What can brown do for you?

[laughingman]

I was on LJ, but left due to people being asshats. I joined again recently, and still found asshattery... but from LJ as well as from the peeps.

I mean, the whole layout has changed, it's a pain in the ass to use now, and when I left LJ the first time, DW wasn't really that active.

Now it is though. Woo boy!

I haven't heard a lot of the recent crap, so I'd like to hear your stories.
What all has LJ done to piss you off? Is it letting stalkers go free (while you get a bad rep from the Support team who then ignores all your support tickets afterwards while stalking continues)?
The new layout? The way they're more business-oriented and not user-friendly like they used to be?

What pisses you off in particular? Why are you glad you joined DW?

Comments

[mrs_tribble]

In the eight years that I've had various LJ accounts I've been the victim of cyber-bullying and the Copy/Paste Fairy. I do have some wonderful friends on LJ as well as some communities that I couldn't leave, but I do think that the LJ Abuse team is a big pile of horse poo. No, actually, if they were a pile of horse poo I'd be spreading it on the Roses in my garden. That would at least be useful.

They discard every complaint you make to them, let bots and trolls roam free... if you're not Russian or a bot or brenden you may as well be invisible.

I'm glad to be here on DW because it actually *feels* like a community.

[laughingman]

See, now that I like. I was stalked a year ago, and the year before that a 'victim' of cyber-bullying. I didn't have enough evidence to take to my cyber-crimes unit and the only way I got LJ to get rid of ONE sockpuppet was throwing the "I'm -- weeks pregnant and I'd hate for the stress of this to..well, come down on you guys because you did squat."

It worked, and they got rid of the one sockpuppet. Though several more popped up. (I still ended up having a miscarriage due to stress and that didn't help)

I hate the way they treat people! I joined LJ originally in '99 and it was SO MUCH better back then.

[mrs_tribble]

After the entire Facebook/LJ/Twitter sharing debacle LJ are no longer getting my money - but DW is! Both my fiance and myself have been gradually migrating because we both really like it here.

I'm so sorry to hear that you miscarried; been there done that and it's just horrible :(

[laughingman]

Uh.. who IS brenden?

[mrs_tribble]

He's one of the mods of ohnotheydidnt (I think I got that right). He was somehow made a member of LJ staff and used his status to troll journals, including making fun out of a user with Aspergers. Definitely Not Funny.

[foxfirefey]

I don't know how much more DW would do in the cyber-bully and copy-paste fairy section than LJ would, to be honest. The TOS team has updates where they explain policies and the reasons therefore, though, if it helps to take a look behind the scenes a little.

[jae]

Actually, I'm glad I joined dreamwidth because I think it's way cooler than livejournal, not because of how angry livejournal made me. Am I alone in this?

-J

[laughingman]

How much cooler is it? What defines 'cool'? Though, I hafta admit, the header (being able to change the color) is kinda awesome.

[mrs_tribble]

No... I think that, for me, it was a mix of hating what LJ are doing and just liking it better over here.

[dreamatdrew]

Nope, you're not.
I came over here because of cool people and a cool project.

I left LJ because I simply DON'T HAVE THE TIME for duplicate reading lists.
(Though, I will be honest and admit that some of the idiocy from LJ-as-entity (as opposed to the LJ userbase) did make leaving a bit easer)

[madelienegrey]

You are so not alone. I mean, LJ scared me with the latest privacy gaps, but frankly, I'd been drawn to DW earlier and found it to be so much niftier.

[0jack]

No, you're not. I got fed up with LJ long after I joined DW. I just thought that DW had the advantage of being at least a 3rd gen clone of LJ and run by people who had been part of the inner workings of LJ for years.

[raichu]

When I left I wasn't pissed off at LJ or even now I'm not... the whole twitter/facebook didn't worry me because my real name and my net name or journal names have never really been in the same sentence as each other.

I left because I just felt like I didn't belong there anymore after ... 6ish years. Its... hard to describe for me...

I like DW because it feels like a small community and I don't feel like I have to hide things and just post and be myself. I feel easy when I'm posting about fandom and acting a little like a dork...

I dunno, its weird for me to properly describe..

[tangent_woman]

I like DW for the extra user advantages, the development culture and because I feel like I can trust DW.

When LJ went commercial, users became a commodity to be sold rather than customers to be served.

And it went downhill from there in a rather Facebook sort of way, with changes being implemented without regard for user privacy or preferences.

I've been horrified by the obliviousness of many LJ users. I've even been called a liar for explaining the privacy issues that came with fb/twitter crossposting because "LJ would not do that".

When I lodged a support request asking for clarification regarding the breach of trust/removal of privacy that came with the crossposting problem, the request was hidden -- made a private request or something. I suspect it was to stop people reading it and realising that user control of comment content in their own blogs was being violated.

That I am so suspicious by reflex when dealing with LJ now just leaves a bitter taste in my mouth. It's a broken thing, and no longer what I signed up for.

[twisted_times]

That I am so suspicious by reflex when dealing with LJ now just leaves a bitter taste in my mouth. It's a broken thing, and no longer what I signed up for.

I can so agree with every single word of this comment, but it's the very last part that so sums it up for me too. The trust has gone and the love has gone. Don't get me wrong, I still have some great friends on LJ (which is why I still have a non-paid account with them), but every single little thing I hear from LJ staffers I now take with a massive grain of salt. Sad, but true. By contrast, the DW staff feel so much more open and responsive to the community of user that has grown up around them from the get-go and it's doesn't look like this is going to change any time soon. :)

[hutchy]

LJ support allowed my rapist/stalker to follow my journal. :| I know it's probably a minor thing since I could have made all my entries private, but I sent them all the documentation of the stalking crap and offered to get them in touch with my local police if they needed further proof, and they just said "Ban him from commenting and make your journal private." It really irritated me that they weren't willing to do more to help me, though I'm not sure what exactly they could have done.

[hutchy]

I joined DW because I get the impression that the staff CARES here, which is a big deal to me. There's no asshattery going on (that I've seen anyway) and even though I haven't been here long or interacted much, I feel like I'm part of a community, rather than just one more person in a huuuge group of strangers/trolls. The FB/Twitter thing was the last straw for me, but I had been contemplating moving to DW for months prior. I'm happy I did.

[laughingman]

They could have suspended his account and, at one time, they were able to block someone's IP address from making a journal. Or something like that. It's not like they ever use it.

Even if your journal WAS private, it doesn't mean you felt safe!

[mrs_tribble]

What??? That's terrible!! :(

[foxfirefey]

To be honest and fair with you, I'm really not sure what more Dreamwidth would have done about this, either, other than give you the same advice and sympathize.

If you don't want somebody contacting you, you do need to ban them. If they try contacting you through other accounts, that's a recipe for ban evasion, which is a suspendable offense.

And if you don't want somebody reading posts, they need to be locked. There really isn't any viable way to protect them otherwise.

It does suck, though.

What pisses me off about LJ?/Why I love DW

[rainflowermoon]

It was sold to the Russians
It now uses ads to support free accounts
The fact that they went APESHIT over fan fiction and went ban-happy
Censorship of fan fiction and other materials they deemed objectionable. (we're talking material ranging from PG to R) and NC-17 stuff or higher has ALWAYS been flocked and posts noted as such.

C'mon, they thought fan fiction was REAL for Chrissake. How dumb can you be?
I joined LJ in 2001 and I'm still there, but they won't get any more money from me.

I'd rather throw money at worthwhile projects like DW because they CARE about their users, and I hope that continues as they grow.
I bought a Seed Account, and it has been worth EVERY penny.

Re: What pisses me off about LJ?/Why I love DW

[foxfirefey]

I hold nothing against SUP (which is a fairly international company in its upper management composition) for buying LJ, because if they hadn't, Six Apart would have killed it, just like Six Apart has killed every other website they've bought (and some of their home made ones to boot).

Re: What pisses me off about LJ?/Why I love DW

[capybara_cafe]

Uuuugh, this. I remember back in the day when there were no ads. My paid account hasn't expired yet, but I know when it does, I'm not going to go read my friend's lj but once a week, because I can't stand those effing pop ups telling me my LJ content will be available in 30 seconds -_-

Re: What pisses me off about LJ?/Why I love DW

[brewsternorth]

I don't mind that they sold the operation to the Russians if it kept the company going; what irritates me is the "split-stream" of certain services and functionality only being available to the Cyrillic language half of LJ, and us English-speaking plebeians having to opt in, rather than offering a passel of functions across the board no matter what language you speak.

[reddragdiva]

Strikethrough was what showed that SixApart was way too stupid to keep giving my money to.