filkertom: (Default)
[personal profile] filkertom
The LJ thing is getting really ugly.

Just go here here. (Original link courtesy of [livejournal.com profile] ataniell93; revised link courtesy of [livejournal.com profile] cacie.) The very first comment is made by [livejournal.com profile] burr86.

A LiveJournal employee.

Using his LiveJournal professional account.

Dude couldn't even create a sock puppet to be snarky with.

I usually don't go back and patronize places that treat their customers like this. And I usually give the manager a firm and slightly loud piece of my mind before heading out the door.

Current thoughts on the unpleasantness?

(Also, [livejournal.com profile] hanabishirecca has created a community, [livejournal.com profile] fandom_action, about legal protection for fan creations.)

ETA: [livejournal.com profile] eleri, the mod of that community, deleted the post (reasons below in comments). Here is a good link to it, but if you don't want to load a 1 MB+ HTML page, here's the gist of it:
Captain Sassy Pants ([livejournal.com profile] pirate_eggie) wrote in [livejournal.com profile] efw:

POST DETAILING HOW IMPORTANT THE OP'S ADDICTION TO HARRY POTTER FANART IS AND HOW LJ/SA'S LATEST EGREGIOUS INSULT TO FREEDOM OF SPEECH WILL ULTIMATELY LEAD TO THE OP'S DEPARTING LIVEJOURNAL FOR MORE CHILD PORN-FRIENDLY WATERS

SOME STUPID MACRO ABOUT STRIKETHROUGH '07 AND A HACKNEYED COPYPASTA PIRATE SONG

INVOCATION OF GODWIN'S LAW

First comment in the thread, by [livejournal.com profile] burr86 (LJ employee Abe Hassan):

Clarification that the subjects of the drawings were at least six years old, thank you very much.
To me, the problem is not that it's fandom wank, not that it's in [livejournal.com profile] efw, but that an employee of LiveJournal/SixApart, using his work account -- the one in which he replies (or doesn't reply) to users' concerns -- is snarking to a user about an issue the user has with LJ/SA. And in a way that implies that anyone who likes the art is a pedophile. (I have seen the art, which doesn't do a thing for me, but it is in fact two adult characters in a consentual relationship.)

Bluntly, it's like going into Burger King, paying for the burger, and then they follow you out to the table and change your burger while you're eating it -- grab it out of your hand and take out the tomato and put in some pickles -- and you say, "Excuse me, but what the hell are you doing? I paid for that" and the BK employee doing it says, "Oh, you're one of those people who likes that kind of burger. Well, you're not welcome here, but we'll keep your money."

Or something.

If he wanted to snark along with everybody else, he should've done it from a sock-puppet account. Or said, "Listen, guys, completely outside of the situation...". Or actually tried to address the problem, as a lot of LJers have been asking LJ/SA to do.

That's why everybody was ticked off. It has nothing to do with fandom, fanfic, or even whether something is child porn -- it's that one of the only responses LJ has made over the past few days to a growing number of questions... is insulting snark.

(no subject)

Date: 2007-08-05 12:40 pm (UTC)
ext_74: Baron Samadai in cat form (Cats eyes)
From: [identity profile] siliconshaman.livejournal.com
wow... wouldn't want to be that guys inbox... Talk about a dogpile!

Still, I think he pretty much got what he deserved, all things considered.

(no subject)

Date: 2007-08-05 12:52 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] cktraveler.livejournal.com
I'm reminded of the time that I went to deposit a large check from the federal government in my bank account and requested $20 cashback. The teller told me she'd be happy to do it, but that she'd need a manager's permission to clear the check immediately because the account was only about a month old. (Never mind that the stated policy was 30 days and the account was 35 days old.)

The manager -- who was seated at a desk in public view within earshot of a long line of customers -- chewed her out for even asking, said she was making too many exceptions already ... and referred to me as both "that little bitch" and "some college whore" during the conversation.

When the teller got back to me I told her the cashback was a moot point because I had overheard the conversation and was closing my account immediately. She didn't even try to argue.

(no subject)

Date: 2007-08-05 01:09 pm (UTC)
kengr: (Default)
From: [personal profile] kengr
About 15-20 years back (during the time the feds were running a lot of banks because they'd had to bail them out due to the S&L collapse mess) a friend tried to open an account at a bank.

They told him he couldn't because he had a state ID card rather than a drivers license. This in spite of the fact that the *state* says that said ID card is to be accepted just the same as a driver's license for anything that isn't driving related. My friend being an epileptic couldn't *get* a driver's license. Which he explained.

They told him it wasn't their problem. So he went and had a chat with a lawyer.

Fast forward a bit. They lost the ADA lawsuit (it's illegal to set up that sort of rule where a person with a disability can't qualify just because you are being an ass). The judge had a few choice things to say to the bank as well about not just the ADA issue but also the fact that they were *required* to accept the state ID cards.

Oh yes, as part of the settlement my friend demanded (and got) a framed apology from the President of the bank...

So, he strolls down to the same branch of the bank *with a copy of the court order*. And they tell him that the don't accept state ID cards. He manages to get them to call the main office. Much back and forth on the phone.

Meanwhile, I have another friend (who also knows the first friend) she just so happened to work in customer service at the main office. She didn't get the call, but the cluster of folks wasn't far from her desk.

As she tells it, one of the Feds wandered by and asked what was going on. When they told him, he blew his top and told them to open the account *now*.

The next day a rather pointed memo went out to all employees explaining in *great* detail that they *did* have to treat the state IDs the same as driver's licenses and that any complaints about them failing to do so would result in termination.

Sometimes the good guys win...

(no subject)

Date: 2007-08-05 01:12 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] cktraveler.livejournal.com
Now that story is real chicken soup for the soul -- the good guys can win. Thank you.

(no subject)

Date: 2007-08-05 01:13 pm (UTC)
kengr: (Default)
From: [personal profile] kengr
Well, in this case the bad guys were so *stupid* that it was hard not to win..

(no subject)

Date: 2007-08-05 01:10 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] bathtubnz.livejournal.com
Sorry silly html errors.

Well, it's a joke response to a joke post, taken in context. Putting aside wether they should have posted at all (and they probably shouldn't have as a known employee), People are over-reacting, the standard righteous indignation stuff included, but unless he's 12 years old he should have seen that coming, especially since 6A seems to be keeping otherwise silent so anything from an employee would be lept on.

So it was a particularly stupid move on his part.

I don't know if it counts as a 'meme', but since it's stuck around quite a while now it's just one of the many iterations of the old Bash.org classic

http://bash.org/?23396

*Donut[AFK]* HEY EURAKARTE
*Donut[AFK]* INSULT
*Eurakarte* RETORT
*Donut[AFK]* COUNTER-RETORT
*Eurakarte* QUESTIONING OF SEXUAL PREFERENCE
*Donut[AFK]* SUGGESTION TO SHUT THE FUCK UP
*Eurakarte* NOTATION THAT YOU CREATE A VACUUM
*Donut[AFK]* RIPOSTE
*Donut[AFK]* ADDON RIPOSTE
*Eurakarte* COUNTER-RIPOSTE
*Donut[AFK]* COUNTER-COUNTER RIPOSTE
*Eurakarte* NONSENSICAL STATEMENT INVOLVING PLANKTON
*Miles_Prower* RESPONSE TO RANDOM STATEMENT AND THREAT TO BAN OPPOSING SIDES
*Eurakarte* WORDS OF PRAISE FOR FISHFOOD
*Miles_Prower* ACKNOWLEDGEMENT AND ACCEPTENCE OF TERMS

(no subject)

Date: 2007-08-05 01:12 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] tibicina.livejournal.com
Okay. I thought that LJ had some semi-legitimate possible reasons for finding that one piece of art inappropriate. (Not that I agreed with them, just that, frankly, the federal obscenity statutes are notoriously vague and if they're trying to abide by them - which they'd previously said they were, because I remember whimpering at the time - then I could see how for a general audience, that picture would be worrisome to them.) I was therefore willing to give them the 'They're trying to run a business' benefit of the doubt.

But... this sort of thing? Completely out of line. If they want to have snarky little conversations, at least do it somewhere friendslocked. I presume they are familiar with that technology.

(no subject)

Date: 2007-08-05 01:12 pm (UTC)
kengr: (Default)
From: [personal profile] kengr
In case you hadn't heard, LJ has also modified the code so that if you try doing a link to a suspended or deleted account, it no longer gets the LJ icon, is bold instead of struck thru, and isn't a link.

And such accounts don't show on the lists on your profile page anymore.

In other words, they've tried to make such deletions/suspension "invisible".

As far as I'm concerned, that's *proof* that they are acting in bad faith. They are trying to keep us from noticing rather than acting in a manner such that it doesn't matter if we notice.

(no subject)

Date: 2007-08-05 01:23 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] cktraveler.livejournal.com
I agree with you -- but I've heard the alternate explanation floated that it's to do with how namespace isn't protected after deletion. A boldface account is supposedly one that can't be reinstated while a struckthrough one can.

I have no idea if this is true or not and frankly I think you've got it right. But it's an alternate explanation. Does anyone have proof it's not true, such as a freshly-deleted account that went immediately to boldface or an account that currently produces a strikethrough?

(no subject)

Date: 2007-08-06 02:39 pm (UTC)
ext_80683: (Default)
From: [identity profile] crwilley.livejournal.com
A journal on my flist that was previously struckthrough (like, a year ago, by user deletion) is now bolded in links, but still shows up as strikethrough in my profile. I should clean up my flist more often or something,

(no subject)

Date: 2007-08-05 02:20 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] tibicina.livejournal.com
I was aware that they'd stopped people linking to deleted accounts and had removed those from profile pages. I don't think that's an immediate sign of bad faith, though, honestly, as I can see too many reasons for some people going 'Wait, why do I have links to journals which don't exist anymore?' and someone deciding that it made sense to implement. I'd rather know when one of my friends journal was deleted, but I really can see how that could have just been a legitimate change and they didn't think through how it would look in combination with this.

(no subject)

Date: 2007-08-05 02:24 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] dinpik.livejournal.com
It's my understanding he's on vacation. His time is his own. Difficult concept for some to grasp, I know. If he had used a sockpuppet and people found out, they'd scream about that.

Fandom is overreacting, and badly.

(no subject)

Date: 2007-08-05 03:32 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] emiofbrie.livejournal.com
The parallel is more like this:

He's on vacation, but he stops in at his place of work while off the clock and starts insulting customers. Customers recognize him.

Most companies would terminate him anyway, even though he was off the clock.

(no subject)

Date: 2007-08-05 03:44 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] droewyn.livejournal.com
I disagree. If I were to make a public post about my company, using my real name and work email address, I would be considered a representative of my company, and would almost certainly be fired for unprofessionalism, hurting the company's image, etc. For one of SixApart's representatives -- and he IS a representative, not just an office worker with an opinion -- to make such a comment is inexcusable. Whether he then went on vacation or not isn't material.

(no subject)

Date: 2007-08-05 04:56 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] dinpik.livejournal.com
If he still has a job, then LJ doesn't care, if they ever did. Some companies are like that. I worked in one. It's hard to take people who compare journal deletions to Guantanomo seriously. Yes, someone in the lj-biz post did that.


(no subject)

Date: 2007-08-05 04:58 pm (UTC)
From: [personal profile] cheshyre
a) should've done it from a different account than the one he uses for making official business announcements.

b) Quoting gmth's open letter:
Do you GET IT now? Do you see how easily fiction gets conflated with reality? Do you understand how it is really, really possible to create a piece of ficton that runs diametrically opposed to your RL thoughts and attitudes, and how very much it SUCKS when people insist that because you write about something, you must obviously embrace it and want to do or say it to real people in real time?

(no subject)

Date: 2007-08-05 05:04 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] dinpik.livejournal.com
Sorry, no. It's fandom that doesn't get it. Anyone who thinks that people aren't going to judge you base on what you write is kidding themselves. It's a fact of life.
It happens to pros and fans alike, and the idea that fandom is somehow immune because, hey, it's fandom! is boggling. Especially since you can find the same judgments happening in fandom, i.e. shipping-wars, "X is better than Y and anyone who likes X is an idiot!", etc.

(no subject)

Date: 2007-08-05 06:56 pm (UTC)
From: [personal profile] cheshyre
So, by your reasoning, [livejournal.com profile] burr86 doesn't get it, and everybody condemning him for his comments in [livejournal.com profile] efw are correct.

It doesn't matter that he's "on vacation and his time's his own" (as you commented above). Because he wrote it, it's okay for us to judge him on that basis.

Nice to know where you stand.
_____
reposted to correct bad lj tag

(no subject)

Date: 2007-08-05 08:30 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] dinpik.livejournal.com
People already are judging him based on what he wrote, in case you haven't noticed.

To touch on [livejournal.com profile] gmth's open letter: every time you put up a work of fiction, you're showing something about yourself. This goes even further for writing sex. Because sex is such a hot button issue, people are going to make judgements about you, the author, whether you condone or perform the type of sex you write about in real life or not is irrelevant.

Fandom on LJ doesn't exist in a happy little bubble of fans-only anymore. Perfect strangers may find what you write -- and you -- horribly offensive. If you're not ready to deal with that, don't post your stories publically.

(no subject)

Date: 2007-08-08 07:26 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] magicaltrevor.livejournal.com
*QUICK SNARK MODE*

Golly, thanks! What I needed was one more person telling me that fans are an overreacting, unreasonable bunch and that anybody can say anything they want about us, and that we have absolutely no right to complain about it!

Nobody's saying we're not ready to deal with a random stranger being a complete dick to us. As a slasher, I deal with that all the time, and I deal with it well, thank you. But I have every right and reason to be pissed the hell off when the owners of a company I patronize are being snarky to my kind. Moreover, I have every reason to complain about it wherever I want, and I can't understand why you seem so hell-bent on convincing us that our outrage isn't legitimate, our anger misdirected, and our actions futile.

So thanks a lot for your valiant and tragically unappreciated efforts to save us fen from ourselves, but I gotta tell ya: I'm an angry feminist leftist atheist pacifist pro-choice sex-positive female-identified nerdy fannish genderqueer vegetarian writer of Beatles slash. So there's about X0 million people lined up outside of my proverbial door right now trying to convince me to keep my mouth shut in just about every area of my life and every decision that I make, right down to the shirt I'm wearing.

Take a ticket n take a seat.

(no subject)

Date: 2007-08-09 03:14 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] dinpik.livejournal.com
Nobody's saying we're not ready to deal with a random stranger being a complete dick to us

Actually, I've seen a number of people say just that the last few days. And, if you'll look up, the quote from [livejournal.com profile] gmth's post is about how it feels to be judged based on what you've written. It happens to pros and it happens to fans, and right or wrong or fairness has nothing to do with it. As I pointed out earlier, there's judgments about people based on what they write in fandom itself, with shipping wars, with preferences about types of fic, etc.

I'm an angry feminist leftist atheist pacifist pro-choice sex-positive female-identified nerdy fannish genderqueer vegetarian writer of Beatles slash.

That's nice. I wonder if I can get that to scan?

(no subject)

Date: 2007-08-05 03:39 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] eleri.livejournal.com
Jesus H on a Surfboard. I almost never pay attention to that community of mine, cause it gets almost NO traffic.

Time to do some modly smackdown

(no subject)

Date: 2007-08-06 12:19 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] kinsfire.livejournal.com
Please forgive me, but in the multiple times I've read this thread, I always read the smackdown comment as "MOLDY" rather than MODLY. Never fails to make me giggle.

(no subject)

Date: 2007-08-07 07:52 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] dbcooper.livejournal.com
I'd also throw [livejournal.com profile] burr86 out of the [livejournal.com profile] efw community, if you haven't already. Then again, if I were Six Apart, I'd bold his username, if you catch my drift.

(no subject)

Date: 2007-08-05 03:52 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] jmthane.livejournal.com
The community mod just deleted the post you linked to.

(no subject)

Date: 2007-08-05 04:05 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] eleri.livejournal.com
that would be me. 780+ comments of arguing BS do not belong in my community, even if they faked making them 'extisential' comments.

(no subject)

Date: 2007-08-05 04:14 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] jmthane.livejournal.com
that would be me.

Yep - figured that out after I came back to this post and saw your comment. :-)

I must admit that I don't completely grok the community, probably because I don't completely grok existentialism.

(no subject)

Date: 2007-08-05 04:19 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] eleri.livejournal.com
It was a bit of sillyness that started over on alt.callahans, lo these many years ago.

It goes something like this:

"Proclamation of Greatest Filker In World"

"Argument in favor, long list of proofs"

"Disagreement, argument in opposition having little to do with filker in question"

And so forth...

(no subject)

Date: 2007-08-06 07:47 am (UTC)
kayshapero: Cheshire cat vanishes, ending with the grin (Cheshire)
From: [personal profile] kayshapero
1 Filker laughs ears off, writes song about proclamation.

2 Praise given to song.

3 Insults given to song.

4 Filker writes song about insults.

Got to 3

Must go look at your community sometime. :)

(no subject)

Date: 2007-08-05 04:07 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] isolde-deely.livejournal.com
yeah, I didn't get to see it either :(

Ah well

(no subject)

Date: 2007-08-05 04:22 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] eleri.livejournal.com
fear not, a link to the first page has been provided.
(deleted comment)

(no subject)

Date: 2007-08-05 04:57 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] dinpik.livejournal.com
It was only two people who had their journals deleted this time. And apparently losing your porn is Srs Business, but justifying racist bullshit in fandom is just fine.

comment deleted & reposted

Date: 2007-08-05 05:03 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] cacie.livejournal.com
I copied & pasted the wrong link at the beginning of my reply; here is the link to the post in question.

I'm sorry, but I just don't see why everyone is so pissed off. The EFW community is a fairly consistent source of hilarity, and the post in question was a joke (as posts on this community tend to be) and the person responding, though an employee of 6A, was also joking. The community is called "Existential Flame War" because that's what people do - flame each other in non-personal ways because it's funny.

I know that it's terrible that many many people had their journals wrongfully deleted and there was a grievous over-generalization in classifying all of fandom as pedofiles. But because an employee is trying to make light of a very very bad situation, that makes him/her a candidate for public crucifixion? From what I know of this debacle, they fixed and are continuing to fix the problems they created.

Perhaps there is another incident of which I am not aware that this is referring to? If there is some key information I'm missing, someone please tell me what it is, because I currently don't see why everyone is so up in arms.

Re: comment deleted & reposted

Date: 2007-08-05 10:03 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] ladypoetess.livejournal.com
From what I saw in the link of the first page that [livejournal.com profile] eleri posted, it certainly DID seem like both the post and the first comment were, indeed, jokes. Not really even very snarky - just joking in line with the standard for what seems to be community norms. (I say seems because I've not actually spent any time in [livejournal.com profile] efw, so I cannot say with more certainty.)

Re: comment deleted & reposted

Date: 2007-08-07 07:50 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] dbcooper.livejournal.com
May I purloin your icon? (with credit, of course)

Re: comment deleted & reposted

Date: 2007-08-07 07:54 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] ladypoetess.livejournal.com
Oh, sure - I got it from a random icon generating quiz ages ago, so no credit is really necessary. ^^

Re: comment deleted & reposted

Date: 2007-08-06 05:43 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] dadandgirl.livejournal.com
Extended offensive rant regarding people not recognizing a joke.

Apology about posting in wrong community; halfhearted backpedaling of original rant.

(no subject)

Date: 2007-08-05 05:04 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] cacie.livejournal.com
And in response to [livejournal.com profile] dinpik, I thought this seemed a little crazy; I'm glad I'm not entirely off-base!

(no subject)

Date: 2007-08-05 05:06 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] dinpik.livejournal.com
You're not. This, combined, with waffling and hemming and hawing over [livejournal.com profile] daily_deviant use of "miscegenation" as a writing prompt has left me disgusted with LJ-based fandom.

(no subject)

Date: 2007-08-05 08:21 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] scruffycritter.livejournal.com
I read it this way too. I just don't get it. He was joking along with everyone else.

(no subject)

Date: 2007-08-05 08:11 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] sethb.livejournal.com
Apparently, making racist statements while attacking someone else's racism is fine, but pointing out the racism in those statements isn't.

(no subject)

Date: 2007-08-05 08:18 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] dinpik.livejournal.com
Still mad it's not All About You, I see.

(no subject)

Date: 2007-08-05 08:31 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] sethb.livejournal.com
Does the phrase "ad hominem" mean anything to you?

I note that nobody was able to refute my argument, instead choosing to attack me. I take that as proof I was correct.

(no subject)

Date: 2007-08-05 08:36 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] dinpik.livejournal.com
Yes, yes. Keep telling yourself that.

(no subject)

Date: 2007-08-05 09:44 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] sethb.livejournal.com
You are not seeing the parallel.

The original message referred to cases where somebody made an objectionable statement, somebody else objected, and the first person downplayed the objection.

The original statement was made in an objectionable way. I objected. You're downplaying the objection.

I won't say anything about what your inability to see that point makes you.

(no subject)

Date: 2007-08-05 05:06 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] lizreay.livejournal.com
Post is down.

(no subject)

Date: 2007-08-05 06:17 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] shekkara.livejournal.com
[livejournal.com profile] eleri deleted it and explains why in previous comments.

(no subject)

Date: 2007-08-06 12:30 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] nagaina-ryuuoh.livejournal.com
For me, it is indeed an egregiously bad customer service issue and, as a consequence, I will no longer financially support LJ. In fact, I'm letting my paid time run out and am going to demand a refund of the money I spent for a year's worth of extra icons.

And, no, it is not "fandom overreacting." This is fandom reacting very, very predictably to LJ reneging on its word that the abuse-report process would be rendered transparent, clear, and with open avenues of communication/resolution for artists whose work is reported to abuse. This entire kerfluffle could have been avoided by simply asking the artists in question to remove the offending works. Instead, LJ responded in its usual heavy-handed manner and then compounded the initial stupidity with an egregious lack of professionalism poured on top.

I'm done. They will not get another penny from me.

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