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

[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.