sholio | Why I'm not participating in the LJ content strike

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Why I'm not participating in the LJ content strike

First off, I don't mind other people doing it. Getting enthusiastic and moved to act for a cause -- that's a good thing, right? I'm not going to be posting/commenting/giving them page hits in a deliberate effort to undermine the strike. I'm just going to carry on like I normally do.

I wrote out the first version of this in a comment elsewhere, and figure I'd repost it here (modified and updated for latest developments).

I do believe there's real power in grassroots movements, and that boycotts/strikes/protests with a clear purpose, well-organized, with their demands clearly communicated to the corporation/entity that they're trying to change, can and have accomplished a lot.

But I don't feel as if this one has a clear purpose and function, and I don't wish to get involved with a cause that's so vague and ill-defined. What are people angry about, anyway? Loss of Basic accounts? In that case, jumping ship to IJ, which has NEVER had Basic-equivalent accounts, makes no sense. Having user interests pulled from the popular listings? They reinstated them -- shouldn't we be thanking them for that, and letting them know that we'd like more of that sort of responsiveness? Anger at the corporate-speak and obfuscation that they use when trying to communicate their wishes to us, the user base? How is a strike going to help with that, especially when none of us are being especially clear about what we want, either?

This hadn't happened yet when I wrote my original comment, but LJ apologized for their hasty decision with Basic accounts and has floated the possibility of allowing existing users to continue to create Basic accounts. Which ... pretty much sounds like exactly what we wanted. At this point, continuing with the strike when LJ is meeting the strikers' demands is pretty counter-productive; the message it sends is "We don't care what you do, we're striking anyway." And it may well be that the threat of a strike was part of what prompted this, in which case, yay! Go strikers! But, again -- going ahead with a strike when everything seems to be going the strikers' way is only going to breed hard feelings, it seems to me.

The idea of proving to LJ that the site is content-driven sounds good and lofty, but there's no doubt in my mind that LJ already knows the site is content-driven, just as, say, Wal-Mart knows that their survival as a business is dependent upon consumers buying their goods. But in either case, a vague and undefined boycott isn't going to give them a respect for their customer base that wasn't there before. At most, if it's successful enough, it might just tick them off a little bit. I can't help feeling that the strike, for some people at least, is a way for users to get back at LJ for perceived injustices -- a way of "sticking it to the man" rather than working towards actual change. And it serves no more purpose than the wave of "MADE OF FAIL" and cat macro comments that attach to any LJ news post (regardless of what they're actually announcing).

The only way a strike could possibly have any effect is if enough customers refuse to use the service until the business makes the changes they want to see. If we're staging a one-day strike to make them respect us, I'm just not seeing how it's going to work. Businesses neither like nor respect customers who boycott them; it won't be more than a temporary irritant, and that's assuming enough people "strike" to make a noticeable difference in site stats. If not, then it will have proven the opposite -- that the dissatisfied customers are a small minority who can be easily ignored.

And to do it when things seem to be essentially going our way ... no, I'm not going to do that.

Like I said, though, this is an explanation of why I'm not doing it, not a condemnation of anyone else for participating. Having a passion for the place you "live" online, and the desire to change it and make it better, is a good thing, even though I don't feel that this passion is being channeled effectively and efficiently in the content strike. But I consider it my prerogative not to get involved with a cause whose process and goals feel unpleasantly murky to me, even if I think their heart's in the right place.

Obviously, if anyone has a good counter-argument, I'd be happy to hear it, either in the comments here or, if you are participating in the strike, via email.

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I just posted this (very wordy) comment to the journal of someone on my flist who is weighing the pros and cons of going through with the strike:

There is a very real danger of fandom users provoking a serious backlash among our fellow users as well as SUP - and any future entity that might wind up owning LJ - by continually exhibiting an intractable attitude in the face of apologies and offerings of respectful treatment. Personally, I'm finding embarrassing the many responses of "Oh, you're sorry, are you? Well, I'll believe it when I see/don't see [insert unreasonable demand here], you lying assholes!"

If we are going to demand fair treatment and respect, we are going to have to act deserving of it. One way to do that is to let go of grudges when a genuine gesture is made by SUP. Yes, there was no "promise" that they "wouldn't screw up again." Please. Be reasonable. What sane businessperson would ever make such a claim? From their perspective, their fannish user base is made up of more than a few wild-eyed, judgmental flakes who are more interested in pointing and screaming, "See? SEE? They're out to get us!!!11" than in actually working things out like adults.

The loss of basic accounts is a blow, but mature, reasonable adults know that it was a business decision that SUP was utterly free to make. Most of us were upset primarily about the fact that it was slipped under the radar and implemented immediately, not because we thought SUP had no right to make the decision at all. If we are basing our response to their apology on the fact that they haven't promised to restore basic accounts, we are risking our own credibility with both SUP and our fellow users.

SUP has committed itself to a process of involving us, their users, in their policy decisions by giving us a mechanism to provide feedback on potential changes before they are implemented. Do we have proof that this isn't just lip service? Do we know for certain that they won't let us talk and talk and do whatever they want anyway? Of course not.

Do they deserve a chance to demonstrate their trustworthiness to honor this process without constant snarky, distrustful comments and attitude? In my opinion, yes.

And to me, that means dropping the idea of the one-day strike, a gesture that I only supported because it represented a way for users to express their displeasure. But it had serious flaws even when I was supporting it and was always destined to be more symbolic than practically effective. What legitimate reason does anyone really have to go through with this now, except to make the statement that fandom - just as so many people have accused us - will never be satisfied, no matter what anyone does for us?

Yeah. I know. *sigh* I originally wrote most of the above before LJ made their apology and offer to reconsider their policies, and I must admit that over the last couple of days, I've slid from being more-or-less in sympathy with the strikers (even if the strike was still murky and vague enough that I wasn't interested in participating) to feeling that it makes us look like a bunch of impossible-to-satisfy customers that LJ might feel they'd be better off without.

I didn't see that news item, and I really appreciate the link. I will repost it myself. That in fact does change my mind about striking.

Honestly, though, I'm flabbergasted. I'm guessing from your post and

kalquessa's that some people are trying to force others to strike. I'm not seeing that, and I thought I made it quite clear that I wasn't doing it. Instead, now I am seeing people tell strikers how dumb they're being (which neither you nor Kalquessa is doing). I thought a one-day strike wouldn't hurt the company but might make a statement about four issues which I saw clearly stated in the post to which I linked.

I don't see why people on either side are getting so upset. I thought the planned strike a measured response. Now that LJ is responding to us, I'm not going to strike--and I'm off to go post.

I'm guessing from your post and [info]kalquessa's that some people are trying to force others to strike.

Oh, heavens no! I hope I didn't give that impression. No one has been coercive about it at all, at least not to me. I've seen people who are upset on both sides -- some upset at the strikers, some upset at those who aren't striking. Actually, one reason why I posted this is because I wanted to make it clear that if I post during the "outage", I'm not doing it as a protest against the strike.

Oh, glad to hear no one's been giving you grief. I've only seen a little bit, and more of that was actually directed at the strikers than the non-strikers.

Well said! Both of you.

Thank you!

You make some very good points here. And given that it does look like SUP is going to "give-in" to "our" demands I don't think I will a part of the content strike either. Lousy PR aside, I don't think that SUP is any worse then most mid to large scale companies here in the USofA would be.

That said, I may not be doing much online tomorrow as I will doing other things. (Need to find out when Sis, Niece and Dog are going to get here) But it is not like I post a lot anyway. My not posting for one day isn't going to have any real effect on the stats because there are so many days when I don't post - or don't reply to other's post for no other reason then I don't feel like it or I am to busy doing other things.

I am not sure I completely agree with your WalMart analogy. The issue (and the question) strikes me as closer to what happens at a newspaper or a magazine - where the issue of is the news/content part of the business the lifeline or is the advertising department that is really important. It is the same sort of thing here. What is more important - the users who generate the content of the site - or trying to appeal to the advertiser who bring a great deal of the money need to pay for things like staff, severs and other parts of the business more important? Food for thought...

Point taken on the Wal-Mart thing -- however, the point I was trying to make is that the closest thing I've been able to find for a "mission statement" on the strike is that the organizers want to make LJ aware that their site relies on user content to operate. And I seriously doubt if LJ is unaware of this.

The newspaper analogy is a really good one, though. I work at one, and I see the exact same sort of dynamic ... complete with a refusal on the part of the content-generators to recognize that the money to operate the publication has to come from somewhere! :D (I'm in the advertising department. Naturally I'm looking at it from the other side!)

Thanks for that. It made coherent what I'd been thinking anyway.

Thank you!

Gosh, I didn't even know all this stuff was happening!

*shrugs* The fact that I'm as aware as I am of this sort of thing ... probably means I spend WAY too much time online, I think! :D

I'm not sure what I can add to this, except that I agree with about every point that has been made. I'm kind of in the wishy-washy middle, because I'm not sure I see exactly what point the strike would make. I think the only thing that really concerned me was what appeared to be a censorship of certain interests, but it seems to me that it was an actual mistake.

(However, I will admit to searching in vain for the cat macros, because they just amuse me in general)

But yeah, I'm kind of in the same camp. I was wondering if I was the only one.

I was wondering if I was the only one.

Apparently not! *g*

I admit I am not completely in the know about the goings on behind this idea and what has been said where etc but I will say, from a personal point of view, that what really worried me, and thus caused my sympathy to the strike idea, was the surreptitious censorship going on. You say they've put back the topics that they had removed. Ok great. But would they have done so if LJers hadn't noticed what had happened and kicked up a fuss? They tried to sneak this in without anyone noticing... and what really worries me is what they tried to censor. They may have put those words back in but I'm guessing their reasons for trying to remove them haven't changed - and this means LJ is being run by a company that sees topics such as fanfic(?!!), depression and bisexuality as not acceptable, as something perverted or shameful that they'd really rather like to draw a discreet veil over and pretend have no place in their product.

I don't know if the strike will achieve anything or if it is a waste of time but it's the only way I can see to express my deep concern at the worrying trends I am seeing here. :(

A somewhat more direct (and possibly more effective) way to express your concerns might be via postcard, as suggested by

synecdochic.

I can respect that. I'm just not sure if the content strike is the right way to go about working for change, especially since they've been responding to complaints and reinstating the features that were removed (or at least expressing openness to doing so). But like I said above, I really do think that the passion and desire for change that people are expressing is a good thing, even if I'm not entirely on board with how it's being expressed.

Oh, huh. I just posted to my own journal asking what we were striking about, and there you go saying that it doesn't seem to be about anything, anymore. I guess I should have waited five minutes and checked the friends-list one more time. ;)

That said, this

If we're staging a one-day strike to make them respect us, I'm just not seeing how it's going to work.

Yeah. Even if we had a cause (and who knows, maybe we do and it's just lost somewhere in the depths of teh internetz) I highly doubt that staying away from LJ for one day and then rushing back in with hands that are shaking from deprivation is going to prove anything but a deep addiction to this online community. If it had been, say, a week or so, it might have even made some kind of impact. But one day?

Right! I mean, even for those who are striking for one or more legitimate reasons, they're all different reasons. One person's upset about losing Basic accounts, one person's upset about the user interest thing, one person's still upset about their friend's account being deleted in Strikethrough -- we're telling them that we're mad but not what we're mad about or what we want them to do about it, and I just can't see how that's useful. And the one-day thing ... all it says is that staying away from LJ for one day is a hardship for us, and that's not exactly the message we want to send, either.

I keep thinking that "strike" is not the right word. My issue with LJ not the actual things that have done, but the part where they have no clue who the LJ community is and why we are here. It's more of a notice that we are aware; and care what is going on.

Well, "strike" is actually the terminology being used by the organizer of the event (at least, the person I understand is the organizer) so it's what I used. I'd say "boycott" or "protest" seems to be probably more accurate.

I still don't think it's likely to be that effective if no one lets them know why we're doing it, though! I mean, the way that you describe it is different than how I've heard other people describe it. If we can't even define it to ourselves, how can we define it to an outsider?

I'm glad you posted this - I'm behind on the latest developments. Anyway, in light of what you've said; that they're basically meeting the demands, then I'm not going to strike. To be honest, I suspect I wouldn't have managed it anyway - LJ seems to have taken over my life recently! I neeeeeed my LJ fandom fixes!!!

*shrugs* Yeah. I mean, I've had, and continue to have, issues with some of the things that LJ's done. But in this particular case, they seem to be taking steps to offer users what they're asking for, so ... going ahead with a protest seems counter-productive.

Ooh, information. Information = good. Thanks for posting.

Thanks for encouraging me in my madness! :D

I hadn't even heard of this situation until the other day when a friend's LJ turned up a strike banner, and then I began looking. I now have a lot of links to read. I must admit, if LJ was sold and someone took over, every single LJ member should have been emailed with that news. That's bad business. I may not end up posting tomorrow due to lack of time and the fact I need to catch up on a writing project.

Er ... actually, the sale of LJ doesn't really have anything to do with the current "strike" -- it happened last summer. (And I'm not sure -- is it common practice for businesses to notify members or subscribers of a change in management? I can't really think of any time it's happened to me, except when it was something like a credit card company that was notifying me that a new business held my debt ...)

Oh, didn't mean to say they should inform of the sale per se. What I mean to say is that if there are policy changes for the board, that should be broadcast to the members. Of course then, Cablevision doens't bother to inform its customers of rate hikes till they send the bill!

If you haven't done so already, you might want to track the discussion post in sga_talk of your fic. Just today someone left a very detailed and interesting comment to the post and I don't want you to miss a single bit of the good things people are saying about your writing. :)

I know from running club_joss that sometimes these discussions get commentary weeks, even months, later so tracking the post is a good way to make sure you see it all. (Not that I'm in any way suggesting that you have to *comment* to anything unless you want to; just letting you know that the convo lives on)

:)

Oh! Thank you very much for the heads-up! I didn't even think of turning on tracking; I didn't expect to get commentary after the official discussion period was over. Thanks! (And I've finally managed to read the current discussion story; I've just been too busy and scatterbrained lately to get a post together -- I'll try to do it this weekend.)

I see your point. I didn't know until the strike (was away from the net) but any action I take will be in order to gain productive results, not show LJ that omg-fandom-exists-and-don't-ignore-us, which seems to be the purpose of oh too many movements.

And it doesn't even bother me that much that they made that decision as the way they announced it. They could also consider going back to invitation-only system. Have paid users be able to invite people and go from there.

As usual, I'm 99% in the dark about what's going on in the latest kerfuffle.

The last anti-LJ strike caused me more amusement over the hysterics of the main body of strikers (rather than outrage at what the LJ folks themselves were doing). It would seem that this one has already been and gone without me even noticing.

I am *SO* out of the loop.

In other news, still working on the ass-fic. It's a bit harder than I first thought - mainly because I think I'm trying to apply some semblance of logic to what is essentially crack. But 'twill be done by end of the weekend!

But 'twill be done by end of the weekend!

YAY! Er. Hopefully that's still the case. But still, yay, and thanks for taking it on!

... by the way, are you watching Torchwood this season? I've just got caught up on it (never did watch the rest of the first series, kind of glad now I didn't, because I didn't have any negative preconceptions to overcome) and I'm simply loving it.

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Why I'm not participating in the LJ content strike

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Very OT :)

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There's a strike?

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