brightly_lit

I know that opening a dreamwidth account is really easy, and I hear backing up your lj is also easy! I think they have a whole system set up just for that. (They use the same base code.)

It seems like business as usual among my friends here, which is great! But it's always good to have a contingency plan ...

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madebyme-x.livejournal.com

Agreed! I think it's a good idea to have a back up plan, as I really would hate to lose contact with all my friends here. I have no intention of leaving, but I'd rather play it safe than sorry.

I'm going to look into it, and try to get an account sorted. I'll be in touch in the near future. Take care :)

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cuddyclothes.livejournal.com

The LJ servers have always been in Russia.

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No they haven't

(deleted comment)

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No, they haven't. They moved the last of the servers to Russia this week which is what sparked this whole thing.

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... But this just isn't true?? Livejournal was invented by an American (Brad Fitzpatrick). It expanded into an American company called Danga Interactive, which was headquartered in Oregon (you can google it, and all of this). In 2005, another American company called Six Apart purchased lj. Here is the post Fitzpatrick made about it: http://news.livejournal.com/82926.html As he explains in the post, lj then moved to San Francisco.

In 2007, Six Apart sold lj to a Russian company, but it was still located in San Francisco and continued to operate there under the business name "Livejournal Inc." until 2009, when some of the business's aspects were moved to Russia, after which the story becomes a bit more murky. However, this user used pings to show many servers were still located in the US until this hubbub began a few days ago: https://mdlbear.dreamwidth.org/1584606.html.

You can read the whole story here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LiveJournal

Let's make sure we get our facts straight if we're going to get heated, eh?

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milly-gal.livejournal.com

I actually was meant to be replying to something else hun. Not this comment, I was using my new phone and beggered up which link I clicked on in my inbox to reply to. Sorry.

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Yeah, I've noticed that my flist doesn't seem worried, either! Most of the posts and comments I've seen on this subject are elsewhere, and range from "the LJ sky is FALLING! Run to Dreamwidth as fast as you can!" to "they said LJ was over before, ignore them, Dreamwidth sucks". So who knows? But you're so right on "better safe than sorry," and as you've said before, LJ does get buggy at times and it seems like it's no one's priority to fix it... so when I get a minute, Imma make myself a Dreamwidth account and see about copying everything over.

I'm interested to see what others think about this... thanks for the PSA/poll. :-D

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It seems like most people never look at the homepage? I never used to, either, but I've started to, because sometimes there are interesting things there. If I hadn't looked at the homepage, I'd never have heard about all this! There wasn't a peep about it on my friends page.

As ever, as you mention, there's lots of opinions on both sides. And as ever, I'm trying to keep a rational middle approach. Mass hysteria seems kind of silly, but completely ignoring something a bit concerning also seems foolish. So yeah, making contingency plans is ALWAYS a good idea, imo. Better to do so at a distant early warning than when the shit hits the fan.

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Yeah, I'm noticing again in this exchange what our mutual journalism background does for us. Not that people HAVE to care about where the LJ servers are, but knowing the facts about something that's as important to me as LJ? It's worth looking at both sets of opinions, which I thought was well-represented by your very non-mass-hysteria AND non-blinder-wearing post. :-D

Something I've observed a lot on social media is that so many responses to a well-stated introduction of content like this... don't actually respond to what the post actually says? And not just social media. There's just a... trend, for lack of a better word, of... missing the point. It made me start to doubt my communicating abilities, which you know I've always been proud of. But yeah, I just came to understand that it's the way our culture is leaning, and you and I are less in synch with that than ever just by our nature.

And yes. The bugginess/changes in a bad direction of LJ functionality is more than a distant early warning, IMO. I never intend to leave LJ, and it was clear from your post that you don't either, but back-up? Sooner than later, I'd say! Just need to make myself do it. :-D

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Yeah, facts seem to be ... optional? If you're going to state something as fact--especially if you're going to DEBATE something as fact--then you better damn well have your facts straight. I think our journalism background makes that obvious to us, and the more I see people debate politics and everything else online, the more I see others just don't see it that way. But if people don't have facts to agree upon to start with, how can people ever come to a mutual understanding?

And ... yeah. I've gotten used to the fact that people less see what you're saying than I guess something that vaguely appears to relate to something personal to them, which is what they respond to. It used to freak me out, too, thinking maybe I hadn't said what I actually meant. And I do tend to leave things out in my original posts, I've found, believing they're already known or assumed, which is so often not the case. (For instance, it didn't occur to me I'd have to link to the information I was referencing on this post, because I assumed anyone who didn't know what I was talking about would go look it up for themselves, but of course, most people won't go hunting for receipts--myself included! Unless I really care about the issue or decide to comment on it.)

And finally, yes, yes! Backing up is ALWAYS a good idea, whatever the situation. That part seems entirely uncontroversial to me. ;-)

Thanks for the sweet comment, bb.

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emmatheslayer.livejournal.com

Yeah I have herd a lot of lj Russia has been a hoax but it's always good to back up I don't know who will staying but I hope my flist does

Hugs I am on dw but have no post Same name as my lj

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I don't have any posts on dw yet, either. Glad to know you're over there and your user name there!

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ladygreytowers.livejournal.com

I know the LJ servers have always been in Russia. I think IMO that people are just running scared and not thinking things through. What with the investigation about the election hacking and trump being trump. I don't have a dw account and I find it hard to believe that people in Russia are all that interested; in what we all get up to, in our fandoms and talking to each other about our favorite actors/actresses. Russia is not going to be getting any state secrets from any of these things. Also if they want to waste time reading LJ journal entries. Go for it! It will bore them to death as well as keeping them occupied and out of mischief!
Really can you imagine whole teams of people assigined to read every story and log entry ever made; to find out state secrets???? REALLY I MEAN REALLY. If LJ gets buggy again I might go make a dw account just as a back up but only for that reason. So I say lets flood the Russian servers with all kind of fandom and let them try to find any secrets in this. Love my flist! Not going anywhere anytime soon! Hugs to BL and to SC.

Edited Date: 2017-01-04 05:28 am (UTC)

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Actually, lj was owned by American companies until 2007, when it was bought by a Russian company, upon which some of the servers moved there, but others (seemingly those serving the English-speaking users) remained here. Here are some links where you can read up about it:

http://ontd-political.livejournal.com/11704319.html
http://siderea.livejournal.com/1330197.html
https://mdlbear.dreamwidth.org/1584606.html

These links explain why people are afraid lj will become no longer profitable and be shut down, so it's not just feelings and fears about Russia generally related to the election hacking, etc.

Yeah, the bugginess is my main concern in all this. It feels like fewer and fewer old features work all the time. I never get notified anymore if someone tags me in a post, for instance, and I frequently don't get the notification if someone pm's me, either. Maybe it's just a lax attitude about keeping the place working, but I do worry a little that maybe it's because its owners don't care about it anymore.

I figure making a dw account can't hurt, in any case.

Glad to hear you'll still be around this joint!

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alyndra

Woah, wait, when did LJ ever notify us of getting tagged in a post? I don't think it ever did!

I've had a dreamwidth account practically since it started, same name, love the site although SPN fandom doesn't seem to be active there at all!

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I always got notified if someone tagged me in a post, until recently. Now I do about 30-40% of the time, I'd say. I think you can choose whether you want to be notified or not in User Settings.

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alyndra

I went and looked, didn't see anything like that. LJ sends notifications if someone replies to you or if you subscribe to a post, and that's about it, unless it might be a paid account feature?

I take it you mean the username icon, not 'tags' which are journal-specific? I would be really shocked if those did anything like you're describing.

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She means when someone wrote out someone's username with lj code, as

brightly_lit, virtually anywhere on lj, we would get a notification that we were "mentioned" on lj. I still get these e-mails if someone mentions (tags) a community I mod, but I no longer get them when someone mentions/tags me individually.

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alyndra

Must be a paid/plus account feature, then. Or possibly no one's ever mentioned me since they added that feature, since I'm pretty positive it didn't exist back in the oughts. 😂

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False. I've never had a paid or plus account, and I always got such notifications, back to the early aughts. Rather than arguing the point with me, why don't you poll other people? Ask if they got notified when their username was mentioned on another person's lj. Perhaps you just never turned that feature on.

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alyndra

No offense meant, I just saw that it said Plus Account on your profile page.

It really is equally possible that people just haven't mentioned me, as I've always been something of a lurker.

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Oops--I was thinking Plus was a paid kind of account, but yes indeed, I do have a Plus account, and I think I have ever since they introduced them. It's possible it was a feature of Plus accounts, but it's gone now, alas.

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Ditto what BL said. It's a feature I've used a lot with various accounts, going back to about 2003. Doesn't work anymore and appears to be a new change to LJ's functionality.

ETA: I've never had a paid account either, and people on my flist talk all the time about these kinds of user name notifications, so I know that others receive/use them frequently.

Edited Date: 2017-01-09 10:21 pm (UTC)

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rosalui.livejournal.com

I had mostly the same reaction - backed all of my posts up on a private DW account, but don't plant to move/start posting there unless LJ properly starts experiencing problems.

So I guess I'll still be here, until I need to be there, lol. XD

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I think that's a good plan! It's always good to be prepared; it'd be awful for us all to get a bad surprise. I wish dw was a place people commented and interacted more, though ...

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milly-gal.livejournal.com

*taps fingers on her desk*

*sighs*

Excuse me bb if this comes out either punchy or a bit snippish, it is NOT pointed at you, I just...I know I can be honest here so here goes...

I'M NOT LEAVING! *Crosses arms and stomps her feet* I am not leaving, end of. The most I will do is open a new DW account just in case (I haven't had access to my DW for ages, can't find the email I used for it and no idea of the password).

*shakes head* I've lived her for nigh on 17 years now and I am not upping sticks and f*cking off to another platform. I understand that people are worried, I also understand that lj has been slowly getting less active for some, but my flist is booming and this is where I've hung my hat for what seems like EVER.

I have over 6,000 entries on this lj, I can't even contemplate porting all that over. Can you even imagine?

Russia may well wanna come poking about in my business but as I have yet to form a anti-fascist group which is dead set on over throwing Putin, I doubt very much they're gonna gain anything of interest from me. If they wanna nosey into my extensive porn collection, or see what a fangirl does with her time when she should be cleaning, or even use my artwork as an example of how not to be a good human being, so bloody be it, but what are they really going to get from us fangirls that they can use in their fight against freedom of speech?

*sighs again*

Sorry hun, I just *hands* I get so sick of hearing how this is the platform that's dying. Year YEARS I've been reading posts about it from every fandom I've been in and yet HERE WE ALL ARE STILL!

*Plants herself* Fine, I'll sit and bounce a tennis ball off the wall to keep myself occupied when everyone leaves but I am not going any where.

Obstinate Milly is in the house ;)

Edited Date: 2017-01-06 06:24 am (UTC)

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LOLLLL I love this response. :-D Good for you, bb! (Indeed, I'm sure it would take DAYS to transfer your entire lj over to dw!)

I don't worry, myself, about our fandom stuff; even if people wanted to poke around in it (not like the vast majority of what we all post hasn't been public from the beginning, anyway), I don't see how it could cause a problem. The main concern seems to be that vast numbers of Russian blogs are jumping ship to dw, and since the English-speaking side of lj hasn't been profitable for many years, people are afraid they'll suddenly shut it down entirely ... which I find highly unlikely, although I do find the gradual breakdown of some of lj's features concerning. I guess it's possible they might shut down just the English-speaking side? I don't know. People just know the laws and attitudes about all these things are different in Russia from in the States, and things might change, so some people are concerned.

On the plus side, dw has the same base software as lj did when it started, so it's a lot like lj! And you can have it auto-cross-post to lj if you post over there, to make things doubly easy.

But good on ya, and yeah, I doubt it's the end of lj, it just seems wise to me to have a backup, JUST IN CASE.

Love ya, honey. <3 <3 My lj stalwart friend.

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milly-gal.livejournal.com

Love ya too, lol. Tell you what... Head to my page for the latest of my lj stalwart ramble. This comment plus a little extra 😉

I get you and I will re open an account eventually just in case but this is my first love 😘

Edited Date: 2017-01-06 08:48 pm (UTC)

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Okay except Livejournal HAS been dying for years

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I'm not talking about my flist, I'm talking about the site as a whole.

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It's not bullshit. LJ is dying. That's great if your friendslist is active but that doesn't reflect the website as a whole.

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I don't care if LJ is dying. I barely use this site.

No, my problem was with you claiming LJ isn't dying just because your friendslist is active. I don't know why you have such an attitutde.

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ladyjane

The only thing that worries me, given Russia's stance on LGBTQ people, is whether they will ban users or delete posts that go against their laws. I'm not sure what the laws on erotica are, so that could be an issue, as well.

I've been on Dreamwidth for some time now, and I haven't had any issues with it. A huge plus is that DW has ZERO advertising; it's funding comes entirely from user fees and donations. They have both paid and free accounts - the whole set-up is very similar to LJ's.

They also have an incredibly easy tool for importing from LJ -- and you can crosspost to & from LJ. The biggest drawback I've heard about is with photo storage. I've always kept my photos on Photobucket, so I don't know anything about their capability.

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