. Only it's worse because who are the Board of Directors?

Things changed severely when SixApart came in and tried to turn LJ into a profit making venture. Naturally, since they didn't know what blogging was all about, they made a couple of enormous errors and, once they wiped the egg off their faces, decided they didn't want to show their faces again. That's how we got theljstaff, a nameless account that allowed the administration the ability to make pronouncements, announce changes in policy, and explain issues (or more accurately ignore them) without needing to be targets for the derision of users who neither needed nor wanted what they were selling.

And once that precedent was set, it has remained. Why put up the names of actual people who could be blamed for something going wrong? It's much safer to keep that information hidden.

Of course, now, that's a definite issue, as who do we speak with about any of this, and who would or could clue us in about what's going on? And really, maybe there is a hierarchy of power that is in place. But the fact that I couldn't access it in any reasonable way, not even knowing where to look for even one name of a person who should be able to answer some basic questions about how our servers are in Moscow, is a little unnerving. I don't want to go as far as saying I'm worried, but it doesn't feel all that safe.

To wit, I have migrated the entirety of this journal over to Dreamwidth.org. I'm not certain what I should do about photos that have been stored on my LJ account. I'll probably need to figure out a new housing situation for them also.

I'm at: https://penpusher.dreamwidth.org/

It's an account I set up back during those 6A days, when it seemed like that group were going to turn their capitalist dreams into our blogging nightmares. How wrong we were!