Livejournal decided to tag fanficrants as may contain explicit content, which means that nobody logged in as under 18 can see the posts. People logged out can see them, and click the "Yes I'm 18" button—but ffrants doesn't allow anon or non-member commenting. Officially, it doesn't allow sockpuppets, either.

The wank is playing out in a couple of posts at ffrantsrants

jinxy_sama is surprised anyone's upset:

I thought it already was marked Explicit Adult Content. I have to say I find it surprising that so many of you who so vehemently disapprove of loli/shouta ... would not dissuade actual underage individuals from creating socks or moving to DreamWidth in order to view content inappropriate for children, ie. rape, bdsm, a myriad of different kinks, explicit smut, etc, etc. With the comm in such disarray over the inability of minors to partake, maybe it's a good thing LJ took the reigns."

Several people point out that "not wanting kids to read x-rated fanfic" is not the same as "not wanting kids to read ranting about fanfic, some of which is x-rated." It's also pointed out that some of the "minors" now being excluded are legal adults in their countries of residence.

But, she continues, sending a lemon to a person under the age of consent via email constitutes corruption of a minor, which, if prosecuted by a parent, could land someone in jail. That's not wank, it's fact. (Plz to ignore the total lack of any such prosecutions in the history of the internet. It's fact that it could happen!)

Yeah, says izzanami, you think telling kids to go to DW to see things ADULTS get triggered and squicked by is alright? You may think that sex should be an open subject for children (and I think it should be), but unless YOU are their PARENT, it doesn't matter.

(All arguments are more persuasive with some words in caps. Really.)

Jinxy says "it should be up to the minor in question's parent/guardian to decide what they deem suitable for their children's eyes, not any random person on the internet."

(LJ's staff is, of course, not "any random person on the internet." You *know* they polled the parents of every minor on that comm.)

Izza brings on the Special Logic: Even though *she's* an enlightened and sensible parent who doesn't believe in hiding the existence of sex from kids, it's totally reasonable for LJ to take a stand against it, because not every parent agrees with her, and *of course* policies should be based on the most hysterical parents' wishes.

Buried in the (mostly frozen now) subthreads are bits about how LJ is only protecting itself from lawsuits (which nobody is admitting has nothing to do with whether or not the content is dangerous for children), and speculations about the real purpose/intent of the "May Contain Explicit Content" tag: "Once a comm has even one entry marked as explicit it's supposed to be marked as 'may' contain explicit adult content, that "may" part is very important."—because once a comm. has a single locked-to-adults post, no minors should be allowed to join that comm.. Riiiiight.

Also includes tangential wank about whether FFR does, or does not, disapprove of loli. IDEK.

jadedissola explains the whole situation to an unhappy 15-year-old:

But we have to protect you from reading about such naughty things, otherwise you might get IDEAS and you might start thinking about trying this S-E-X thing for yourself! Clearly, without all this talk of sex, you'll never think of trying it on your own/fantasize about celebrities! What's worse, you might get the idea that sex is something to be enjoyed, maybe even celebrated! You need to understand that sex can KILL YOU (or at least give you babies).

Try again in three years when, magically, you become an adult overnight and suddenly your brain will be capable of handling all these grown-up ideas.

It all starts with what people are already calling LJ Genderfail: the newest beta version of LJ added a mandatory "gender" field to the sign-up process and eliminated the "unspecified" option (LJ quickly responded that the mandatoryness and binaryness of the new question were an accidental bug, and that the code was not going to go live. Of course, not everyone believes them about the "unintentional" part).

Well-known SGA BNF, former lj staffmember and co-founder of Dreamwidth Synecdochic made a call-to-action post that included the line,

It's been a while since I've been furious with anything LJ has done; having DW has done a lot to calm down my knee-jerk "AUUUGH NO" whenever Moscow does something stupid again.

A few people, some Russian and some not, are offended by this, and object. Synecdochic apologizes and edits the post after a request for clarification, but that is not enough to stop Ivorygates from making her side look bad.

Furiosity (who identifies as Russian) had objected to dismissing an entire culture because you're mad at some of its representatives, and Ivorygates takes the opportunity to school her. In her own cultural history. Because, you know, Russians don't understand freedom: it's not in their culture! America's special history of free speech can't be truly respected by them! (At this point Synecdochic freezes the thread.)

But Ivorygates isn't done! Bell had commented to Synecdochic that saying "Moscow" made a decision wasn't the same as saying "San Francisco" did because "Moscow, in US rhetoric, is that creepy place with commies and weird politics and gangsters". Ivorygates PMs her about this claim,

Are you actually -- are you actually seriously -- suggesting that identifying as a Russian national -- online, where you are safe from physical attack and can maintain anonymity -- presents you with duress identical to the harassment and persecution that transsexual and genderqueer individuals experience not only on-line, but in every facet of their lives?

Furiosity also posts to ask people to apologize instead of getting defensive when informed that they have offended "someone's race/culture/language/sexual orientation/gender identity/whatever". In her post meddie_flow comes to Synecdochic's defense with the ever popular Bingo square of "She didn't mean anything by it" with a side-order of "don't turn everything into a lynch-mob". Being offended by russophobia is also likened to being offended by the color red, and I'm honestly not sure if the irony there was intentional or not...

From the website that pissed off all their fandom user base twice, Livejournal has decided to go for the gold and piss off their entire user base this time around. I present to you...

The Profile Massacre of 08!

In other words, Livejournal changes the profile design without warning and announces it later. Naturally, Livejournal users are very unhappy. There's more unhappiness to be found over at the news post. (Which hilariously includes a reminder that permanent accounts are going on sale.)

But that's not all! More hilarity ensues when the LJ Design Team posts again and clearly ignores the complaining.

Oh, Livejournal. What WON'T you do?

Meet kyuuketsukirui. She writes reviews for SGA on her LJ , and recently reviewed a bunch of stories on mcshep_match. kyuuketsukirui commits the unpardonable fandom sin of saying she's disappointed in the latest mcshep_match stories and will be posting her reviews soon.

Meet lamardeuse. She doesn't approve of kyuuketsukirui's disappointment in the stories or her reviews and says so. Many people agree with her, in the process confusing concrit and reviews. kyuuketsuikirui shows up to politely disagree. lamardeuse and her friends don't respond well. darkrose brings in a bit of Earth logic, but it's not enough to leaven out the massive amount of Unclear On the Concept, alas.

So kyuuketsukirui writes a post clarifying her position on reviews and reviews of fanfic and fandom.

zillah975 makes a post about this whole civility/reviews/concrit situation, including a thread in which anatsuno laments that life on the Nice Side ain't all it's cracked up to be. telesilla does a post too.

No responses from lamardeuse and friends. At least, not publically. That wouldn't be civil, after all.

ETA: Supposedly lamardeuse was responding to lavvyan, though kyuuketsukirui's post seems to have been the back-breaking straw.

Dearest, beloved, Fandom Wank.

I know you were looking forward to great excitement today. Some of you said words to me that indicated you anticipated fiery 'judgement' upon those who remained fresh and dewey white, those you call n00bs.

Anyway, you got today instead.

Stop anticipating things, we'll just break your hearts.

Sincerely,

Sepia P. Magpie, Esq.



PS: Use this post to reflect on how you could be better people. Or just fuck around in the comments.

Yeah, right. So, how did the LJ Content Strike go? People want to discuss it in the comments to beckyzoole's first post after the strike. First order of business is, of course, calculating post stats to look for a possible dip. golden_purple18 takes it upon herself to provide the calculations, and they're, let's say, less than thorough:

Before the strike I looked at the "number of posts in the last 24 hours" on the front of LJ, the number was 195.2 thousand, after, 167.9 ! That's 27,300! That's AMAZING! That means that 27,300 posts that WOULD have gone up (its Easter weekend, posting is high) DID NOT!

That means 13% of the posts didn't happen That was part of what I sent Becky. Yeah, it worked, and the effect was huge. I also mentioned that the amount of posts held back was probably more, because of the many people posting more on purpose.

Hope this helped!

And also quite wide-eyed.

People point this out with various levels of bitchery, and also that Friday was a holiday in two different religions. It soon becomes apparent that golden_purple18 is making a particular interpretation of LJ usage:

Exactly. Lots of people are doing stuff, which means that people are posting. More activity means more things to say. Boring everyday life is not a common subject. Holidays boost posting!

And even:

More activity in real life = more activity in lj

The discussion soon degenerates into derision and trolling on one side, and bannination, comment deletion (for "NSFW language", no less!) and chest-puffing:

I'm sorry that the Content Strike made you feel so threatened that you are lashing out irrationally.

I'm really impressed by how many people are counter-protesting so strongly. We must be very powerful, or they wouldn't want us to stop what we're doing so badly.

on the other. And what do you know, we can also has Godwin's! (Fascists are close enough, right?)

At this point, golden_purple18 asks for, and some people offer, proper statistics analysis, comparing yesterday's posting to other years' posting on Good Friday. It seems that less posting on Good Friday is a trend, and golden_purple18 admits to her mistakes, even though she still considers that there are "too many variables" to fully admit defeat.

This is just the first thread of comments, and the rest go on and on full of ad-hoc attacks, posturing (strike? Counter-strike!), and hurt feelings so don't forget to check them because I'm sure there's lots of gems to be found.

And also, thanks to an anonymouse on wank_report, more quality drama between the participants at sf_drama.

Some of the links are taken from j_crew_guy's post at 6a_cornfield.

The Livejournal Staff make a news post to celebrate the hundredth day since they were bought by the Russian company SUP. It mentions their previous policy update and plans to create an Advisory Board.

Then redbird notices that the FAQs have been updated.

Copypasta from FAQ #38:

Basic Account is an option available to accounts which were created before March 12, 2008. No account created after this date can be turned into a Basic Account. Basic Accounts will not have any advertising displayed on their accounts, but will have fewer benefits and features.

jasonshellen, the VP of Product Development for LJ pops up in the third page of comments.

Brad Fitzpatrick, creator of Livejournal and member of the current Advisory Board, is not happy about the change.

There's more information at no_lj_ads.

EDIT: Esther Dyson, another member of LJ's Advisory Board, says that she wasn't consulted either.

SON OF EDIT: Danah Boyd's response to this, thanks to uniquewonders.

DAUGHTER OF EDIT: news finally responds.

MOTHER_IN_LAW OF EDIT: And thanks to pfeffermuse- sf_drama has a translation of the Russian News post, which included the information.

WERELEOPARD NIECE OF EDIT: The head of the blogging service at SUP speaks (thanks to j_crew_guy for the link). Bahleeted. Link to source article (in English) here.

Re: the disappearing lj interests -there's a discussion over at fandom_lounge.

(Posting it here since it seems likely to affect fandom most of all.)

Over in lj_biz, burr86 clarifies LJ's stance on exactly what material is not allowed on LJ.

It began with "Thanks!" comments, but quickly grew with plenty of people asking questions and LJ getting their internet lawyer involved.

And now there are cat macros and a community to discuss what is obscene on LJ a la the Miller Test.

Plus comments like "you are all just spoiled brats who want to write Harry/Dobby porn". (I'd link to the exact comments, but I'm a spoilerphobe.)

SPOILERS for Harry Potter Book 7 on page 7 of the comments of the LJ_biz post.

There are even people who think it's a conspiracy that LJ posted about this now, because most HP fen are offline, avoiding Book 7 spoilers. So if you think it's wanky now, just wait til they find out about it.

Originally posted in clairvoyantwank.

EDIT: But wait, there's MORE! burr86 has made a follow-up post in LJ_biz trying to muddy the waters clarify things further. Good luck with that.

Figure it's big enough to put here.

So first, pornish_pixies is mysteriously suspended. No explanation, at least so far. And so is sbrb_blackcest, shota, wonkaslash, lol_porn, and afamilyaffair, as well as some of Ataniell's RP journals. Other comms (dailydeviant, hp_incest) seem to have self-deleted in an attempt to ride out the wave. Starting to notice a pattern?

liz_marcs thinks she's found the culprit; Warriors for Innocence has recently turned their vigilante anti-child-porn eye onto LJ, and they don't like what they see. She's written an email to them, and promises to tell us all about their reply a bit later. (Note: people are reporting SPYWARE on the WfI website, so be careful.)

It's plenty wanky already, with people mostly locking down their content and/or shaking their fists, but I don't see any way that this will not balloon into a screaming match that makes Fanlib look like a tea party once people start getting home from work and liz_marcs posts WfI's response.

ETAs:
There's a running tally of suspended/deleted comms and LJs here.

Femmequixotic gets a reply: pornish_pixies was TOS'd for the incest

Also, to those who find the server particularly robust, adding ?style=mine or ?format=light to the end of the link or hitting ctrl-shift-R to clear your cache may help a bit.

The response to liz-marc's email: WfI says they didn't report any fandom comms, and weren't even aware of fandom at all. Are they in CYA mode, or is our princess really in another castle?

You know it's big when Aja and Heidi are talking to each other again. (Or they made up yoinks ago and this is non-news, but why ruin the moment with facts?)

By modly suggestion, some options for reducing server robustness:
1) Cool it on the macros
2) Turn off images in your browser. Images can be turned off in Firefox via Tools -> Options -> Content and then either switch off "load images automatically" or block JF via the exceptions. In IE, it's Tools -> Options _> Advanced -> Multimedia -> Show Images.

ljsupport makes an official post. And it's somewhat... lacking:
( ljsupport's response )

WfI has made at least two new posts since all this went down, sticking their foot further into their mouth each time. (Note: people are reporting SPYWARE on the WfI website, so be careful.)

People scream at LJ on a news post, from page 6 to... maxing out at page 100, with 5000 comments. And they've now moved to the next older post, which has gone from 17 pages to 40. Oh dear.

LJ finally speaks! ... to the press.

And while we're waiting for LJ's official statement to us... apparently WfI really *is* run by racist homphobic anti-immigration far-far-right-wing Christian dominionists. This is TV-movie perfect, y'all; all it needs is Kevin Bacon teaching us how to dance.

JF is going down for a bit this evening, so don't panic. (I'll delete this ETA when it comes back up.)

You know it's bad when even Perverted Justice is calling you a moron:
( The pwnage )

You've probably all seen this already, but LJ's reponse is here; comments have, of course, already been maxed out. Text here.

... of course, this came after one of the CEOs talked to Metafilter about it. I'm feeling so unloved. *tear*

And new news post: a bunch of stuff has been or will be unsuspended, to boil it down.

According to former wanka teratologist, Fandom Wank isn't just like those mean girls from high school--we're like supporters of the war in Iraq, too!:

When you want to see others hurt and humiliated, and you don't want to feel guilty afterwards, the best fix is to find some people that 'deserve' it. Better make them pretty close to one hundred percent bad, to be safe. Such people being in short supply, they sometimes must be created. Or the regular sort of people must be cunningly disguised as them. This is not exactly an earth-shaking psychophilosophical discovery, over here. Most of the f_w crew, most of the people who got a real chuckle out of the Ton-Tongue Toffee and felt a fierce joy at Marietta's facial scarring, hell, even most people who still support the Iraq war, could probably tell what I just told you, on an intellectual level, and could probably invoke such an explanation to cover the behavior of characters and fans they don't identify with. [emphasis mine]

As she continues taking fandom Way Too Seriously, she describes The Incredibles as "a disappointing crypto-facist bowl of nut crunch" in a comment. Apparently:

It was a great movie for people who unsophisticatedly imagine that _they'd_ be the superheroes. Sadly, the demographic at Rotten Tomatoes seems prone to contain a lot of people who also think they're magically delicious in the genes department.

Which of course is completely and entirely different from people who think that the Malfoys would just adore them, as opposed to using them for target practice.