Arctic Light

From LJ's 18th-anniversary graphic generator thingie:





Well, I'm certainly a chatty little monkey, aren't I? XD

As many of you may have heard by now, Livejournal is now keeping its servers in Russia (websites' privacy controls, legal redresses in case something happens, and so forth are bound by the laws of whatever country the servers are physically located in), which is leading to a lot of account deletions from worried users in, mostly, the U.S.

I'm not planning on doing so; as far as I can tall, all the likely worst-case scenarios that I've seen discussed (an increased likelihood of credit card theft, having your personal information sold, theft/duplication of copyrighted material, etc) are already risks anywhere you have an online presence. I don't think people pulling up stakes and moving elsewhere are wrong to do so, especially if they're not using the site anyway; I just don't feel like I need to. The only thing I'm thinking about is maybe not renewing my paid account when it lapses so a) I don't have my credit card info on there, and b) am not financially supporting a business that is known to actively delete/suppress accounts on political grounds. Even so, though ... at least as far as the credit-card risk is concerned ... I've known people who had their credit card info stolen and used by thieves because of info leaks from Bank of America and Walmart, and I just tonight gave my billing info to an online site I've never heard of to buy an art book from Malaysia. idk. It's impossible to do business online without some level of risk.

However, I'm glad I have a journal mirror at DW. I'll still crosspost everything, and in all likelihood any new communities/journals I create from here on out will be DW-only, if only because of the added exodus from LJ and increased probability that LJ as a company, at least the English-language side of it, is tottering along on its last legs.

More information: here, here, here, and here.

(Though obviously if anyone wants to present an alternate POV in the comments that I'm not taking into account, feel free. Like I said, I don't mind other people doing it; I'm just not really feeling the need to, myself. Plausibly, as far as "bad things that are now more likely to happen," I think the most likely one is that LJ is now one step closer to the end of its internet-site life cycle and is just going to stop existing someday. So backing up is a good idea.)

btw, if I've friended you on LJ but haven't given you access on DW, just say something; it's not intentional, it's just that I never bothered strictly duplicating my circle/flist in the two places, and I don't have notifications of new friendings/circle-addings turned on, so I'll never notice if someone added me in the other place.

... I really have no words for this. I was going to try to back away from this whole LJ advisory election debacle for a while, but then I ran across this in a last bout of injudicious surfing, and the utter hypocrisy of it leaves me boggled.

In a very recent post at his journal, Jameth equates writing HP fanfic with pedophilia, basically in so many words. And then he hides behind:

Also, please note that I am blockquoting by surrounding the text with a fine black line and indenting it to indicate that I am quoting from elsewhere and that I am not indicating that any of this is fact or fiction. I'm just pointing out what I'm seeing so that users/voters can be informed of their choices.

No, of course not, YOU UNETHICAL ASSHOLE. Someone else said it (notice the complete lack of attribution, though, so we have only his word that he didn't write it), and he's just quoting it in a big block of text in his journal so that his voters can be "informed". No implications here, no subliminal smear advertising, nope, nothing like that.

I think what burns me up about this is the sheer hypocrisy of it. This man has been running his entire campaign on what basically amounts to a free-speech-ad-absurdum platform. His supporters are attacking people? They're just exercising their freedom of speech. You want to stop them, you're infringing their rights! So he should be all for legomymalfoy's right to say or do anything she pleases in her journal, right? Sure, unless he can throw her and her fellow fanficcers (i.e. you and me) to the wolves and get some votes.

In the comments, someone asks him if he actually thinks fanfic=pedophilia, and he says:

I don't think my personal viewpoints on the subject are relevant since I wish to represent all users regardless of whether we share similar interests. What's relevant here is whether the content is allowed by LiveJournal ToS, and if it is, I would welcome it with open arms.

There is no way that he can possibly NOT know about last year's whole thing with HP-related journals getting TOS'd. Also, I notice that he's not willing to commit to a viewpoint he might later have to back up if he actually did get elected. This is about the closest thing to a giant "screw you!" to fandom, and anyone who might have anything potentially TOS-able in their journals, that he can say without having to actually commit himself to something he can't weasel out of. Taking him at his word, too, it also means that his much-ballyhooed commitment to "free speech" doesn't extend to actually rocking the boat or standing up for the LJ users who supposedly represent his constituency. (So why is he running again? Oh wait. For fun and for trolling opportunities, apparently.)

It's probably not fair to call jameth specifically anti-fandom, since it looks more like he's simply willing to pander shamelessly to the anti-fandom crowd to get votes. But he sure as heck isn't willing to stand up for us. As a fannish user of the site, and as a user of it in general, I do not believe that he is qualified to represent our interests to LJ in any sort of advisory capacity. At this point, I feel that having him on the advisory board would do us much more harm than good.

He'll invoke "free speech" right and left to defend his friends' trolling and name-calling, but he'll turn right around and "out" someone else for their own socially-unacceptable hobby, as long as it gets him some votes, notoriety or attention. And he'll do it while hiding behind a curtain of weasel-words and spin -- it's not HIM saying these things, just some anonymous person he's quoting! It's not HIS fault, it's just some other person saying these mean things that he's repeating. If he's acting like this during the campaign, why would he behave any differently once he's elected? Please, please vote.

LJ is holding elections for a user representative to represent us (the userbase) on LJ's advisory board. I'm pretty apathetic about such things. Well, make that very apathetic. I'd heard about the election via my friendslist, but I wasn't sure if I was going to vote, since I don't know anything about any of the candidates, and I really wasn't sure how much difference it actually makes who's on the board.

However. The winner is going to be representing us. Who do we **NOT** want to represent us? jameth.

jameth, the leading candidate until word of his asshattery started getting out, has essentially mobilized an army of trolls who go around attacking dissenting journals. Want to see an example? Here's an example from my own flist. The OP made a small PSA post informing her readers that jameth's supporters were using rapidly-flashing "Seizure the Moment" campaign icons, potentially exposing any susceptible individual who sees the icons to a seizure or migraine trigger on purpose. (She also linked to a recent Wired article on a horrifying case in which hackers defaced an epilepsy support board with flashing images and did literally trigger seizures in some of those who visited. Which is assault. Even my hardcore Libertarian husband agrees that it's assault and they need to find the little shits who did it and prosecute them to the fullest extent of the law. I'm not saying that someone using a flashing joke icon is necessarily in the same category ... depending, of course, on what they do with it. And wait, there's more!)

If you look at the comments to rydra_wong's post, you can see what happened. First round is people on her flist commenting that they're glad she posted it (including me). THEN someone brought up her name over in jameth's LJ, and his followers descended on her en masse. Complete with flashing icons, personal attacks and 200+ comment troll threads. And jameth himself cheerfully joins in.

When called on his supporters' behavior jameth's response was, first, "What post?" (a post he'd already commented on) and then, when it was pointed out to him, "She should learn how to control her journal's content; I'm not going to police people about their user icons" followed by a string of denials that he has any control over the situation at all.

Riiiiiight. Because having your followers and friends harass other LJ users in your name isn't something that concerns you at all.

This is also a guy who, when another candidate overtakes him, posts unfounded allegations of sockpuppet voting. He and his followers repeatedly insult fans and fandom -- this is one teeny example, but you can find them in pretty much any thread on his LJ. Actually, I have yet to see a SINGLE thread on his LJ that isn't full of trolling and namecalling on the part of Jameth and his friends. Poking through his userinfo reveals membership in such tasteful LJ comms as rape_an_ljer and kill_the_pope. Looking through the journals of his friends, supporters and stumpers is appalling -- it's true that it's not entirely fair to judge a person by their friends, but if your friends include a guy who admits to having unprotected sex with partners uninformed about his HIV-positive status and someone who spews this appalling anti-Semitic drivel, on top of everything else ... GOD.

Please do not let this jerk represent us.

Which leaves the question, who should you vote for, then? So far, among the other candidates, legomymalfoy has risen to the top. I have no personal knowledge of any of the candidates, but legomymalfoy is apparently known and respected in fandom; here is an endorsement of her by Synecdochic. Right now I'm happy to throw my support to a fandom-positive candidate, well spoken for, who seems to have a good chance of winning, and it IS possible to change your vote after-the-fact if new information comes to light. For a general roundup post with links to posts of interest to fannish voters, here is a good one and I also recommend looking through the posts at http://del.icio.us/metafandom. One final link: all the candidates' campaign statements at fandom_votes.

Once again, you can vote here. If you want to change your vote later, do it here. And if you feel like spreading the word, please do so!

EDIT: And one more set of links, explaining why it's not a good idea to vote for the same candidate in all three slots! penknife has an excellent explanation here, with some clarification here and a more detailed explanation in the comments. Basically, the way that the voting poll displays the totals is kind of misleading, because those lower-tier tallies are not being counted as such. The second and third-place votes will ONLY be counted if your top candidate is eliminated, in which case your (and only your) vote will switch to your next selection. Voting for the same person in all three slots is the same as leaving your 2nd and 3rd slots blank, because if your top candidate washes out, then your vote can't possibly move up a slot -- the only candidate you voted for is gone!

Edit2, son of edit: the links to Rydra's above post are now locked because of, oh hi, massive and abusive trolling, and who can blame her for doing so. But if you want to see jameth's supporters trolling others, here and here are a few of many examples I'm seeing. Basically, if someone criticizes their candidate, they turn up en masse to shut down discussion. And that's total bullshit.

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).

( Under the cut )

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.

sga_talk is a new(ish) community for critical discussion of SGA fanfics. I happen to love that sort of thing, and the first discussion seems to be off to a good start, and roaming into tangential discussions of Sheppard's personality and the role of Wraith in the series. Tangents are fun!

On a random side note, I've been messing with my icons lately -- my early icons are pretty blurry, and I've been trying to sharpen them up and make them look better. In the process, I've made some interesting discoveries about how LJ handles icons that might be of interest to those of you out there who haven't already discovered this (and for all I know, 99% of the LJ-going public got there before me *g*).

Most of us have probably noticed that when you delete an icon, it vanishes from all discussions where it was used, and is replaced with your default icon. But here's the interesting part. Based on my experimentation, what LJ apparently uses when it "finds" an icon is the Keyword(s) that you've given it. Therefore, if you delete an icon and re-upload it, all you have to do is give it the same keywords as the old one, and it'll replace the old one in all the places you've used it.

On the flip side (and I tried this, just to see), if you change the keywords, LJ will lose its "link" to that icon in previous discussions where it's been used. This is useful to know if you go changing your keywords around -- you'll end up with your default icon in a lot of old posts. (You can always change them back after-the-fact, though!)

This strikes me as being especially useful for those of us who try to keep our icons under the default limit. (I know at some point I'm going to have to buy more, but I haven't yet.) It means that, as long as your keywords are suitably vague, you can swap out icons at will without it screwing up any journal posts where you've used those icons. For example, you can have a "WTF?" icon and change it to a new fandom when you drop out of your old one. You can have a Christmas icon and keep it on all your Christmas posts while changing it as the mood strikes you.

Or, in my case, you can fix blurry, dull icons and have no one be the wiser ... unless you tell them, of course. *g*