Why the mass LJ exodus?

[starrylizard]

Why the mass LJ exodus? Is it over the less than great code implementation? Just curious. LJ has become my home and I hate to see people leave. I may yet have to learn to use my DW account to post in both places as LJ shrinks, but I can't imagine leaving here. :(

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

I'm not about to change this account because I still have an flist that I want to read, but I moved like all my fan-character journals because the constant interruptions were just bumming me out and stealing all my fun. And like- there are other, better options without as many restrictions and quite as much downtime!

It's sad though.

[yasminke.livejournal.com]

It is about the code debacle and the fact that LJ implemented the new design even though there was enormous feedback against it.

I'm not leaving, although I might double post, but to check two places? Way too much work.

[starrylizard.livejournal.com]

I know right, I barely keep up with this place, but maybe I should at least try to find some comms etc on DW and learn how to use it. While I think DW is doing great stuff, I don't quite understand any of it. Perhaps I've finally got to an age where I just can't be arsed learning new shit. Damn!

I don't really get LJ of late with the way they do things. Surely they could have rewritten the code and still had the same features. Computer programmer friends have said that would have in fact been easier to do than making a new version. *sigh*

[yasminke.livejournal.com]

You're still young! Think how *I* feel?

Your friends are spot on. It feels to me like LJ saw things like shiny new Ajax commands to embed and went "ooh, shiny, must have" and didn't think about the practicalities.

[starrylizard.livejournal.com]

The icons thing is the most annoying one. We previously had a choice to see the icons if we needed to, but it takes far less computer download power to use keywords. I used to use LJ on dial-up. I'm almost certain I couldn't do that if I had to now. :(

[yasminke.livejournal.com]

That and the lack of a subject line in comms...

[starrylizard.livejournal.com]

It's not very aesthetically pleasing either. I'm not usually one to whine, but this one really is a bit of a debacle. I'm not sure at all why they didn't listen to the feed-back, which appeared to be very thorough. *shrugs*

[yasminke.livejournal.com]

Continued indifference to the customers is the main reason for the mass exodus.

[greenpear.livejournal.com]

I've been noticing less and less posts as time goes on. This is my home and I really don't feel like picking up and moving.

[starrylizard.livejournal.com]

I know and I only recently bought another year of my account, so I'm not going anywhere. But I'm wondering if I'm missing out as whole communities I used to like here are now only on DW, etc. *sigh* And people keep disappearing and becoming strikethrough people. It's very sad for me. I wish LJ wouldn't drive people away from my comfy online home.

[bohoheart.livejournal.com]

Having just come back to LJ because I'm growing weary of FB, I have to ask what DW is?

Seeing as I've just come back, I am out of the loop as to what they've done to change things here, but it seems that every social media "home" messes with things when we don't want them to!

[starrylizard.livejournal.com]

DW = dreamwidth (http://www.dreamwidth.org/)

Basically, they are very similar to Live Journal in format. They copied the open source code and are run by people that previously worked for LJ. But they are sort of fan-run. Run by the fans for the fans, sort of thing. They've made some great improvements and I quite like the ideas they've implemented. They are also advertisement-free. And every time LJ does something stupid, more people shut their accounts in protests and move to DW. You can import you entire account over there, so you don't even lose any of your posts.

It's just, I have all my friends here. I really need to figure out how to post in both places as so many people do. I'm just lazy.

I hate facebook with a passion. Don't even get me started there.

[lark_ascends]

Crossposting is easy. You post from your DW account and tick the ticky box that tells it to post to your LJ account. The only thing I ever have to alter then in the LJ post is the icon and if any html has to be lj specific rather than DW specific.

[starrylizard.livejournal.com]

Um, do you know what the minimum security bit means? If you click public, but you lock the entry you post to DW, will it make the entry public on LJ or match the security setting?

[lark_ascends]

Okay, not quite sure what you mean, so I'll say a few things:

1) If you want it friends locked on DW and LJ, just put 'access list' as the privacy on DW and it will be locked on both.
2) If you want it friends locked on DW but not LJ, put 'access list' on DW and then on LJ edit the post to make it's security public.

When I imported my journal it also imported its custom filters for security.

[bohoheart.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the info...I might take a peek and just see what its about, but I will probably just stay here for now anyhow. My FB is going byebye just as soon as I let everyone know that I'm going.

[lark_ascends]

The removal of comment lines is part of what has done a lot of fandom people in in regards to LJ.

DW still is pretty quiet, and will be until/if the bulk of fandom moves over.

[starrylizard.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it'd muck with the charity fund-raising comms something bad and others I can think of too. Booo!

DW still is pretty quiet, and will be until/if the bulk of fandom moves over.
That's the impression I've been getting.

[lark_ascends]

Now that DW has community import, I do know that some comms are starting to mirror over there at least (several NCIS fic ones are).

[ficwriter1966.livejournal.com]

I got kind of peevish during that one round of service interruptions and bought myself a DW account, but there's SO little going on over there. I could only find 3 or 4 comms I was interested in joining, and no one ever posts in them! So when this latest bit of upheaval happened, I didn't pay too much attention. I don't like the changes, but they don't impact me in any huge way, so I'll stick around.

[starrylizard.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I think that may be most people's stance. Maybe DW will eventually take off, but right now it doesn't compare. Most of fandom is still here.

[not-sally.livejournal.com]

Too much LJ fucktardery, many cooler options that do no or have not yet fucked us over to replace it.

[starrylizard.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'm hearing ya. Yet, I'm still here. Probably that means I'm very lazy and stuck in my ways. :P

[callme-k.livejournal.com]

I've not experienced the exodus on my flist (which is a good thing), though the comms are quiet. I pretty much only use LJ to keep up with a few things, namely SPN and fandom peeps such as yourself.
If everyone bailed though I can't say I'd follow... I barely do social media as it is but what I do do, I haven't as much interest in anymore. It'd be sad to lose what we do have here.

[starrylizard.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I doubt too many people will leave. I think DW is still fairly stagnant, but it may slowly gain the higher ground as this sort of exodus keeps happening.

*hugs* Glad you're about.

[katherine-b.livejournal.com]

It always happens. People throw a little tanty and LJ is quiet. It's exacerbated by the Christmas/New Year holiday, too. Don't worry, they usually come back, grumble a bit about the changes and then adjust. The simple fact is that DW hasn't taken off in the way it would have if all the people who have vowed to take their business there when LJ did something they didn't like actually did leave for good.

That said, it does such while it's happening. *hugs*

[starrylizard.livejournal.com]

That's interesting to hear people say. I found a few comms I was interested in on DW at one point, but there is very little action on them. I thought maybe I was just hanging out in the wrong corners of DW when I bothered to hang out there. *hugs*

[wickedalchemist.livejournal.com]

I'm not about to change this account because I still have an flist that I want to read, but I moved like all my fan-character journals because the constant interruptions were just bumming me out and stealing all my fun. And like- there are other, better options without as many restrictions and quite as much downtime!

It's sad though.

[starrylizard.livejournal.com]

It is sad. So you still RP a lot? I've tried at various times, but I always have a period where I'm too busy to post lots and I get kicked out. lol

[wickedalchemist.livejournal.com]

Haa no I don't do any forum based RPing or anything like that because that's exactly what would happen to me. These are just the characters from the original RP I ever was involved in, with Jess actually and CW. And most people are too busy to even talk on MSN, but some of us still do and we RP however ways we can- through journals, we just made some forums, and MSN.

[romoeren81.livejournal.com]

I don't think I'm going to leave Lj soon since this is the only place in which I truly feel myself. I don't like changes when they are not needed that's for sure, but until I'll be able to post my silliness here, well... I don't have any intention to leave!

[starrylizard.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'm much the same. It's not like I have the same time for fandom that I used to anyway. My Friends-list is most of my fandom contact, so as long as nice people are on it, I'll be here.

[leoraine.livejournal.com]

I hear you there. Almost half of my friends are moving to DW, some of them completely leaving LJ. It saddens me but I understand. It's funny that it wasn't the DDOS attacks that caused the biggest exodus... it was the blatant disregard from the LJ towards what their users wanted. Not only the recent code change... but also what they are planning in the future and the fact that despite such massive protests, they are not going to listen. THAT's what p***ed off most people I guess.
Also, now that DW allowed community moves, there's less to keep LJ users here.

I started using DW mostly because DDOS attacks... I hated to go several days without any update from friends, lol. I don't care for the new look, either way. I'm not gonna leave LJ, but I've started crossposting through DW, because now it's not so silent there anymore, not with half of my friendlist there, sigh. If it takes to check two reading/friend list pages, well, I can deal with that, as long as at least one of them is working all the time:-)

[starrylizard.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'm thinking about cross-posting through the DW account. Looking in to it anyhow. It sounds simple enough. But I'm quite happy on LJ and I'm sure I can find ways around the silly things they implement as long as my flisties are about.

[the-muppet.livejournal.com]

I'm not leaving.

[starrylizard.livejournal.com]

*hugs*

[merlins-sister.livejournal.com]

I don't have any plans to move, although I occasionally toy with getting a DW account to back up everything on. I think I'll be the one who will be asked to turn the light off as everyone else leaves!

[starrylizard.livejournal.com]

Hee, I got a DW account when they first opened, but there was never much incentive for me to use it as anything more than a backup. I still think that's what the majority of users are doing over there.

[el1ie.livejournal.com]

This new design has alienated a lot of people who use screen readers - it's almost impossible to use on a touch screen mobile device because of the new lay out.

For me personally, as someone who has a pretty and dark lay-out for browsing my flist but uses the default styles for reading posts, comms and fic, the new vibrant colours and the hover menus flashing on and off triggered a massive 2 day migraine, not fun. Add that to the removal of subject lines (which so many comms, especially the fandom comms, auction comms and the like) and the inability to preview your post thus preventing multiple notifications for those tracking? Yeah, a lot have upped and moved, some because they truly believe that this is just the start of a major overhaul not only just the look but also the direction of the site and a belief that it will become less fandom friendly/welcome - the designer stating that subject line removal was non-negotiable hasn't helped - many feel they're moving now before they get pushed when this rolls out over S2 styles too - but right now no one knows what will happen or if codes will be rolled out to replace the functionality this new version has removed.

I'm staying for now, (I've been cross-posting from DW for quite a while as the RTE thingy over here was screwy) - thanks to some lovely users posting Greasemonkey scripts and codes for Stylish that I can adapt, I'm once again able to actually read the site happily as before and all my flist is staying, so I'm here until more changes are made and if I can find a work around for those then I'll still be here. I just don't 'feel' DW - if I lose this place then I'll probably just stop most of my fan activities.

[starrylizard.livejournal.com]

Gee, screen readers were one of the first things we looked at when designing a website for work. Weird a programmer wouldn't consider it. :(

[meg-tdj.livejournal.com]

Because people are fickle and always want what they don't have?

I haven't found a reason to complain about any recent changes, and frankly I'm confused about why people are so angry about it. Is it something that only affects communities or people who are using touch screens? I dunno. I just know that LJ is where I go to talk about my life and catch up with my friends, and unless the whole site is one day removed from the internet, that isn't going to change. If people want to move on and never come back, then we're either parting ways or communicating through e-mail, and that's that. I've got too many social networking accounts as it is, and there's no way I'm getting another one. I'm not involved in communities or fandom anymore, so I don't see what DreamWidth would have to offer me that LJ isn't providing anyway.

[starrylizard.livejournal.com]

I can see the header things is annoying for a lot of communities. For example the ones that run charity auctions. It's gonna mess with them a bit.

Why no fandon stuff for you? Just got over it? I don't really keep up with fandoms much these days, but mostly it's just a time thing and the fact that I watch too many shows. It was far simpler when I was just really in to one show at a time. :P

Glad to keep you around though, even being the crappy flister I am. :)

[meg-tdj.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I just kinda got over fandom. Too many whiners trying to bring you down, and it was taking up too much of my day. I still post about my shows whenever I have something to say, and I still make art (mostly for myself, since I don't go poking around comms for other people's anymore), but I've found that TV is a lot less stressful and a lot more fun if I only have my own opinions to deal with. ;)

And yeah, there are SO MANY good shows right now that being involved in fandom for all of them would mean I'd never get anything else done, heh.

You're not a crappy flister at all!

[charis-kalos.livejournal.com]

I've noticed, but I'm not planning to go anywhere. Not that I have had time to do much more than glance at LJ over the past few months, but I definitely still like hovering and lurking.

[starrylizard.livejournal.com]

Always good to know. :)
My comms have lost a bunch of members of late, so some people are leaving over this. I don't think any other sites have the communities that this one does atm.