The exodus continues...

[quarantedeux]

Thanks to tijae for passing on this info:

Dreamwidth gained 12,691 new users yesterday!

That's on top of the 9,350 gained on Wednesday.

Sweet!

Comments

[nonniemous]

There's a reply to the news post, buried on page 125, 126, or 127, that the Russian LJ community actually welcomes this kind of cross-posting ability, since it fits with their usage patterns. (Sorry, I can't find the actual comment, but it was by "fiddlingfrog", who seems to be trying to calm things down a bit--as he posts from his facebook account as well, to show how easily it can be done now.) So it's only the English users, and it seems to be mostly fandom users who are upset. ANd with 10000+ new LJ accounts yesterday, they probably really don't care if we leave. Or maybe they're glad to see us go.

Nor is there any commentary or activity on the fandom communities I normally check in with about moving over here. /sigh/ But still, this many folks setting up over here gives me hope fandom will eventually make itself at home here.

[quarantedeux]

That's a really interesting point. Hmmm. I'm reading through the posts I missed last night, so I'm sure I'll come across it here shortly.

Someone in the news post (somewhere in the 110s? I read it last evening) basically said that it's likely TPTB at LJ just looked at the number of new users they'd get through hooking up with Facebook (and Twitter, though I think to a lesser extent) and decided that the number of new users they'll gain was going to be higher than the number they lost. They knew that fandom users and really anyone who posts sensitive information in their journals would be alienated and they just didn't care. They're seeing dollar signs (or, in this case, rubles).

Hey, that's fine for them. But I'm not going to stick around and see LJ become one big Facebook-driven ONTD. I like Facebook, but it has its place, and that's far away from my fandom life and the ranting I do in my journal.

[nonniemous]

Yeah, I saw that comment about the users they'd gain vs. the users they'd lose, and I think that's when I lost hope that anything would change.

And exactly what you said about Facebook. I use it, and it has its place--but that's nowhere NEAR my journal and my fandom life.

[sidheblessed]

I think you're probably right. And that's depressing.

[quarantedeux]

That's really what fueled my move over here to DW. It's just obvious that LJ doesn't care about a large chunk of its user base anymore. I don't expect that they'll really change or remove the Facebook/Twitter connectivity because they've moved on from fandom and journaling to bigger and better things.

[chaobell]

one big Facebook-driven ONTD

Oh, gross.

[quarantedeux]

It's a pretty scary notion.

[jantosbitch]

Oh sure, they will get FB users, but those users will likely forget about LJ after a short time and go on the next "New" thing, not build comms and not pay for services. What is the real profit of that? Ad revenue, sure, but LJ is no longer a place I want to be.

[ravensson]

My normal roleplay community was considering a move a couple weeks ago to InsaneJournal, but most of us are way too addicted to the edit button and to LJ's userpic limit to move over there. If this junk LJ is doing doesn't stop, I'm going to be suggesting a move over here. The pic limit is similar and the paid user features are practically the same (at least the ones I use all the time are, anyways). AND no advertising. I use adblockplus on Firefox, but those black-the-screen out and freeze-the-computer ads get me every once in a while. Ugh.

[inkstone]

If your RP comm does decide to move over here, contact DW support because they'll give out bulk invites for entire groups migrating over. That's what they did when Scans Daily came over here.

Plus, I think they'll also help if you want to import all of the old RP posts over here too.

[ravensson]

Getting all the old RP posts moved over would be awesome. I think that's what scares people about moving. No one wants to start over.

[arethinn]

Post from fiddlingfrog about Russian users liking this kind of thing: http://news.livejournal.com/129190.html?thread=88243622#t88243622

[hithar]

Agreed on all counts.

It's great for LJ in a way but it's the death knell of fandom on LJ, if you think about it.

[quarantedeux]

It's great for LJ in a way but it's the death knell of fandom on LJ, if you think about it.
This sums it up perfectly!

[cygnia]

Hell, it's the death knell of privacy over profit.

[platedlizard]

Yeah, that's how I feel. I think LJ just got too big, and its needs and drives no longer match that of fandom. A number of my friends are considering the switch. The main problem is the communities, I'm not seeing much activity in the anime communities here. :/

Maybe I should do some more comm pimping or something.

[quarantedeux]

Maybe I should do some more comm pimping or something.

Yeah, the tough thing about community activity is that people don't want to come over from LJ because the comms are dead, but the comms are dead because there currently aren't a lot of people over here participating.

It just takes one person to start posting and spreading the word, then other people will show up. "If you build it, they will come" and all that. ;)

[platedlizard]

I know. I think I'm going to start crossposting more often. Since I have some free time coming up I need to work on my stories anyways.

[blackmare]

I've begun crossposting from here and have disabled comments on LJ. So people can find me but they have to comment over here, and I'm hopeful that with a bit of time, as more of us do this, DW will continue to grow.

The addition of all these fleeing LJers can only help.

LJ has changed its business model, and it is not changing back. They do not need or want us, and I truly wish they'd just say so and end the misery of the people who are still on the fence about moving.

[quarantedeux]

Yeah, I think the longer the LJ staff goes without responding to the thousands of concerns voiced in the news post, the more people realize that they're not going to change it back. Like you said, they really need to just come out and say what's happening, one way or the other, so that people can make their decisions and move on.

[epilady]

You know, on the plus side, my friendslist has been super static for years. Which is great because it's trusted friends and we all know each other and can say pretty much whatever we want on each other's LJs.

But I've had some really cool conversations with people on that dw_news thread and who knows, it could lead to new friendships and more cross-pollination/participation among communities.

That could be a really cool thing.

[epilady]

Whoops.... I mean to link to the LJ news community.

Learning curve is curvy!

[quarantedeux]

Oh, definitely! I'm meeting and talking with all sorts of people that I never would have seen/"met" otherwise. It's obviously hard to leave behind the comfort that comes with a familiar situation, but meeting new people can be fun, too.

[epilady]

Totally!

And while I definitely need to port my pre-existing communities over here, it will be cool to see what new communities and connections can get formed out of this.

[blackmare]

As an example, hi there! I recognize you from the News post, which, btw, we appear to have CRASHED. I'm getting a "this part of the database is currently down for maintenance" error.

So either we crashed it under the weight of OH HELL NO, or they've locked it up because they wanted it gone.

[quarantedeux]

I'm pretty sure that LJ crashed it for us. *conspiracy theory*

[aka_plynn]

Yeah, it's hard not to think that it's been shut down purposefully. 10k posts on ONTD don't break the database any more after all.

My patience is wearing really frakking thin now.

[quarantedeux]

Ditto.

Just like I told someone on the releases post: I think that blocking/taking down the news page with 8500+ comments pissed me off twice as much as I already was.

It's obvious that someone (whether it's the LJ staff or the owners, I don't know) is just trying to ignore the complaints. Lovely.

[kore]

Oh, I am wearing my tin hat right now, yeah. I think they just don't want people to have a place to vent/drop DW codes anymore.

[kore]

Did you notice anonymous comments on it were disabled after a while? I really think they just crashed it.

[noracharles]

Maybe you already looked this up, but for others reading along:
<user name=news site=livejournal.com> → news (Off-dreamwidth personal accounts and comms share a userhead.)

You can use that same syntax for all websites that have this structure: domain/users/username

exampleuser, exampleuser, exampleuser, exampleuser, exampleuser, exampleuser and others I don't remember right now. Aren't the user heads cute? Too bad journalfen uses the same as livejournal.

[epilady]

Awww, that is useful (and cute). Thanks so much!

There is definitely a learning curve here. I feel like I'm visiting Canada from the States.

[noracharles]

Definitely. It took me a while to learn how to dw, but once you get the hang of it it's nice how consistent everything is. Things are where you expect to find them, stuff works, the faq, the staff and other users are all helpful. I like it here :-)

[lacerta]

Thanks for posting this. I didn't know and it's very shiny.

[arethinn]

OMG, you can refer to AO3 users this way? I had no idea.

[juliet316]

I was wondering how to do that. Thank you kindly.