rejectomorph (flying_blind) wrote,
rejectomorph
flying_blind

Up She Blows!

What are the odds that when I go to Journalfen (a site dedicated mostly to fandoms and based on open source LJ code) and hit their "random journal" link, the very first thing that pops up is is a post about Journalfen being slow and that it's probably because of all the people from LJ who are moving to Journalfen?

Right now, I'd say the odds are pretty good. Periodically, LJ must shoot itself in the foot. This time, though, I think it just may have shot itself in the balls—or, more accurately, 6A may have shot LJ in the balls. What I know for sure is that the number of journals updating on most days has declined more than 20% since 6A took over (I remember the daily update hovering in the 250,000 range on peak weekdays then—it's down to less than 200,000 now) despite a tremendous increase in the total number of journals created.

So, the site is already in trouble, and now we have the operators caving in to the demands of a fanatic group disguising itself as "protectors of the children" and, in response to the subsequent storm of protest from LJ's users (source of all the content on the site) says through CEO (and pseudo-user) Barak Berkowitz:
"Our decision here was not based on pure legal issues. It was based on what community we want to build and what we think is appropriate within that community and what's not."
So, it's not your father's LiveJournal. It's not your LiveJournal. It's the LiveJournal of Barak Berkowitz and the priggish, overbearing mouse in his pocket. Let the bleed-out continue. Who wants to bet on there being fewer than 100,000 posts a day before the end of the summer?

If somebody nabs the source code (most LJ's recently-written closed code is mostly just bells and whistles, so the available open source stuff should allow for a decent clone site of LJ as it was pre-6A) and sets up a journaling site run by a co-operative, non-profit organization, I'll sure as hell move my stuff there and kick this dump to the curb. I'll even get a paid account.

Oh, and while all this is going on, where's that guy who used to be so important around here? Oh, he's on vacation. Don't come back, dude. There'll probably soon be nothing to come back to, anyway.

LiveJournal

1999—2007



Edit: If you'd like to read step-mom Mena Trott's icky post about how happy she is to be resigning as CEO in favor of VC rep Barak, it's right here. If you want to see the rogues gallery of current 6A management, this is it. Incidentally (or not), Opera warns me that 6A's certificate cannot be validated. In other words, open the pages of this fly-by-night company's website at your own risk.
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  • 10 comments

  • 51/50: At Last

    I timed things quite badly Thursday, with the consequence that there will be disruptive spillover today. For example, I just finished Thursday dinner…

  • 51/49: Can't Dance

    Any memory of going to sleep Wednesday night has been obliterated, but I recall a couple of wakings, the last of which happened sometime after three…

  • 51/48: Uncool/Cool

    It's funny how during that interval between waking up and finally dragging my aged ass out of bed all the problems sometimes seem utterly intractable…