LJ Social Hacking Meme

[azurelunatic]

LiveJournal is under the assumption that the bulk of the userbase are 18 year old girls. Thus there is the addition of features aimed at 18 year old girls.

Things like nudge, and advertisements and the like.

Well. The statistics say that the bulk of the users are 18 years old because the older users don't list ages. After all, the older people get, the less likely they are to divulge their age. There is a big difference between 18 and 16 and 21. Between 35 and 39? Not nearly so much.

So:Help correct the demographics. Go to http://www.livejournal.com/manage/profile/ and specify your full DOB, including your year of birth. If you don't want it displayed on your profile for everyone to see, uncheck the box that says " Show your birthday to other users".

Thats it. Three ticky boxes and LJ realizes that another adult is on board.

PS: Remember how many of you have multiple journals? Might be time to update them all. And pass this on. It's important.

And yes, I know there are people who aren't giving out their ages because they're concerned that LJ might be doing horrible things with the data. If you're concerned about this, significantly older than 18, and think that "nudge" is a horrible thing? Then know that they are doing horrible things based on the data, but probably not the kind you were thinking about.

In Support volunteer circles, there's an analogy that comes up every time people start seriously complaining about changes that are essentially cosmetic: "Does it really matter what color they paint the bikeshed?" The answer is generally along the lines of, "It doesn't really -- it can always be repainted so long as it's not rotten or smashed up or something."

LJ, of course, is the bikeshed.

The structure of LJ is the nitty-gritty details of how it works and runs and stores stuff and doesn't smash when ten thousand people all post that quiz telling them what brand of kitty litter they are. (Most sites, if they get "slashdotted", or linked to so that a whole big group of people come to them at once, go down badly, from lack of bandwidth and lack of machinepower to handle the influx. LJ barely gets a blip when slashdotted, and mentioning /. in a news post could conceivably slashdot /. itself.)

The structure is the power staying on at the host. :-P

The structure is the social contract between LJ and the users saying that the users will not try to destroy LJ and everything it stands for, and LJ will keep the users' content safe and provide as positive an environment as you can get when you have a million typing monkeys using the service. (Propz to the Abuse team.)

The paint on the bikeshed is all the cosmetic details of the site, and some of the extra bells and whistles. Sometimes there are some very tacky and wrong things done to people's journals, never mind the main site pages. That Christmas banner? Paint. The blue cprod box giving features of the site? Paint. Excolibur vs. Dystopia? The most painty paint you can get (short of the Random Flashing Fangirl Layout from Hell). Nudge? Those tacky out-of-key windchimes that someone hung up because they thought they were cool, and everyone wants to take them down but no one quite knows where the ladder is.

There are really mixed feelings about ads. The pro-ad or neutral camps tend to regard them as paint. The anti-ad camp views it as a threat to the structural social contract of the site, or a sign that the social contract was never as strong as we thought it was.


At the end of the day, though, the stuff that keeps us on LJ instead of taking our bike and finding another shed -- that's the structure. That's the stuff we want to keep. And so far, LJ's been doing pretty well. There are a lot of users picking this site and sticking around. The site does have a reputation for collecting overdramatic teenage girls, but really, there are a lot more interesting people on this site than that. It's a good place and I like it.


...and, anybody got a spare bucket of paint?

Comments

[fax-celestis.livejournal.com]

...and that's exactly why I'm a Sponsored+ User. I figure that I can't justify spending money on a Permanent account (or even a Paid User one), so I went for the Sponsored+ pretty much as soon as it came on board.

I like LJ, use it for a variety of things: whiplashamnesia, questingstone, arlj, and red_under_blue to name a few. And being Sponsored+ allows LJ to use some of my traffic as a method to gain profit.

And since LJ costs money, profit is necessary.

Some people call me a consumer whore, but honestly, I did it all for the icons...and the mood theme...and the voice post. But mostly for the icons.

[azurelunatic]

And it's not like LJ can actually steal underpants.

[grifyn.livejournal.com]

I've always had my full birthdate posted. For one, shiba_inu isn't shy about my being half his age, and I assume everyone can do the math on THAT one. Also, I'm actually 29. I feel glad to have made it to this age; I don't feel the need to lie about it.

Bring it on, LJ. *beckons with two fingers*

[azurelunatic]

One of the few, the proud, the over-20, the browncoats!

...though I was really expecting you to use the blinky icon for this one, because the blinky icon is classic bikeshed.

[pauamma]

Madam, your money is no good here for the rest of the week.

[azurelunatic]

/me takes a bow

[onyxrising.livejournal.com]

Speaking of problems related to this... was trying to start another journal on this computer, and lj is insisting that I'm really an underage child. Or something of the sort. They want my birth certificate or credit card info, because they say this computer was used to create an account for someone under 13 years old. I know this is not the case, as I and my better half are the only ones who use it. (I've asked my better half, who hates lj with a fiery passion).
*stabby, stabby*

[azurelunatic]

Sounds like an issue for someone with more LJ-fu than I have. http://www.livejournal.com/support, and explain the problem. It's got to be either IP-based or cookie based, and both of those things can have problems.

[azurelunatic]

Either that, or a really common typo is to type in one's own birthdate, and then the current year.

[pyrogenic.livejournal.com]

What people should really do is put in a date that is a few days off from their real birthday. You should never put your real birthday anywhere you wouldn't put your mother's maiden name or social security number.

( My month and year have always been in there :-) )

[azurelunatic]

Though that does screw with the social aspect of it. Though I will always know when the Joshian New Year starts, because it was engraved upon my memory when I was a far more obsessive teenage girl!

[fatmuttony.livejournal.com]

Excolibur vs. Dystopia? The most painty paint you can get (short of the Random Flashing Fangirl Layout from Hell).

Actually that's more than paint. THe default LJ browse option (Excolibur) is not accessibility friendly. I use voice recognition software sometimes (chronic RSI sufferer) and VR does not work with Excolibur. Dystopia makes much more sense, and works fine.

The good part is that I cribbed about Excolibur to support, and they advised shifting over to Dystopia. So, I'm thinking they know why the two of them are needed.

[fatmuttony.livejournal.com]

Aaarrgh! I made an HTML error! And on your LJ! This is most embarrassing.

*slinks away*

[azurelunatic]

Ick. I've never been an Excolibur fangirl, but that makes me like it even less. And I thought it was hard for me to navigate!

[marajs.livejournal.com]

People think LJ is full of emo-girls? News to me. I thought they were all over at MySpace. But then, I'm very selective about friends and communities.

by the way, 'song directed me over here.

[azurelunatic]

There's this huge public perception that if you're with a large community-based blogging service, especially if it's an established one, that you aren't really doing any worthwhile blogging, because if you were doing any worthwhile blogging, you'd obviously have moved out to a real blog service that you have to do a little more setup on and you have a little more control over.

[rubian77.livejournal.com]

he anti-ad camp views it as a threat to the structural social contract of the site, or a sign that the social contract was never as strong as we thought it was.

I hate the advertising, too, but the great thing about LJ is that it is still optional. When they start pounding my paid (or just plain free) account with those aneurism-inducing "Shoot the Cockroach and win an iPod" banners, then all is lost. But for those willing to put up with that crap, it's a good way to get the perks for free. I guess it's nice for students or people on a tight budget.

[azurelunatic]

The argument about it not being optional goes "If I visit my friend who's got ads, I'm going to see ads, and I can't not visit my friend!" ...but the thing is, there are plenty of people whose layouts are so UGLY that visiting them in their journal isn't really an option to begin with, not without ?style=mine. I really hated the S2 comment pages at first, because of all the nasty and unusuable layouts.

[murnkay.livejournal.com]

What if the majority, if everyone DID list their age WAS 18 yr old girls? Then what? Lie and skew data?

[mere-bystander.livejournal.com]

Then we all say "Oh! um - Nevermind!" and go on about our business.... :D

[mere-bystander.livejournal.com]

Ok - I put in my real age. I'm offically able to be counted as "old".... ;)

[othercat.livejournal.com]

*ganks meme*

[jasra]

That's a good point. They definitely think the target market here is 16-20somethings.

- Someone who works for SixApart

[azurelunatic]

I'm definitely at the higher end of 20-something. I wonder what the average age of my friendslist is? I often feel like I'm the youngest. I know the hardcore geek/professional crowd tends to be older, or at least act older.

[azurelunatic]

Meanwhile, I discuss the only way I would consent to have ads on my comm, which essentially would make it a glorified links list for products/vendors the comm already stands behind.