Uh, WTF, LJ?

[jedibuttercup]

Check this out: all LJ accounts that are suspended OR inactive? After an obligatory wait period, the LJ scriptmonkeys will now not only delete the account itself, but EVERY COMMUNITY POST AND COMMENT ever made by that account. ('Inactive' includes communities not posted to in 24 months, as well as similarly sluggish LJ's). Details here.

So much for fic communities being good places to find old orphaned stories. Or old fic-comments on comment-fic memes sticking around for future appreciation. Or old RP stories. LJ's value as an archive (what value it had) is going to be totally gutted by this; who knows how many old authors have moved on to other pastures or retreated from fic in the last couple of years, that will be erased from LJ by the change, not to mention comms for older fandoms and pairings where fic can go a couple of years between posts, but which are still the best index point.

I might have to finally put serious thought into investigating DW as more than just a long-fic posting zone.
~

Comments

[azraelz-angel.livejournal.com]

This is kinda ridiculous. I'm sure they have their reasons, but yeah, it is definitely going to greatly annoy people.

[jedibuttercup]

It looks like they've backtracked on the "inactive" thing, but they're leaving up the "delete all posts by deleted accounts" aspect. Sometime in the next couple of weeks I'm going to have to comb through all 700+ LJ posts saved to my delicious tags and find alternate hosts to link to, or save them off. *sigh*

[beatrice_otter]

I'm primarily on DW. Besides the fact that LJ pulls stupid crap like this on a regular basis, it's so easy to crosspost using the DW posting window! It takes no more effort to maintain a presence on both sites than it does to be just on LJ. I prefer reading my DW read page to my LJ flist page because they have this cool thing with cuts--a triangle next to them that expands them without having it take you away from the page you're on. I didn't think I'd use it, and now I get so annoyed when I'm on LJ and the little expand triangle isn't there.

[jedibuttercup]

I noticed the triangle thing last time I was over there; it is pretty neat.

I guess it's just inertia keeping me here; that, and my f'list. One of these days I'll just have to clear a day and do it.

[beatrice_otter]

Why would it take a day? They've got a good importer; I'm pretty sure it doesn't duplicate anything that's already posted there. Then it's just getting things set up.

I still use LJ for my flist; when people move over, I add them to my circle on DW and remove them from the default view here. They're working to find a way to let you read your flist on your circle (even locked entries to which you would have access if you were logged on to LJ). That's what I want, but they haven't figured out quite how to do it yet, so ...

[jedibuttercup]

It's not just the importing of entries; it's the looking up of flist folks to see if they've got a DW (as I've not been keeping track), overhauling the tag system (that's needed doing for awhile), and so on. I'm a bit obsessive about organization. =)

I'll get there eventually.

[pronker]

Yes to everything in para 2. I'm pleased they worked on the notification problem, ten times the problem that 'inactive' stuff is. Comms like quiforce I'll miss.

[pronker]

Ooopps, that was sw_quiforce.

[jedibuttercup]

It looks like they've backtracked on the "inactive" thing, but they're leaving up the "delete all posts by deleted accounts" aspect. Sometime in the next couple of weeks I'm going to have to comb through all 700+ LJ posts saved to my delicious tags and find alternate hosts to link to, or save them off. *sigh*

It's still going to gut old RPG accounts, too, since "inactive" is defined by "no entries", not "no comments".

[pronker]

TFN uses the 'locked topic' thing to freeze comments and updates --- while their 'message board' format is different than LJ, I'd like to see LJ do that rather than delete RP comms, just because even though you can't reply (if they're members-only) you have the fun of reading long-ago funnies.

[graycardinal]

It suddenly occurs to me that there may be an interesting copyright question here, which might impinge on LJ's ability to purge individual comments and entries-to-communities.

Back in the age of GEnie, one of the concepts that arose from the whole "online community" phenomenon was called "compilation copyright"; basically, GEnie in particular asserted a copyright interest in a collective work consisting of the posts in a particular CATegory/TOPic area of a roundtable. (A TOPic -- the initial caps were command shorthand -- was roughly similar to a threadless LiveJournal, with no distinction between journal entries and comments, and the only sort-arrangement possible being by posting order. A CATegory was a subject-linked group of TOPics; the subject could be "authors A-C" or "Babylon 5", or anything in between; "author TOPics" were GEnie's equivalent of someone's personal LJ.)

But back to "compilation copyright" -- basically, the idea was that the contents of any given TOPic constituted a unique collective work, in which GEnie as service-provider and host asserted a copyright interest. And given the contents of some of those TOPics (which were sometimes used for interactive fiction the same way RP-oriented LJs are used now), there was also the distinct implication that the author/host of a given TOPic also might have an interest in the compilation copyright of his or her TOPic.

The interfaces are different now, but the principle may still apply. If an LJ journal or community is viewed as a "collective work" (and that may be especially true of communities), then selectively removing elements of that collective work -- indeed, effectively destroying it in at least some cases -- without appropriate permissions may constitute a violation of the compilation copyright in that collective work.

I am not a lawyer (let alone an IP lawyer), but this ought to be looked into. Maybe this is something at which to point the OTW?

[jedibuttercup]

Interesting; I didn't know most of that.

It looks like they've backtracked on the "inactive" thing to a degree, but they're leaving up the "delete all posts by deleted accounts" aspect, which still hits that issue.

[jilltanith.livejournal.com]

Point to consider; you can import your LJ onto DW with comments. I know, because I did.

[jedibuttercup]

One of these days, I'm going to have to take a day and just do that.

It'll save my stuff, at least. But I have over 700 old LJ posts saved to delicious; the idea of going back through all of that and either finding an alternate archive or saving each one of them makes me cringe.

[beege22.livejournal.com]

I've always had a policy of saving lj fic I really like to my hard drive if it isn't archived anywhere else, because lj has never been the most permanent storage place - that's not what its for. I can understand why people are bothered by this, but honestly I can see why they'd do it and I'm mostly suprised that so many people are surprised by this.

[jedibuttercup]

I have a habit of just clicking "bookmark on delicious" on so many of my favorites, because I read from multiple locations and multiple computers.

Good thing I also tagged all LJ posts "web:lj" when I did that... there are over 700 of them I'll now have to go back through and alternate-source or save. *sigh*

[graycardinal]

And now LJ has (mostly) blinked; "inactive" has been re-defined so that only accounts with no content AND 24 months of no login activity will be purged.

This isn't a 100% fix; old accounts used solely to comment/post in other folks journals and comms are still at risk (how many of those there actually are, I've no idea). But it's a major retreat from the original announcement.

[jedibuttercup]

It is. But posts by deleted accounts are still going the way of the dodo; where previously you'd still see the stories floating in their comms with a struckthrough name if the author was kind enough not to deliberately delete those, too. =(

[graycardinal]

Amazingly enough, this appears not to be the case after all. The word I'm seeing from a side discussion hosted by soph is that posts elsewhere from purged accounts will not actually be deleted. [The key bit of confirmation is a ways down in the comments.]

[kerravonsen]

I think LJ is surviving largely through inertia. (sigh)

[jedibuttercup]

Probably so. I know it's why I haven't moved yet. I have a tendency to cling to my toys and resist upgrading until I absolutely have to.

[dharkapparition.livejournal.com]

I just read that notice and it is pretty disturbing.

[jedibuttercup]

It always comes down to money. I suppose they don't want any poor rename-token-paying users to be unexpectedly associated with older posts, so.... *sigh*

[vamp-ress.livejournal.com]

This is just one of the reasons why I prefer old-fashioned fic archives to LJ.

[jedibuttercup]

I started out on regular archives, too; I was writing for three years before I came here. But the community aspect of this place has been amazing, and unfortunately a lot of excellent authors haven't bothered to post anywhere else.

[vamp-ress.livejournal.com]

I agree with you, LJ (and clones) are a wonderful opportunity to meet fans, to discuss and to generally get your daily dosage of fannish squee. That doesn't mean it's good for reading/posting fic, which is why I always do this elsewhere.

That is a problem for fandom that are very LJ-based, though. And there are quite a lot of them.

[flingslass.livejournal.com]

I have spare invites if you need one.