I had a silly little post in mind...

[gothikmaus]

...and then LJ exploded.

So, the recent comments page drama. LJ has gone through a lot of changes in the years I've used the site and I got used to all of them. If I have to be honest, I quite like the new comments box design. I don't mind not having a subject line because I hardly ever used it, but I can see how that will be a problem for kink-memes and comment-fics in general: people have developed a way of prompting/writing/posting based on a certain site structure, only for said structure to change, apparently without a reason.

Personally, what I really don't like is the disappearance of the "Preview" button, because I get quite OCD when I post comments and I have to check and double check them, even if I don't use html but just plain text. And the visual way of choosing icons is confusing. The idea of seeing the icons is nice, but having them in alphabetical order would've been better. Or at least not shifting order depending on which one you last used. While I wait and see how things evolve, I'm using a custom comment page. Which I don't really like, but it will do.

People are saying they'll leave Livejournal and switch to Dreamwidth. I've been using LJ since 2003: I started my blogging adventure on Deadjournal, because you still needed invite codes to create a Livejournal account back then, I cross-posted on both sites for a while once I got an LJ-code, but when my friends on DJ stopped posting, I abandoned the site: I had no reason to keep checking DJ and it wasn't worth keeping 2 identical blogs. I don't want to do the same thing again. Livejournal is my happy little fannish playground, where I write, I post fanart and I interact with people with whom I share the same fannish obsessions. I will leave only if my whole flist leaves.

But after reading this I became a little paranoid and since you can create a DW account without an invite code this week (and that can't be a coincidence, right?), I got myself one just in case. I'm gothikmaus over there too. Hopefully that page will stay nice and empty. But you never know.

Comments

[angrylogic.livejournal.com]

The comment page has changed? Wha? I admit I didn't even know - I don't use the standard comment layout (no one I comment on really does), or I just reply directly from my inbox :\ I don't even use the blue default LJ layout; mine still runs on the purple and orange one from the early 2000's. As for kink bingos and stuff, I've never been able to figure out how they work so I'm not that bothered if they stop running. LJ has always been a journal first and foremost to me. LJ is not and never has been a site designed for fan service. It is for writing journals in. The only reason the place became so popular for fan fiction was because ff.net went mad in about 2002 and completely deleted all adult content without warning. And ff.net is still going, despite all the changes in policy and layout. aff.net didn't really exist at the time - it was tiny and didn't cater for a lot of fandoms. I've never understood why people get so wanky over LJ and fandom. Even now you can go to other sites to get your fix of fanfics or fanart. LJ is just a nice add-on to these things. I have a separate phone, separate camera and separate music player. I use them in the same way I use websites - one for looking at art, one for writing a journal and one for reading. I can't stand it when people go "Stop alienating your userbaaaaaase!" when LJ's primary function is for blogging. There's a clue in the title of the website. As much as LJ has changed through the years, it still fulfills that.

The problem is that no one these days actually wants to pay for webspace to host material for fandoms and neither do they want to learn to code properly (hell, I've seen people go crazy in editors that don't offer you a convenient little "b" to click when you want bold text and you have to put a tiny, simple piece of code in yourself). Websites like LJ and Tumblr offer free space and ready-made templates in the way that Geocities used to. There are a few websites floating around for certain fandoms, but in general most content is hosted on websites like LJ which are under absolutely no obligation to provide service for that purpose. LJ doesn't need to provide space for people to put up fanart or RP, but they do and they offer it for free. I never actually got an LJ for fandom at all. I remember discovering communities for the stuff I was into at the time about a year after I got my account and going "God, I didn't even know this stuff was on here!". And that was nice, but it wasn't like "Wow... This changes everything...".

I got a DW a while ago to back everything up on from here, but to be honest, I actually like how empty LJ is these days. It seems like all the drama has flitted over the Tumblr and since Tumblr doesn't the concepts of proper archives, commenting or tagging, it all quickly gets lost in a sea. I admit that LJ has made a lot of changes through the years that I've not liked, but since I use this as a personal journal first-and-foremost, no other site has really attracted me enough to make me switch. As you say, no point in keeping two identical journals!

[gothikmaus.livejournal.com]

I use LJ mainly for fandom reasons. Sure, I post some personal stuff as well, but that's not why I'm here. My LJ is for fandom interaction and silly fangirly posts and comments. But I get that its primary function is to be a blogging platform and the site design has to evolve if they don't want to lose users. And there's always bitching when changes are implemented, no matter what they are, but this time the drama seems to be even bigger than usual.

[angrylogic.livejournal.com]

I honestly didn't know something had changed, but I don't even follow LJ_news. I sometimes go to it for a look every couple of months, but unless I notice something myself I don't bother. I wish people would stop moaning about the downtime at LJ - at least LJ has a reason to be down, unlike Tumblr which goes down all the time albeit for shorter spans of time, but I have problems connecting to it at least once a week.

[sirona-gs.livejournal.com]

I've just read that Tumblr post, and it's kind of scary how plausable it is. I'll be really fucking pissed off if that's the case, I don't mind saying.

Oh, well. My journal is being imported to DW right now, just in case, so I don't lose EVERYTHING if I have to move. I have over a thousand memories on LJ, though, which is going to be a proper pain to sort through and move if I have to. D: D:

[gothikmaus.livejournal.com]

I keep telling myself that we've survived Strikethrough 2007, we'll survive this too. Hopefully. :)

[polarforscherin.livejournal.com]

I use DW as a back-up as well (I just added you. I'm saymyname.) but your entry reminded me that I did the import a few months ago and I don't want to lose newer stuff. I think I should make sure that I get my new LJ username on DW as well. *runsawaytocheckDW*

The Tumblr post is very interesting, I hadn't thought about it but it makes a lot of sense.

[gothikmaus.livejournal.com]

I saw you added me! :) As I said, I'm not using DW at the moment, I simply got an account just in case... >_>

[polarforscherin.livejournal.com]

Hopefully we all won't have to use it. But just in case... ;)