Regarding the Recent LJ Issues

[lucetimods]

Hey there, everyone. I'm sure we're all just tickled to be here right now, but this has gotta be done, so.


PLEASE READ THIS WHOLE THING, SERIOUSLY GUYS


Livejournal RP Has Exploded

Between the new comment system, the numerous DDoS attacks this past year, and Livejournal's collective failure to provide adequate (or even mediocre at this rate) customer service, some games are packing up and running for the hills. We've sat on the sidelines and twiddled our thumbs waiting for things to change, but the reasons have stacked up against LJ and it's time to speak up.


Lots of Issues to be Had

The comment system aside, PLEASE CHECK YOUR ACCOUNT STATUS FOR AUTOMATIC PAYMENTS. There have been reports of LJ turning on automatic payments for any account that has a credit card attached to it. I personally have had this happen to one of my accounts already, and have seen reports of it happening to many others. You can check your account status here. If your journals have been set to automatic against your will, turn that off. And check your accounts regularly just in case the problem persists.

Customized comments are apparently being randomly turned back to the default new comment settings. Dunno if it's a glitch or intentional, but it's less annoying than the payment issue, so there's that.


The Meat and Potatoes: Are We Moving?

Well, that's a good question, and at the moment it's really up to you guys. Below you will find a delightful little poll where you can tell us exactly how you feel and what you'd like to do.

I will make this clear right from the get-go: if we do move, it will be to Dreamwidth. I have seen numerous complaints in regards to InsaneJournal, both aesthetically and more importantly because of the potentially triggering nature of the site. That's not the sort of environment we'd want to offer our userbase. Dreamwidth is thus far the community most similar to Livejournal, and the one with the most helpful customer service. Overall Dreamwidth has plenty of pros and cons when compared to Livejournal; a comprehensive list can be found here, as far as functionality goes. Additionally, there is a guide here to help Livejournal users adapt to the move.

Alternatively, read through the full FAQ. I would suggest doing at least some basic research before voting, unless you think LJ has irreparably screwed us over.


If We Do End Up Moving...

• It won't all happen right away. This sort of thing takes time.
  
• It will probably disrupt Luceti for a few days. However, if we all vote on this happening and we want it done soon, I will make it my top priority to have everything set up during the holiday season, so we can start things off fresh in the new year. This is probably an unrealistic goal, but we'll have a go at it, eh?
  
• Journals can be imported; we've been testing it out, and it seems to be doing fine regardless of whether you post to it first, have entries out of order, etc. If anyone with more experience with Dreamwidth has bugs or complaints to offer up, we're game to listen. Apparently communities are also going to be importable as well some time in the future, so we have that to look forward to.
  
• I realize that some people might be reluctant to move due to paid account status; a wasted paid account would suck. I was hoping OpenID would help with this, but sadly we're kind of screwed on that one.
  
• Due to Dreamwidth's Invite-Only nature, considerations are being made on how to handle new applicants in the new year if we end up moving. It might make things more complicated, but I'm sure a workable system can be made. We're a creative bunch. There's also a mass community invite option.
  
• Feel free to continue RPing as normal until we announce whether this is happening or not.
  
• Whatever happens, barring some disaster, APPLICATIONS WILL OPEN ON TIME.

And Now, A Poll

For the love of god, please vote only once, with one journal. I'm not leaving the votes private so if for whatever reason you don't want other players to know your vote, please send a Private Message to the mod inbox.

A thread will be provided at the start of the entry to take comments, complaints, concerns, etc. We will do our best to answer them all. The poll will remain open until we announce the results around the 29th of December. If you want to give LJ some time to fix it, I'd recommend just waiting to vote until the last few days of the poll before voting.

If you vote "Other", please clearly say so in the subject li orz comment to the mod thread at the top of the comments.

[Poll #1805223]

Regardless of how this turns out, I would honestly recommend going over to Dreamwidth and creating accounts for your RP journals while it is easily accessible and free to do so up until the new year.

Thanks for your patience with this, guys. We can truck through it, we definitely can, one way or another!

Comments

[lucetimods]

If you voted "Other" or have important questions/concerns for us mods, please reply to this comment.

[stilldontgotit.livejournal.com]

I voted no, but that's mainly because, right now, I don't think it's a good idea. Luceti is a large game, and while LJ is proving itself to have a number of issues, I feel like a move would risk splitting the playerbase. Not to mention it takes a lot to move a journal-based game.

I'd personally like to stick it out and see what changes are made over the next few weeks. If it continues to get worse, I wouldn't object to a move. It's just not a first priority at the moment.

[blessedbyfarore]

Voted 'other' - it is my hope that LJ will roll this back, since this is by far the biggest outcry for... anything that I've seen on LJ for at LEAST eight years (the length of time I've been here for). However, if they don't fix this, and the game decides to move, I'll go with you.

[derek-bliss.livejournal.com]

Thank you for bringing this to the table. I'm one of the people that had three of my paid accounts switched to autopay, one of which hadn't even been used in several months. Please, guys, check out your accounts, even if you have a ton of them. Better safe than sorry, and it seems as random as the customized comments switch. (As in, some may, some may not, or it could be all or nothing).

Edit: I'll also say that there's a good chance if LJ doesn't fix and address a lot of these problems and changes, and Luceti stays here, I may not stick around...or at least I won't with Foot and Ari (Since those are tow of the accounts that got switched and I really don't want to have to babysit their status all the time).

But I'm still on the fence on that one. If I do stay though, it will solely to play here. Everything else will head on over to DW (actually already has)

[boomchucka.livejournal.com]

Just putting it out here that in the event that Luceti does move to Dreamwidth, I do have invite codes that I can give to some people. I also believe that there are no invite codes needed at the moment but I could be wrong.

[vibrafinal.livejournal.com]

What about those of us who use an alternate LJ account to comment? Would that still work?

[shadedsunlight]

Until the 1st, invite codes are not required at Dreamwidth.

[ignitethesky]

Seconding the checking of journals due to autopay. One of mine was, and I've never used automatic payments for anything.

[wantsaprince.livejournal.com]

I voted undecided. Since I really only use LJ to RP these days, if the game as a whole moves to Dreamwidth, I'll probably move over, too. Otherwise, I'll stay with Livejournal.

[derek-bliss.livejournal.com]

Like Cata said; no codes needed until January. They're aware of the fuckery going on over here, and are doing their best to accommodate people who want to jump ship to DW. The site folks there have always been very awesome and very focused on customer service and keeping their user base informed and allowed to give input that they actually take to heart.

And...I probably have a bunch of codes too laying around, for when they put them back into effect. :)

[lucetimods]

I assume that you could just create an alternate DW account in the same way. If we knew about it ahead of time, we could ensure that a mass-community invite code could cover these extra journals.

[kineticcajun]

I'm gonna give this a couple more days before I vote for certain, because I'm still going to give them a little more time to either roll stuff back or at least stop making things worse. But right now, even though my accounts haven't (yet) been hit by any of the effects, I'm leaning towards yes because of what's been happening to so many others.

In the end, though, I'll go wherever Luceti goes. ♥ I love this game, and I love everyone in it. DON'T GO WHERE I CAN'T FOLLOW.

[herotypical]

asked this on plurk but i figure i should ask it here as well.

at what vote-count threshold are you going to consider the poll results indicative of the playerbase's opinion? i'm leery of an initial rush of votes skewing the result for those who might take perhaps a week to get around to seeing this announcement given we're in the holiday-times.

[eyesofremorse]

I voted for "Other" (using awakenedchaos's account) for now.

This entire situation has me leaning very strongly toward wanting to move to Dreamwidth, especially since there's been little to no signs of anything changing in a positive way from the very start, between LJ ignoring concerns before the release went live and hardly acknowledging the enormous feedback they've received since it did go live.

However, like Naomi, I'm still hoping that LJ will roll the new changes back soon, considering the enormous negative reaction they've received. Given that only a short amount of time has passed since the release went live, I think it might be best to wait a little longer to see what will happen.

Ultimately, though, I'd definitely be fine with the game moving to Dreamwidth if it comes to that.

[crisisrain]

I clicked the wrong one apparently.

Either way I don't particularly care if the game moves or not. At the moment I can't continue to RP, so my paid is going to waste anyway. I mean, I've moved my personal thanks to LJ's asshattery with leaking friend locked entries, among other bad staff behaviour making me uncomfortable. I'll just follow the herd as a sheep myself. Personally, I'd like LJ to get it's fucking act together, I feel like I have more chance of winning the lottery. At the moment, this is the tip of an iceberg, LJ has a lot more shit planned over the next few weeks.

[trueknight]

I voted "other" for only one reason - if a move happens, I'll move with the game. If not, then I won't. I guess that also fits for "undecided", but it's less that I'm unsure and more that I'll just go with the flow. Which I guess also fits for "I don't care", but I do care about the whole thing to some level, so ... well. You get it. I think.

EDIT: Now that I've had the chance to really understand just what's going on with this whole ordeal, I've changed my vote to "yes". If the game does end up still staying, I'll continue to stay, but this whole thing has gotten to the point where I am looking forward to the idea of a move, rather than dreading it due to laziness/lack of funds (as I was before). I've also started to get minor headaches from prolonged viewing of the comment style, which is definitely not a sign of good web design. I can't imagine how bad it must be for those who are getting migraines from it.

[lucetimods]

The best bet would be to base it on Luceti's membership numbers. I'll prune them down to make sure everyone who doesn't belong in the community is out, so the numbers are accurate, and Nadia's spreadsheet should help with that as well.

[deathsdoctor]

I voted 'haven't decided yet' purely for the reason that it's still early in this clusterfuck, and we haven't seen how the cards are all going to fall yet. Moving a game is a big big deal, as I'm certain everyone involved is painfully aware. That said, if this continues, I am all for the move. Better the pain now, then suffering through all the headaches that have come through LJ. I would go so far as to suggest importing the Luceti communities ANYWAY to DW and periodically reimporting them as a backup, in case the game DOES have to move for some other reason.

Because, sadly enough, even if this is fixed, there's going to be something else in the future that will cause this sort of discussion.

[semper_cogitans]

I voted yes, but that's assuming ideal situations - i.e., that the transition to Dreamwidth goes both smoothly and effectively, and that we inconvenience a minimum of people/don't lose many muns with the shift over to Dreamwidth.

Livejournal has been consistently screwing us over in the past, seems to be adamant on continuing to do so, and is pretty much completely not acknowledging its userbases (or outright mocking them in some cases). It's possible that they will change things, still, but it's pretty unlikely considering that they seemed to be fairly proud of this and put a lot of money into the shift.

However, if it does take steps towards repairing things for the RPing userbase (and others who are similarly affected), then I'll stay here. I literally only joined LJ for RP; it won't bother me to leave, if that's what we do, but staying is looking increasingly difficult from my perspective. Sort of like fighting an uphill battle.

(Also, I imported my journals to DW, and short of Robert's icons not transferring properly/icons not showing up in comments, everything seems to be in order!)

[herotypical]

hypothetically speaking, would the deadline of the 29th be pushed back if a satisfactory percentage of the playerbase hadn't replied by then?

[tailasoldastime]

Since I don't own a paid account, I feel I don't have as much privilege here to state exactly how awful these LJ changes are, but considering how painful it all is just from my position, I have huge sympathy to anyone who has to deal with this Autopay bullcrap.

I'm REALLY hoping that LJ will revert most of these changes - if they're smart they would, because nobody likes a site that doesn't respect its customers. The negative response does appear overwhelming large, and while that hasn't made much of a difference when it comes to Windows Live or Facebook, I do recall at least once YouTube reverting a change they made because of the massive complaints. Hopefully LJ will do the same... because I also use my Mun account for occasional journal entries, which are rarely posted now but never will be if I have to endure this for the rest of my LJ days.

TL;DR, I would much rather we stay on LJ... but if this doesn't get fixed? I say we move. I would miss many of the options old/current LJ provides, but if it's true that DW considers their users, they're sure to improve if they get more customers. So for now, I'm just waiting to see what happens.

[dissonates]

Basically, yeah. One of the main reasons for the deadline being so close is because of the app cycle, really, and if not enough members are around or voting, we'll have to reconsider.

[herotypical]

ace.

thanks for the prompt replies!

[falenandawn]

I'll be blunt: LiveJournal's disregard for it's users has made me incredibly uncomfortable. I do not mind the thought of a move, and ultimately, I will stay with the community in whatever choice the players make.

I don't really have an attachment to LiveJournal beyond the fact that Luceti is here, and even if my other games do not move they will still get a small amount of my attention even if it is split between sites.

I do suggest waiting, at least a month's time. Tempers need to cool, LJ needs more of a chance to actually do something (hopefully), people will be hiatusing for the holidays and then there's prep for back to school to consider for some people.

[silversnowfall]

"Other" because:

My truest vote would be worded like this: No, I don't want to move. At least, not yet. I want to see if what is fixed/changed ends up working out.

I want to give them a chance, and see what the 'style that works like the old style' really is and how it goes. I want the community as a whole to have a little time to breathe before making a decision one way or the other.

But if Luceti moves, I would with a heavy heart move with it; home is the people and the game, not the look of the screen.

-- Obviously that's a lot of words for one little ticky circle.

I think I'm in the minority in saying that I'm willing to disregard* the shitty attitude of the LJ Russia headmod (if you will) if - maybe only if - the upcoming "fixes" turn out to be worthwhile. I sincerely hope they do and things can go back to being stable again.

*for a definition of "disregard" that looks like "keep it in the back of my mind but not the front".