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Yes, I'm going on about LiveJournal-specific stuff
again. While this is just to explain things to my LJ readers,
I'm mirroring it to the other sites anyhow for the sake of
completeness. Or maybe because my mind got infested with
hobgoblins, I dunno.
The short version: LJ did something I
find unacceptable. I don't want to vanish entirely from
the view of my LJ-using friends, so I'm posting these "hey,
new entry over here" entries on LJ but no longer posting
whole entries there. I know I'll lose some readers, and
I'm not happy about that, but I feel I have no other
reasonable option. This makes me sad.
---------------------------------------------
At least a few of you noticed that my last few entries,
including quote-of-the-day entries, have been posted to
LiveJournal entirely behind what look like cut-tags, and a
few of you have noticed that those are really links to full
entries on sites other than LiveJournal. I've gotten some
questions, some emphatic complaints, and at least one wrong
(but close) guess. I did anticipate that folks would not be
thrilled, and even that I'd lose readers over the change, as
much as that prospect dismays me (and worries me, as I don't
really have a good idea how many readers I'll lose).
And I guess I really ought to provide the explanation where
folks can see it easily, without extra clicking.
Really, I'm not fond of cut-tags myself, though they
do have their uses. I routinely cut dreams and memes
because I expect those to be 'noise' rather than 'signal'
for a significant number of my friends and I don't feel
as strong a need to make sure those get read as I do my
other entries; and I have even occasionally cut for length
(though I have a higher threshold for "needs a cut" than
many people, and am more likely to cut as a way of
folding/unfolding long parenthetical passages), as well
as to make something easy for folks who'd be upset by it
to avoid. But I'm with you on the "it breaks the flow of
reading my friends-page" complaint, and I'm less likely
to click a cut than to wade through a long entry right in
front of me myself. So why am I inflicting on y'all
something that I wouldn't particularly like as a reader?
Well, basically, I feel boxed in -- this seemed like the
least-bad course of action open to me when "put
up or shut up" time arrived (late on the 28th).
This really goes back to Strikethrough 2007.
(I hear you groan.)
Reaching even farther back than that: when I started
using LJ, I liked the fact that it was free, and I
liked thefact that it didn't have advertisements on it.
I thought a couple of the paid-account features would
be nice but I certainly didn't feel I needed
them, especially considering how much time I spend broke.
But after I'd been using LJ for a while and had decided
that the service as a whole was something of value to me,
not just a random entertainment, I decided I should pay
for my account when I could, to support the site. (I don't
recall whether my first-ever spell as a paid-account user
was that, or whether someone had gifted me some paid time
before then. I did receive gifts of paid-account time
on several occasions, which meant that I had a paid
account a little more often than I could afford to pay.)
Once I'd gotten used to, for example, being able to
create polls, I decided I really liked having paid
features, but my main reason for scraping up the money
when I could was really still to support this site
that was giving me a service I valued even at the
basic level; getting the extra features was a bonus,
not the motivation.
Then Six Apart, who bought LJ, did some vile crap.
I wasn't hit directly, but I was sufficiently offended
that I realized the Proper action would be to say, "If
you don't make this right, I'm leaving." But I wasn't
prepared for relocation, so leaving would have carried
a high-enough cost to me (in terms of starting over) to
make me flinch ... and I flinched. (And felt shame at
having flinched.)
I took a somewhat lamer step though, and reverted
my account to basic, withdrawing my financial support
and stating (yes, in fora that site-management read)
my reasons for doing so and my hope that they would
redeem themselves enough to again be an organization
that I could support in good conscience. Six Apart
never did really get a clue, I think -- they made some
gestures in the right direction, but didn't do enough.
And then they went and did similar crap again, showing
by actions (though denied in statements) that their
advertisers' concerns carried more weight than those
of their users. (An understandable -- even predictable
-- prioritization for a company built on an advertising
model, but I hope equally understandably offpissing to
a user base that had been around longer than the advertising.)
So in addition to "Do I want to support an organization
that does that?", there was an added layer
of, "Do I want to pay to be treated poorly?"
I started investigating other sites using the LJ
software, both to prepare a bolt-hole in case 6A did
something else that I really could not abide
(multiple ones, in case my first pick went
404, turned evil, or got sold), and to try to
keep up with (and be findable by) friends who had
already fled LJ in disgust, in protest, or both.
(With only partial success on that second bit. *sigh*)
But while I wanted to not feel 'stuck' in LJ,
I also really didn't want to leave. LJ is a social
networking site in addition to being a blog host, and
thus it matters where other users are. I really,
really hoped that 6A would listen to the message
its users were sending, correct its course, and
be worthy of my cash again.
SUP bought LiveJournal, and some users predicted doom
and gloom while others held out hope that the new
owners would have a Clue (or show signs of being able to
learn when Clue was handed to them). My message was that
I really wanted SUP to be a company we could trust, and
that would treat its users in a way that I felt I could
support. SUP made some disagreeable moves early on,
digging the hole deeper, but eventually at least
started learning how to talk to LJ users,
even if their even greater emphasis on ads was
offputting (to put it mildly). Lately it's felt
like they're taking three steps forward and two
steps back, whereas at first it seemed as though
they were making two steps back for each step forward.
There are still some important bits missing, and the
trust problem is not helped by things like taking away
the ability to create basic accounts and using the
excuse they used. Nor did the announcement that they
were "bringing back basic accounts" that turned out
not to be what we used to call basic accounts
-- that there would be advertising attached somehow
even to 'basic' accounts (which used to be the
distinguishing feature between 'basic' and 'plus')
and that, contrary to an earlier promise, existing
basic accounts would not be grandfathered when
ads were added to so-called 'basic' accounts.
They floated a few proposals for how to add ads
to basic accounts, some better than others, depending
on one's priorities and one's purpose in blogging.
One of those, I considered poison. Alas, they decided
on that one.
More than a few people who do not have LJ accounts
and do not wish to for whatever reasons -- I'm
not really sure how many, but a few I know in meatspace
have mentioned it -- regularly read my journal. And as
far as I can tell, I'm getting occasional non-LJ-user
readers finding my journal via search engines (or links
from non-LJ blogs). As of 2008-08-28, those people started
seeing advertisements on my 'basic' LiveJournal journal.
That's not cool, for a couple of reasons. First,
because I know some folks are going to be put off by
seeing the ads, so if there are ads I want
it to be only because I decided that what I
gain by having ads is worth more than losing whatever
percentage of readers find ads distasteful enough to
not come back. And I haven't decided that. Second,
because if my words are being used to sell advertising,
I want a cut. And third, because here I've decided
that LJ -- as 6A and then as SUP -- has not (yet!)
earned my support, and SUP has gone and said, "Oh,
that's okay, we're going to make money off of you
anyhow."
(This "show ads to not-logged-in readers
seeing basic users' journals" business is obviously
not so toxic to every basic user. Some post
friends-only, so nobody can see their entries without
being logged in anyhow; others don't expect, or don't
care about, random strangers' and their impressions; some
consider the ads to be such an insignificant factor
that they're just not concerned regardless (though
why anyone who thinks that wouldn't get a Plus
account instead eludes me). We don't all have the
same priorities here.)
Hey, their site, their investment, their rules.
They can do that if they want. But also,
hey, my content -- I can take it out of
their playground. I'd rather have them earn my
respect and my money than sell my work to advertisers,
but that's not the direction they decided to go.
I know they have to get their money from someplace,
but the whole point of withdrawing my financial support,
however tiny it had been, was to tell them that if
they wanted it from me, I wanted to see the policy
problems fixed first. And yes, I realize that I'm
effectively saying I expect something for nothing
by continuing to use the site without paying. But
as long as that was an option they allowed, I figure
that was cool. They've now said "no free rides;
either pay or be bait for the advertisers," which
is not an unreasonable thing for them to say. And
seeing that I do have options -- despite drawbacks
like having a lot of people not follow me -- my
answer to that reasonable announcement is a similarly
reasonable, "since I don't like that, I'll put my
writing elsewhere instead." This is not about whether
LJ has some moral or ethical obligation to support
free users (especially if, as they appeared to back
when that 'strike' business was going on, consider
those of us who wish to send them a message as 'enemies'
(*sigh*)) without imposing ads -- we've had
that conversation and I've stated my PR arguments,
my for-the-good-of-the-community arguments, my economic
arguments, and my admittedly weak ethical arguments
(basically: "but you told us you weren't gonna!", which
doesn't qualify is a 'contract') in that conversation.
Them what 'as the gold made their decision, and
that conversation's done; now it's just a question
of how I act in light of the new rule.
I am, yes, trying to have my cake and eat it too,
by continuing to post links to my new entries elsewhere.
I accept that my decision not to support SUP at this
time carries a cost, and I'm trying to minimize the
pain as much as I can without resorting to whining,
"but activism shouldn't inconvenience me." The
Absolutely Correct path would be to delete everything
except a message saying why I'd left, and not post to
LJ again until/unless they live up to my standards.
I'm doing this halfway: continuing to post pages that
they'll put ads on, but having the only thing on
those pages be the pointer to the part worth reading
elsewhere. (Well, I hope my journal's worth reading
anyhow.) I get a fraction of the value I used to get
from LiveJournal, and they get a fraction of the
revenue they'd hoped to get from my journal.
If they'd already convinced me to resume paying
for an account before throwing this latest wrinkle
in, this would be a much more difficult decision.
It wouldn't affect me then (as currently implemented
but if this doesn't bring in enough money,
expect them to impose more ads more places),
and I seem to have gotten pretty good at finding
excuses and rationalizations for "not leaving quite
yet" these past several months, so I'd have to weigh
just how much I really cared purely as a matter of
"preserve the atmosphere of classic LJ" principle.
As it is, it does affect me, so the decision,
while still terribly unpleasant, was at least
obvious. Either tell SUP/LJ, "I'm a blowhard who
can make lofty arguments but in the end you can go ahead,
ignore everything I've said, and walk all over me," or
demonstrate, "Yes I really did mean what I wrote,
and will act in accordance with that reasoning even
when it costs me more than a few dozen minutes of
typing; even when it costs me some of what I'm here for
in the first place."
Sadly, this makes me even less likely to pay for
an LJ account in the future, because the longer I
have to get used to not sharing my entries on LJ,
the less value LJ will have for me even ifwhen SUP
does demonstrate they can be trusted to treat their
users well.
In the meantime, while I know that some of you
will disagree with my reasons or think that I'm
right but that a Strongly Worded Letter would have
been enough without changing my posting habits,
and I know that many of you find the extra step
irritating because it does disrupt the
scrollin'-thru-the-friendslist groove (and you
have to do the OpenID dance to post a non-anonymous
comment), I hope that most of you will at least
understand that this is no mere caprice, and will
click through to check out what I have to say anyhow,
or will follow me to Blurty, CommieJournal, CrazyLife,
DeadJournal, GreatestJournal, InsaneJournal,
JournalFen, or Scribbld, (or DreamWidth when
that becomes active) and friend me there.
And if you do not, I will understand. I knew
there would be a price in readership. I wish it
had not come to this. I'll miss the insightful,
funny, helpful, and snarky comments from those
of you who stop reading.
Just don't call this a 'flounce'. I'm not doing
it for Teh Drahmah (I had hoped to make the change
low-key but I underestimated how much the cuts would
upset people). And I'm not even doing it to Make
A Statement to SUP -- I've made my statements
to SUP, explicitly, carefully, and repeatedly,
when I told them why I had reverted my Paid account to
Basic and what the consequence of imposing ads on existing
basic accounts would be. (And I made my statement
in a place where a representative of the company
assured us the staff were reading every comment.)
They didn't believe me, or more likely bet that I
represent an ignorable minority (in which they may
well turn out to be absolutely correct), or both,
and "put up or shut up" day arrived. They took an
action I'd said would be unacceptable, and here I am
not accepting it. It's pretty simple, regardless of
how annoying it is.
I'll entertain suggestions for ways to make this
even less dramatic, and less inconvenient for y'all
and for myself. So far this is the least painful of
the solutions I've come up with consistent with my
concerns. If you have a solution that neither violates
the LJ TOS nor lets LJ earn advertising dollars from
my writing, and is less annoying than this, I'll
listen.
In principle, I should turn off comments on the LJ
fake-cut entries, so that the comment pages won't be
able to generate ad revenue either. But I figure that
would annoy people even more, who want to post non-anonymously
with the fewest extra steps possible, so I'm just going
to hope that the comment pages don't get many ad-views.
I haven't chosen a 'main' site yet, but I'm posting
the same content everywhere except on LiveJournal anyhow,
so if you want to pick one, see where most of the comments
start showing up, I suppose. I've got a partial design
in my head for a system that'll gather the comments from
all the copies of an entry into one place, but I haven't
started trying to build it yet. DreamWidth is making
smoother inter-site interoperability one of their goals,
so perhaps they'll build something that will save me from
having to roll my own (in which case they'll be my "front
door"). Currently,
InsaneJournal
and
CommieJournal are at the top of my list, and IJ is where
I've been seeing the most comments other than LJ. The
site that each fake-cut links to may differ (it's the
alphabetically-first site without ads from the list of
sites the entry has been posted to 140 seconds after the
script started trying to post to all of them at once.
If it points someplace other than whatever you've picked
as your preferred place to read me, by the time you see
the LJ entry the real entry should have showed up on my
'recent entries' page at all the other sites, barring
site problems or network problems).
Additional reading:
I'll let someone else find old links giving background on
Strikethrough, Boldthrough, the breast feeding kerfuffle, the
removal of Basic accounts, the monkeying with the popular interests
list and interest-searches, the ominously vague statements
regarding interpretation of also-vague policy, statement/action
inconsistencies, and other reasons why LJ is in a position of having
to earn trust back. I need to go do something else for a while.
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