Dept. of LJ

[kaffy_r]

Any Thoughts on the New Live Journal User Agreement?

Right now it looks as if I can't sign in unless I click "agree" - or more accurately, as if I'll be signed out if I don't click "agree." And from what little I can make out of the new agreement, it's looking less and less like I actually would want to click "agree." Still, perhaps it's not as dire as it seems? I'd love to be pointed to anyone's review of the new agreement (which, per the notice, doesn't appear to be binding in English. When you're redirected to what is referred to as the binding agreement, you discover it's in Russian Cyrillic.) Does anyone have more information that I can view while signed out? Does anyone have any thoughts on this?

ETA: AAAAAnd I can't crosspost unless I click "agree." So there's that.

ETA 2: I signed the agreement so that I could fully access my own account. However I will probably post an announcement letting people know that as of a date certain (possibly April 30), I'll be importing everything from LJ and deleting that account. If folks want to stay in touch, I'll provide an email account, and I'll also urge folks to sign up for, at the very least, a free Dreamwidth account. Any comments I may have made on other peoples' LJ, any deathless prose that the world might lose forever when I disappear ... will, well, be lost 

ETA 3: Reasons for my proposed plan of action? 

For one thing, the English translation isn't trustworthy, by TPTB's own admission; they state that the only "valid" agreement is one that's in Cyrillic Russion. For another, it appears to contradict itself on whether the new Russian Federation laws apply only to people with free accounts or to people with paid accounts (now rechristened Professional Services Packages). 

For yet another, it doesn't make clear the difference between the entity that owns the entire blogging platform, which is now under Russian Federation law, and the entity that supposedly will handle paid users accounts, still referred to as Live Journal Inc. I suspect there's really no difference. 

And another problem? If you read through the non-official English version of the user agreement one thing becomes clear: they state they can censor anyone's journal for political activity or for things that the Russian Federation considers 18+/stuff. Such as anything that mentions the very existence of gay people as, you know, people. 

I know a number of people have pointed out that those laws will probably only be applied to Russian bloggers. A) Just because I'm not affected doesn't make it any more palatable to me, and I'm not interested in even passively supporting the censorship of other people. B) "probably" is a weasel word in these circumstances. 

I think this is the last straw for me. It's a shame, but not a tremendous one. I've been slowly moving over to Dreamwidth anyhow. 

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Comments

[kaffy_r]

. I hope it didn't migrate to somewhere it didn't ought to be.

Luckily, no, it just disappeared, like the folks on the Mary Celeste. Heh.

You have far more facility than I with tumblr. So at least one of the keys is tags? I suppose if you have a way to navigate, it helps, but the thought of having to go off-site, via private chats, to have discussions like this, is a little unnerving. I'm looking at the discussion thread here, and it's been really fantastic to see what everyone's saying; if one is responding privately, that's a completely different thing. Or am I not reading your description of communications correctly?

I can see that it might be good for fan art - although I'm not sure how it would be better than here or Dreamwidth, both places you can post art (I admit it's more difficult on Dreamwidth, where you need a separate place to host your pictures, like Deviant Art or Photobucket.) But these things are mysteries I may never plumb, since I'm neither an artist nor a tumblr person.

[thisbluespirit]

Yes, tumblr works by tags. You can have on-site discussion, but the thing with tumblr is that privacy is all or nothing - either it's private (via an Ask or the messaging system) or it's a reblog, which can be seen be everyone and anyone. Which is a huge downside to me, because I like the flexibility of flock and filtering where needed. But lots of people have long discussions - or a long, ongoing joke/meme built on and built on by each re-blogger (which is very much a tumblr thing; it doesn't work on any other site) - which everyone can see. Obviously, I prefer journalling too, but I've used it enough to see that it has its attractions - and I enjoy a nice gif set as much as the next person.

Fanart is very easy to upload and share, with no fuss or limits (as to how many in total at any rate, there are limits as to image sizes/no in one post) or extra sites needed & also its good at have links as a post. It's very good at being an image-heavy, quick, news-sharing site, but it actually in addition to very long discussions involving people who may never have followed each other, has its own sub-culture. I can't quite master it, or not as a primary website for me anyway, but it is kind of fascinating to glimpse the edges of it. The links break quickly, so it's not the best site used to store images for elsewhere, but it works perfectly for tumblr itself. Have a gifset: http://cleowho.tumblr.com/post/159010047957/two-forces-only-good-and-evil-the-curse-of

;-)

ETA: I even make some myself sometimes. (I've been meaning to think of a way to transfer this occasional meme of mine here, but as it is, it's a very tumblr format, but it's rather satisfying to pull off. I wish could make gifs the proper way - nothing in the world could stop me then! - but I don't have PhotoShop and while in theory you can do it in Gimp, my attempts to even understand Gimp and download the bits you need to do gifs seem to be doomed.)

(Whoops, sorry about all the editing - one slip in the coding...!)