Existential Flame War

[filkertom]

The LJ thing is getting really ugly.

Just go here here. (Original link courtesy of ataniell93; revised link courtesy of cacie.) The very first comment is made by 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, hanabishirecca has created a community, fandom_action, about legal protection for fan creations.)

ETA: 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 (pirate_eggie) wrote in 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 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 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.

Comments

[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.

[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...

[cktraveler.livejournal.com]

Now that story is real chicken soup for the soul -- the good guys can win. Thank you.

[kengr]

Well, in this case the bad guys were so *stupid* that it was hard not to win..