stewardess

If tumblr is blocking 29 search terms (tags) from a tumblr mobile app to stop "spammy porn," as David Karp, tumblr CEO, claims, why does the list of blocked tags include "depression"? And why does much of tumblr's list of blocked tags in 2013 eerily resemble the list of tags disappeared by LiveJournal five years ago, in 2008?

Who comes up with lists of search terms and tags to block? Why do both lists include mental health concepts such as "depression" which have nothing to do with porn?

Answer: the reason tumblr's and livejournal's blocked tag lists are so similar is because both tumblr and livejournal have fallen prey to carrying out a political agenda of Internet censorship. Pursuing the censorship: conservative USA hate groups. Their weapon: coercion of advertisers.

Read the rest at DreamWidth.

Three days ago, a person on my subscription list, whom I met online in 2007 through the FanLib fiasco, asked the world at large, "OK what *is* the thing going on with OTW right now? I keep seeing people going 'I'm not going to comment on this' but I have no idea what's going on. Help?"

Because I like to write summaries, I decided to answer.

The short answer: nothing particularly new or different is going on with the Organization for Transformative Works (OTW). What has changed is that the people involved are finally talking about it openly.

This summary isn't about what, however, but how and why the situation developed. If you are looking for what, rydra_wong posted a concise summary today, and every link she included is worth exploring.

Spoiler: my conclusion is optimistic.

So: the long answer, beginning with the necessary background for folks who know little about the OTW, and its largest project, an Archive Of Our Own (AO3).

The OTW was formed in 2007 by a group of fans in response to FanLib. The best known fan involved was Naomi N., a fanfiction writer whose "day jobs" were web development and professional fiction writing.

FanLib, with an all-male board of directors and clueless advertising, was one of the more obnoxious (and ultimately unsuccessful) attempts to "monetize" fanfiction.

( Group social dynamics and Age of Sail metaphors ahead.Collapse )

Ever go to a flea market, look at home decor from the last few decades, and ask yourself "What the fuck were they thinking?"

Restoration Hardware is making sure future generations won't miss out on that experience.

From their "Aviator" line, to what I'm going to call "Sudden Death," Restoration Hardware has what you need.

( Read more...Collapse )

Dualbunny and other evil geniuses have made the ultimate Lex Luthor/Clark Kent crack vid. They out-cracked DC/Smallville.

The vid is also a terrific send-up of what I've heard vidders call a lord king bad vid, with everything that implies: the song is so sappy and wrong your teeth fall out; it uses the same buttsex clips from Queer as Folk as every bad slash vid ever -- and, most important, it secretly makes you HAPPY.

Although there is "outside source," as vidders say, 99% of it is crafted from the homo-erotic cracktastic wonderland that is Smallville, lovingly and expertly edited into... well, a homo-erotic cracktastic wonderland.

Did I mention there's kryptonite unicorns? And mpreg?

Do not watch unless you're in a place where it's safe to make gasping sounds. There should be nothing at all in your mouth. Or in your hands. Maybe you should lie down on the floor in advance.

Regarding the distributed denial of service (DDOS) attacks on LiveJournal:

I'm completely baffled by a viewpoint I'm seeing in the blogosphere: that LiveJournal is a bastion of political freedom and free speech in Russia.

--SUP is not politically neutral. It is owned by Alexander Mamut and Yury Milner, billionaire pals of Russian President Dmitri Medvedev.

--LiveJournal has tremendous market penetration in Russia, which is why the Russian company SUP purchased it.

--When SUP bought LiveJournal, it was seen as a disaster by political opponents of Russia's current government.

--Political opponents in Russia use LiveJournal as their platform for the same reason people in the U.S. use FaceBook for social networking: it's the biggest game in town. There is nothing remotely democracy-loving about Russia's LiveJournal, or its billionaire owners; it's simply all Russians have to work with.

--It is not yet known: who is behind the DDOS attacks; what/whom the attacks are targeting; what the attackers hope to accomplish.

*comments are screened

There is an easy way to report spam bots posting or commenting in a community or journal you do not maintain. Go here:

http://www.livejournal.com/abuse/bots.bml

Enter the spammer's username, and click "Continue." Done!

When LJ nukes the spammer's account, all spam posts and comments are instantly gone.

On the 8th, a few spam bots posted thousands of entries in hundreds of communities -- as many as 100 posts per comm -- clogging f-lists with boring pornography. I'm sure it's a problem that will happen again.

Note: it was extremely hard to find the "report a bot" page. A search for "spam" or "bot" in the FAQs did not bring it up. I found a link to it buried in a paragraph on the page you get after you click "report abuse."

Every time I log into LJ and check my settings, something has been fucked with. This time it was mandatory display of "most recent vgifts" in my profile. The most recent, by the way, was from 2006. The only way to prevent them from showing up in my profile was to delete each one individually. (Note: I disabled vgifts three years ago.)

http://www.livejournal.com/support/faqbrowse.bml?faqid=260&q=vgift&lang=

While trying to figure out how to get rid of the damn things, I noticed HELP has been removed from the main LJ menu at the top, replaced by either SHOP or LJ EXTRAS, which are probably the same fucking thing. This change encapsulates LJ's current operating style perfectly: HELP NO, SELLING YES.

Have you noticed the new tab called "My Ads" in LiveJournal account settings? (Link will work only for logged in Livejournal users).

In an attempt to increase profit by boosting paid membership, Livejournal announced a new Google AdSense program called Your Journal - Your Money five months ago.

Only paid and permanent account members can join the Google AdSense program and place ads throughout their blog; they must use a journal style that accommodates three ads, and they must not violate Google's content policy (no "pornography, adult, or mature content" or "excessive profanity").

Smell the irony: Once upon a time, people got paid accounts to keep out ads.

According to this article, Brad Fitzpatrick, founder of LiveJournal, may have brought about the deal between Google and SUP/LiveJournal. You may recall that Brad went to work for Google when the SUP buyout of LiveJournal took place. In Moscow, Brad, alongside the SUP CEO, announced the AdSense deal; Google had been previously prevented from grabbing a share of the online advertising market in Russia, so this was a score.

LiveJournal does not get money directly from members participating in AdSense; it will earn money if the program entices people into paying for an account so they can participate.

LJ users might be enticed if they don't notice the fine print: Google will pay them nothing at all until their AdSense account reaches $100. That's huge for a minimum payment; even Amazon pays at $10. If your AdSense account never reaches $100, Google gets free ad placement, and LiveJournal gets your paid account money no matter what.

When it dawns on you that your blog is not going to rake in the bucks with "pay per thousand impression" ads, and you cancel, you won't get what's in your AdSense account unless it exceeds $10.

SUP and Google cannot lose with this deal. The losers are LiveJournal members, who increasingly have no purpose except as a surface for "ad units." SUP intends to use LiveJournal to rake in money globally through aggressive expansion and "monetising LiveJournal".

SUP needs to make a profit. I understand that. But I loathe it for doing so by fucking over employees, and resorting to crap like AdSense and malware, because it's an easier profit than, I don't know... providing services?

Excessive profanity commencing in 3, 2, 1...

I think LiveJournal went from crappy to unbearable a long time ago.

But lately it has been downright evil, with ads containing malware, and rage-making changes to gender options.

Because I do not believe LJ can be repaired, my only logical option is to remove content, moving my fanfiction to AO3. I'm committing to moving at least one story or chapter a week. Moving content isn't a breeze, because I have to clean up LJ specific formatting and get rid of the ellipses I was so fond of in 2003, and, happily, figure out how to integrate blog-posted stuff with AO3's more elegant options. Chapters!

While I do not wish to discourage the much needed criticism and watchdogging, I do not believe LJ can be "fixed" by its users. I think it must be, as a sign my brothers found said, "Abandoned In Place."

LJ only edit: I have been blogging elsewhere, at insanejournal and dreamwidth, instead of at LJ, since 2007.

I celebrated myself, the fangirl, last year. In this year's picspam, I'm celebrating me, the queer person, by virtually visiting LGBTQ pride parades, festivals, and marches throughout the world.



Organized alphabetically by city, not country, to stress the international over the national. Freedom and equality safe, not work safe (or slow bandwidth safe), because I reject the concept of "more acceptable" gayness. If you're queer, you're here.

( Fifty cities, here we come!Collapse )

Cities: Amsterdam, Athens, Atlanta, Bangalore, Barcelona, Berlin, Bologna, Bucharest, Chicago, Cologne, Copenhagen, Dallas, Delhi, Dublin, Glasgow, Hong Kong, Honolulu, Istanbul, Johannesburg, London, Long Beach, Madrid, Manchester, Manila, Melbourne, Mexico City, Miami, Milan, Moscow, New York City, Oslo, Paris, Riga, Rio de Janeiro, Rome, Sao Paulo, San Salvador, Seattle, San Francisco, Shanghai, Singapore, Stockholm, Sydney, Taipei, Tel Aviv, Tokyo, Toronto, Vienna, Warsaw, Zagreb, Zurich.