LJ United -- Standing Up For LiveJournal's Future!

LJ United -- Standing Up For LiveJournal's Future!

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Is your elected LJ user representative lying to you?

[Aug. 3rd, 2008|10:09 pm]

cambler

Your "elected" LJ User Representative has graced us all with one post. A single post, explaining why she's not said anything, and how she won't be saying anything or allowing others to send her comments. The reason she gives?

Unless our discussions are eventually made public, I am bound by non-disclosure agreement to not reveal anything that has been discussed.

Really? Wow, a representative of the users not allowed to discuss the user board's issues with the users. That's hard to swallow, but I was prepared to give her the benefit of the doubt.

Yet a commenter in another journal notes...

I'm really bothered that she says the non-disclosure agreement prevents her from saying anything yet from attempting to translate the Russian rep's page, he lists concerns and descriptions of the meeting (which he actually made) beyond that of just minutes, something she claims she cannot do. Which says to me either the Russian rep is violating the terms or she's lying. Since his LJ is open to comments and isn't playing the victim, I'll let you guess which LJAB member I believe.

Damn.

Furthermore, our "elected" representative chides us as such:

AB business will not be taking place here in my personal LiveJournal. No AB-related posts will be made here. Again, this is my personal journal, and not a sounding board for the community. I ask everyone to respect that.

Great. Fair enough. Where will we be able to talk to you directly, personally, as our representative? Not in a community where the other board members are, but to you, directly, without others who aren't supposed to necessarily have the users' best interests in mind.

At a minimum, a single post before the meeting saying, "Here are the things I intend to bring up, does anyone have anything else that should be discussed?" might be in order. No NDA violation there. Yet there's been one meeting already, and we didn't even know about it!

Color me unimpressed with the "go to hell" attitude given by our "elected" representative. And yes, I put "elected" in quotes because I still maintain that the election was a fraud. LJ agreed that there were sockpuppet votes that would be eliminated, yet they invalidated a sum total of zero votes. And the whole debacle of the "death threats" is still an open issue. LJ said police were notified. There's no report of that, and that's public information. LJ refuses to give any details, including a case number, and the SF Police (to whom LJ said they reported the issue) has no record of it.

Draw your own conclusions. Someone gets an all-expenses trip to Turkey (quite a nice prize).

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Our "Elected Representative?"

[Jul. 31st, 2008|05:03 pm]

cambler

Your elected user representative,

legomymalfoy, has posted her one and only public journal entry since the "election" was completed.

It's berating someone she claims is spamming her and giving instructions on how to ban that person.

No comments allowed.

Again, this is your "duly elected" user representative - you know, the one who doesn't talk to users, has a fully-closed journal and has banned anyone who's ever asked her a critical question.

Apparently the "spammer" is just someone doing whatever it takes to try to get some kind of interaction from our "elected representative."

This is truly sad.

I should point out -

userdom_counts

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Memo to the new LJAB Member

[May. 31st, 2008|10:10 pm]

eruditeviking

[

Current Mood

hopeful

]

Earlier today I posted the following message to our newly elected Live Journal Advisory Board member. I have not yet gotten a response back from her, but I am hoping that she may chose to either join our group or at the very least create a forum where we can express our goals and ideas to her for consideration by the board. I will update the group as soon as I have a response and some time to post it.

legomymalfoy

Since you've won, would it be feasible to ask you to create a place where we can interact with you in a more accessible way? Perhaps a community dedicated to your role as a live journal advisory board member? I was hoping to have a forum where we could bring issues that we wish to have addressed by LJ via our representative.

You may also wish to consider talking to

insomnia over at the community

ljunited since our group is dedicated to user base oriented goals.

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A note on Free Speech

[May. 24th, 2008|03:50 am]

magyarok_saman

[

Current Mood

aggravated

]

I posted something similar to this in my own journal, but I decided to write it differently, here, taking into consideration the relationship of LJ to Free Speech.

For a breakdown of the First Amendment, go here.

When Brad first started LiveJournal, he agreed to abide by the rules the government must abide by; e.g., not to restrict free speech except as already dictated by federal law (in other words, you can't incite a riot, or engage in hate speech, etc.). As we all know, upon selling LJ to SixApart, restrictions on free speech were increased, especially after Memorial Day 2007. After SUP acquired LJ, things got even worse.

This, however, never has applied, and was never meant to apply, to individual journals or communities.

Individual journals and communities have ALWAYS retained the right to restrict membership and/or comments. Think of your LJ as your "virtual living room"; you wouldn't let just anyone come waltzing through the door to orate, right? You would especially not allow the annoying neighbor kid down the street free access to, say, stand in your living room and scream colourful metaphors at you and your family.

Since when did support of free speech mean that folks no longer can set boundaries on what they will tolerate in their journals and communities?

It never did, and it never will. WE always retained the personal right to place limits on the materials in posts and/or comments.

Whatever you do, remember this, especially when some troll kiddie comes along screaming "censorship" because they're not allowed to post here (and believe me, there are many; without mentioning names, they're primarily the supporters of a couple notorious individuals).

I just wanted to make this clear before what is truly Free Speech is distorted any further.

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Short intro

[May. 23rd, 2008|02:02 pm]

imc

I am a candidate for the election. I am posting here because

insomnia commented on my nomination post. Frankly I think I would have appreciated that more if that had been before the day the poll started while there was still time for discussion, but let's gloss over that.

I am here to confirm that I have nothing against the principles stated in the userinfo of this community.

Working with the community, for the community.
Honoring the status of every account.
Maintaining the uptime and performance of the site.
Never sending us unsolicited e-mail.

Well sure, who doesn't support these?

Staying advertisement free.

I would love LiveJournal to be advertisement free, but sadly I don't think that is going to happen. In my nomination post I mentioned that I support bringing back Basic accounts and reducing the volume of ads in the public areas of the site. I also support fewer ads for Basic users. But realistically, I think no ads is not something which is ever going to be achieved.

Supporting the Free Software movement.

As it happens I'm pretty much exclusively a Linux user (so don't send me documents in Microsoft formats as it really irritates me).

– We explicitly support free speech for all LiveJournal users

Of course. (See my previous comments regarding the interest-search censoring and post about Nipplegate). I don't support breaking the law, however.

– We believe the privacy of LiveJournal's users should be safeguarded
– We strongly support the rights of fandom in all its forms

Tick, tick. However, I do think that all LiveJournal users should be respected, regardless of whether they happen to belong to a fandom or not.

– We strongly support our fellow LiveJournal Code sites, and view them as an essential part of the greater LiveJournal community

Well yes. I don't support code changes made in secret (as I mentioned in one of the above linked comments), and see no reason why we shouldn't all get along. However, for what it's worth, I do think that actually electing Squeaky to the LiveJournal Advisory Board would create a conflict of interest.

The only other thing I would say is… try my thread-expanding Greasemonkey script! No need to thank me, just vote for me in the election. :-D

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Time to reach out and win this.

[May. 23rd, 2008|01:08 pm]

insomnia

For those who have see the results so far in the election, yes... Jameth has an early lead...but here's the good news. It appears that most of his supporters have voted, and his votes have slowed substantially, while an increasing number of LJers who weren't previously aware of any of the candidates are voting for

rm . As a result, she is starting to eat significantly into Jameth's lead!

Also, as more of the several other skilled, qualified candidates make the personal determiniation that they aren't going to win this thing, we can expect to see them pushing their supporters to back a unity candidate who can win... and that is where

rm excels, with a LOT of votes for second and third choice.

Based on my projections, if we all kick in and help, we can easily win. It will take just one thing...

You. The person who is going to win this thing is you. All of you, and everyone you help to bring on board. All of us.

Today, the most important thing is to make a short, simple post in your journal, telling people about the election, encouraging them to vote for rm, and to let them know about LJ United.

Please take the time to make a post similar to the following in your journal:
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hi everyone. As you might know, I recently joined a new community called

ljunited that's dedicated to working towards defending and restoring the original promises made to LiveJournal's members, standing up for free speech on LJ, and restoring community participation in the operations of LiveJournal. It's our goal to work together over the long term to build a diverse movement of people with the power to influence the decisions of LJ's management to prevent the kind of problems we have seen so many of LJ's members face over the past few years.

LJUnited overwhelmingly endorsed

rm , a really great candidate, as their choice for the LJ Advisory Board elections, and she's doing very well, but needs your help. I hope you'll consider voting now and making her either your candidate of choice, or your second choice.

Please take a few seconds to vote, and thanks!
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The HTML code you'd need to paste into your LJ window to make this post is as follows:
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hi everyone. As you might know, I recently <a href="http://www.livejournal.com/community/join.bml?comm=ljunited">joined</a> a new community called <lj user="ljunited"> that's dedicated to working towards defending and restoring the <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20040401175244/http://www.livejournal.com/site/contract.bml">original promises</a> made to LiveJournal's members, standing up for free speech on LJ, and restoring community participation in the operations of LiveJournal. It's our goal to work together over the long term to build a diverse movement of people with the power to influence the decisions of LJ's management to prevent the kind of problems we have seen so many of LJ's members face over the past few years.

LJUnited overwhelmingly endorsed <lj user="rm"> , a really great candidate, as their choice for the LJ Advisory Board elections, and she's doing very well, but needs your help. I hope you'll consider <a href="http://community.livejournal.com/lj_election_en/25463.html">voting now</a> and making her either your candidate of choice, or your second choice.

Please <a href="http://community.livejournal.com/lj_election_en/25463.html">take a few seconds to vote</a>, and thanks!

-----------------------------------------------------------

If all of us make this one simple post, I estimate that we will reach about twenty times as many people as we need to win this election. That will make a HUGE difference in this race.

So, take a few secs, copy the html code above into your journal, and leave a short comment to encourage to this post encouraging your fellow community members to step up!

All of us, together, can easily win this thing, if all of us work together.

That's what made LJ work so well in the early days. Everyone, working together, proud to kick in when LJ needed our help, generous with their time and ideas, knowing it was run by people who cared about the people of LiveJournal, first and foremost.

That's what I want us to build here. And that's the vision I want to see restored for all of LiveJournal.

I want a big response... a willingness to fight for the future of LJ, and a commitment of a tiny bit of time from ALL of you over the next few days in order to win. So if you're up to the task, give a shout! And if you *REALLY* want to do even more, leave a comment and I will gladly give you ideas on what you can do, above and beyond.

The tide is turning. Let's win this thing! -

Mark

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Time to vote!

[May. 22nd, 2008|03:38 pm]

insomnia

Hey everyone. Time to vote for our LJ Advisory Board representative!

LJ United endorses and strongly recommends voting for

rm, but also strongly encourages those of you who support other candidates to vote for them, but consider voting for

rm as your second choice. There are several other candidates that support LJ United's policies as well, and they would be excellent alternate choices.

Vote now!... and please, post to your journals and encourage your friends to do so as well. And be sure to tell them about

rm and

ljunited as well, because we can use all the help we can get!

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Candidate introduction and support

[May. 22nd, 2008|02:14 pm]

lordandrei

I was made aware of

ljunited today by

insomnia.

I am running for the position of Advisory Board representative.

I had the good fortune to message with

rm and think she is also a very fine candidate for the position.

I do agree very much with what LJUnited stands for but figure I should at least list my interpretive caveats:

Working with the community, for the community.
Honoring the status of every account.
Maintaining the uptime and performance of the site.
Staying advertisement free.
Never sending us unsolicited e-mail.
Supporting the Free Software movement.

There's really no debate with any of the above. I support that entirely.

In addition:
- We explicitly support free speech for all LiveJournal users

I strongly support free speech for all people. Freedom is a very special and important word to me. To be honest, Freeman is the family name I took at marriage partially for what the name represents. But to me, Freedom is as much responsibility as it is an open gate. There are countries that do not have freedom of speech and while I think LJ is an amazing tool to help the people in those lands fight the fight to get there; it also puts the company at risk for some very highly dangerous legal battles. I hope as a representative of the users I can put freedom of speech first and foremost without putting the company and the service at risk to all.

- We believe the privacy of LiveJournal's users should be safeguarded

I absolutely agree with this. And find myself at pains with the above again. I would hate to find out that a country would have the power to demand information from LJ without due process. I'm afraid of it enough in the USA to be very aware of it and try to find the technologies to help protect the end users.

- We strongly support the rights of fandom in all its forms

I absolutely support fandoms, lifestyles, and personal exploration. But always in safe protection of others. If one wants to write FanFiction... great. But, I also want to protect free speech and privacy by making sure that fandom is separate from freedom. I have already read of more than one case on line where an actually celebrity was horrified as to what was published in a journal or web service purporting to be by their hand.

- We strongly support our fellow LiveJournal Code sites, and view them as an essential part of the greater LiveJournal community

This is part of the open source nature of the code. People should be able to run the code as easily and freely as they run their our journal or web site.

One more issue I want to stress. Freedom is important to me. Abuse of Freedoms given is also something I am wary of. I am a parent as well as a free speaker. And I want to know and feel that I can protect my child on my terms. I don't want to have blanket protection foisted on me for things I feel my child should be able to see. I don't want a lack of reliable protection to expose my child to things I don't feel he is ready to see.

I have worked in the computer industry for nearly 20 years. I have been using computers for nearly 30. I am aware of technology, software engineering, sales, marketing, how the corporate world tends to behave, and most importantly, how to be an end user, consumer, and independent individual.

And I think I can be a voice to help protect the LiveJournal User in one of the most effective manners to the company.

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spread the word!

[May. 21st, 2008|06:54 pm]

systris

i made a brochure for

rm's campaign in MS publisher format...i'm NOT a graphic designer but hey, it's something:

http://www.mediafire.com/?xgmgyy9azbk

it is NOT spam or malware..i promise! i tried to convert it to PDF but the formatting was horrid. so if anyone can spruce it up, feel free

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First Post

[May. 11th, 2008|01:16 am]

slyfoot

This community looks interesting, and I agree with much of the community philosophy, so I joined up.

Since

insomnia has stated in a previous post that

squeaky19 supports the goals of

ljunited, and squeaky has introduced himself here, I thought that it was worth mentioning that he now has an LJAB campaign community:

vote_squeaky.

I'll be interested in seeing how

ljunited progresses.

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