azurelunatic | All this insanity

All this insanity

I've been asked by people who I respect to not add to the drama.

In case anyone has had any ~~conclusion~~ confusion (teach me to post when tired and all that good stuff) about my role in all this: I am not a member of the Abuse team; all my involvement in this has been observation and speculation, with a side of asking nosy questions and doing my best to try and figure out what is going on. If I had all the information there is about this, I wouldn't be as bloody confused as I am right now. I seem to not have much information at all.

Don't panic.

I'm'a be over there now, with the hot mint tea and yummy chocolate chip cookies and anime and stuff.

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cookies are always good antidote to drama :)

and a couple cats. Though I think the cats are most adept at causing *more*.

I think I'm gonna have chocolate milk and quiet time. Tomorrow I may need oatmeal raisin cookies. Mmmm, brown sugar.

after a drama overdose...or any bad day really, nothing much beats crashing out on my bed with the three cats on one side and my dog on the other :)

How you can drink *hot* tea in this kinda weather ... ;)

*joins you in the drama-free corner with applesauce cake*

a/c.

Everyone's confused. I suspect the truth, when/if it comes out, will prove rather mundane. I won't speculate out loud, lest I be accused of thinking I know something, which, as my professors have pointed out time and again, is patently false ;)

I really don't want this to come across as an "attack" or singling you out, you're just the first person who is directly associated with the LJ staff and the Support board and such things that I've come across and something really is bothering me about the way this is being handled.

Yes, interests lists and keywords are being targeted, and I think this post (http://jamoche.livejournal.com/29516.html) says pretty clearly why a lot of people are having trouble with the idea. It's almost impossible to tell simply by an interests list whether a person truly subscribes to certain things. A lot of people are wtf-ing over communities, like a Spanish one dedicated to the book 'Lolita', being permanently suspended. However, what really concerns me is this, an email sent out by LiveJournal in response to a general query on the situation:

Dear LiveJournal user jamoche,

Material which can be interpreted as expressing interest in, soliciting, or encouraging illegal activity places LiveJournal at considerable legal risk. When journals that contain such material are reported to us, we must suspend them. Because LiveJournal's interests list serves as a search function, and because listing an interest enables other people also interested in a similar topic to gather and/or congregate, we have been advised that listing an interest in an illegal activity must be viewed as using LiveJournal to solicit that illegal activity.

We recognize that many people list these types of interests for shock value, as a method of expressing opposition for these illegal activities, or to indicate fictional activity. Unfortunately, we have no discretion in these cases; if a journal profile is reported to us and contains interests that support illegal activity, we must suspend the journal. Journals, on the other hand, may express or imply interest in illegal activity or express or imply a desire to meet and/or interact with others with similar interests, but only if the journal clearly (1) is in opposition to or condemnation of the illegal activity, (2) does not encourage the illegal activity and (3) is not used in furtherance of any illegal activity.

Regards,

LiveJournal Abuse Team

I know a lot of people who really are feeling up in arms over this, and I think the main problem, or at least a major one, is the Abuse team's assurance that they "have no discretion in these cases"--because in a delicate case like this, discretion is almost mandatory. It's also become obvious that they are suspending due to the interest lists and such ALONE, because roleplay journals that clearly state they are fictional and should not be taken seriously are being taken down for having words such as the ones listed, while many communities and users have realized that as long as they remove any "danger words" from their userinfo and interests, no one's really checking their journal anyway.

Like I said, I'm sorry and I didn't know who else to address... you did state that you have contact with these people and don't have much information, so I figured I could drop you some information and maybe someone out there could get answers or cause a change in the way this is being handled, for the better.

I have contact with some of these people, and I was specifically, personally, told to avoid getting further tangled up in this situation more than I already was. I've already run into this particular note from them, as a personal friend has had some of her RPG journals suspended.

Please address any questions you have directly to the Abuse team.

All right, thank you. I will try to find out how to directly contact the Abuse team. I can understand not wanting to get any further tangled up in this mess any further than you are, especially if you've been specifically requested not to. (Though, perhaps they should get a little more "tangled up in it" than they are (http://news.livejournal.com/98960.html)...)

You can do so through the Support boards, and I believe they probably have an e-mail address as well.

I hope you don't mind me dropping by and commenting, as we really don't know each other; I see you around frequently, though, and right or wrong, have come to associate you with intelligent responses and, at the very least, an "inside track" to what goes on at LiveJournal.

That being said, it would be nice if the people you respect would recognize that their own inexplicable decisions and lack of public statements on the matter is what has caused all the drama. "Beating people up" is now included in a reported e-mail from abuse as an example of a bannable interest? The Lolita book discussion community? We're going to treat

pornish_pixies the same as

sexwithkiddies or whatever?

Oh, and of course, the oddest part of all, that everyone in Abuse feels really, really, really, really badly about this. Just not quite badly enough to, you know, have refused to do it, or anything like that.

No attack on you meant here, of course; I see you out there, flailing in confusion just like the rest of us -- but they caused the drama with their secretive and bizarre actions; it's doubly annoying that they now want to be mad at everyone who's rightfully hurt and confused by this.

I heard about the 'beating people up' thing; that's my friend

ataniell93's RPG character, who was a teenage boy at a very severely AU Hogwarts.

The 'inside track' stuff -- it was wrong for me to have implied that so strongly. I am only in what amounts to an online break room, and the stuff that gets discussed in my presence is only the tip of the iceberg. I see people's unofficial reactions to things, and I help out. That's about it.

I trust them to keep LJ afloat, enough so that I'm trying to get the hell out of the way while all this goes on.

sorry to bother, but what is address for LJ Abuse community? abuse.livejournal.com is a waste-of-space journal, I am confused and lost.

nevermind, found what I was looking for, three million layers deep, in the official LJ community listing.

Be good unto them, please. I know right now the actions that are being taken are confusing and upsetting the userbase in general (and a lot of my friends) but I trust them to keep LJ afloat. If I didn't trust them, I'd have bailed on the volunteering thing and be over with fandom shouting and screaming and speculating my head off.

you misunderstand - I'm in infogathering mode, flying off the handle comes later, once there's a handle to fly off of.

I appreciate your warning, though, and will do my best to obey.

Thank you for making plans to act sanely.

http://news.com.com/Mass+deletion+sparks+LiveJournal+revolt/2100-1025_3-6187619.html

there is now officially a handle.

now to find a way to fly off of it..

This is my ship.

....I don't get it.

I wasn't particularly coherent.

I am just getting caught up on all this stuff going on, but the deleting journals that have interests that seem to support illegal stuff severely tempts me to add "moonshine" to my interest list. ^-^

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All this insanity

MMMMMMMMmmm

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