Not a happy Lunatic. But civil.

[azurelunatic]

So jasonshellen is off to a really great start here...

My response:

My good sir, you have managed to blow LJ, Inc's decent first impression, peeve a large segment of the userbase, and earn the distrust of at least one of your volunteers (I speak for myself here).

LiveJournal users consider themselves more like shareholders than like mere users of a service. If a change is planned that will substantially affect the day-to-day working of the site, even if it is an area that you might not think that we would need to know about, we want advance notice and input whenever possible.

If you fear the reaction of the userbase to any given planned change, do not try to conceal the change or implement it without notice. This will make the reaction easily ten times worse when word does get out. If the userbase learns to expect that you hide things, people will actively look for problems before they occur, and will start reacting badly to the first sign of any change, and will over-analyze any change for the hidden disadvantage.

Listen to the advice of the people who know the userbase. They are one of your most valuable assets, and you ignore them at your peril.

Comments

[azurelunatic]

Neither changelog nor the_lj_herald has as much readership as I thought they did. changelog is the technical changes; the_lj_herald is a tabloid that covers a) things that news doesn't cover, b) things that news and other official comms do cover, and c) wild-assed rumors.

[gameboyguy13.livejournal.com]

You know, I never thought of it like that, but a tabloid is an excellent description.

[azurelunatic]

It fills the same niche as the Quibbler, in some cases.

[leora.livejournal.com]

Something I'm vaguely curious about but have been too lazy to check... apparently they changed the FAQ, did they report the FAQ change in lj_userdoc? As far as I can see, it wasn't... that strikes me as particularly underhanded. Why do you not report a FAQ change? Except to try to sneak something by. I do wonder what info the volunteers were given and when, before they started getting support requests about being unable to make a basic account. Obviously, they know ~now~ but what was the original plan for telling them?

[azurelunatic]

There was a straightforward and quiet announcement in IRC to volunteers, either as or just before the news post went live. Although I originally understood it to be that free (basic) account creation was to be imminently halted but was to continue until such-and-such userid number had been reached.

[idonotlikepeas]

That actually did happen. The userid number was just reached very quickly.

[azurelunatic]

Very, very quickly!

[azurelunatic]

And no posts to lj_userdoc that I can see, and we are both members.

[pne.livejournal.com]

I was going to say that lj_userdoc was more for non-docadmins to propose changes. But when I thought about it, there were entries that merely said "these changes have recently been made". So yes, an entry there would have been appropriate.