[Poll]: Where do we go from here?

[thefourthvine]

Okay, I've put this off long enough. (Hi, my name is TFV, and I'm totally change-phobic. I hold the regional title for hiding-head-in-sand, and am a certified expert in change denial. Need mentoring in the fine art of fearing change? I am here for you.)

Seems to me that, what with the ever-changing and quite confusing ToS on LJ, it's only reasonable for me to do something besides post all my content to LJ and just kind of hope I don't lose it. (Yes, I have backups, but not, at this time, a real offsite backup.) But, of course, I'm waffling on what I'm going to do. When in doubt, poll!

Also, every day I'm seeing deletions and departure notices, and I kind of want to figure out where everyone is going before you're all, you know, gone. I realize I'm too late to catch the first wave of LJ departures, so if any of you cross-post or do newsletter things or also journal on another service, I'd really appreciate a link. (This isn't just for people on my friends list, by the way. There are journals I read that I don't have friended, after all.) So, again, a poll seems like a good way to collect information.

I know people who don't have LJ accounts anymore - as in, deleted or suspended - can't actually take the poll. In that case, feel free to answer whichever questions you choose (including, ideally, the location of your journal-type content and your fanworks) in the comments. Anonymous commenting is on. If you can't do that, either, then feel free to email me. I want to know where you are!

It's probably getting really boring seeing polls like this all over your friends list. I'm sorry. But I don't want to lose my content or my community, so - well, I'd really appreciate it if you'd take mine. (If it makes you grouchy, there's an option in the poll to tell me to just quit LJing. Feel free to use it!)



[Poll #1050367]

Comments

[qem_chibati]

http://qem-chibati.insanejournal.com/5575.html
I pooled together a list of resources for IJ a while ago, but the ones you'd want I think are:

http://www.greatestjournal.com/users/snapetoy/16797.html
- Semagic for magic cross posting powers!

http://brown-betty.livejournal.com/284083.html
- Exporting lj entries to another journal or saving them on your computer.

LJ-archive saves comments etc into something *you* can read on your computer, lj-sec takes your posts (but not comments) and posts them to another journal of your choice.

[qem_chibati]

Also; RSS readers I use depend on how frequently the site updates and my interest level.

I either use live bookmarks on firefox (where I expect high chaff ratios and don't care if I miss a link) or google reader http://www.google.com/reader/view/ - like a flist just for you!

I haven't yet gotten any rss reader to work on syndicated friendlocked entries although there are some people who say it is possible if you add your username and password to the syndicated link - you can see entries that you would have access to if logged in on lj.

I've heard good things about a couple of programs but nothing that I wanted to use extensively just yet.

[derryderrydown.livejournal.com]

If you want a JF account, I can get one set up for you?

[glammetalkitten.livejournal.com]

Hi, lurker poking her head above the ground here :)

As I'm not always the most technological person on this her interwebs, I had a few issues getting the Semagic cross-posting tool to work. My friend gave me a different set of instructions (http://glammetalkitten.insanejournal.com/384853.html?thread=853#t853) which worked beautifully!

I'm still having trouble keeping track of everyone who has moved, and would love it if some clever person could come up with a way for me to have one flist which pooled all my friends from all the journal services! One can always hope, I guess....

[thefourthvine.livejournal.com]

Awesome. I had the brown_betty's already, and I have LJ-archive and LJ-sec, but that second link was just what I was looking for. Thank you!

Off to explore the rest of your resources now.

[thefourthvine.livejournal.com]

Yes! That'd be way cool. Thank you!

[thefourthvine.livejournal.com]

There's one program that I'm looking into. Which, damn it, I don't have the link. But, yeah, I'd love something reliable that allowed me to view secured posts and aggregates everything in one place, and I don't know of such a beast just yet. Ah, well. I can yearn, anyway.

[odditycollector.livejournal.com]

In the near future, how can a recommendations source (like, you know, me) be of most use to you?

If you don't want to do proper crossposting, you could picking a place (LJ, a proper blog, where ever) where you feel comfortable and set up a feed for those hanging elsewhere.

(I personally am currently doing crossposting to IJ more or less, but duplication mildly offends my sensibilities just the same.)

[qem_chibati]

http://adahy.insanejournal.com/369.html

Someone recommended this one to me.

IF you find something that works, be sure to pimp it to the world! :D

[marycrawford.livejournal.com]

In the near future, how can a recommendations source (like, you know, me) be of most use to you?

The answers to this one all feel way too negative or way too imperative ("you must post to LJ AND ONLY TO LJ! Forswear all others!"). I love your recs and it would please me greatly if you kept posting them to LJ, as I'll be staying on LJ for a while, but if you crossposted to various journal sites that would be fine too, and if you were to move to a blog-type thing I would just add your RSS feed to my blog reader.

I'm staying on LJ because I don't really think there is a better alternative - as GJ and IJ expand, they'll probably run into the same problems as LJ is dealing (badly) with right now.

[svmadelyn.livejournal.com]

I'm of the personal opinion that if people want to read your blog, they're going to find a way to read your blog - off a feed, whatever - and that we all barely have enough time as it is, and I'd rather people spend their time creating actual content than making it breezily easy for someone to read their blog. I think it should be...earned! Yes. (More that, if they want to read you through a feed, it's totally easy to do so and it saves the annoyance of cross-posting.)

*wiggles fingers* If you do decide you wish to go the webhosting route, you're welcome to a subdomain on my site, if you'd like it. It comes with a one-click wordpress install that I could do for you - Pru, Eleveninches and I all have ones set up with much success and whatnot. Um, anyway. I give people a free year, and then after that it's divided up by however many people are on the site at the time, so never more than like, 20.00 a year for virtually unlimited space/bandwidth. It's good times. :D

Anyway, the option's there for you if you ever want it! *g*

[china_shop]

By continuing to post recs to LiveJournal and only to LiveJournal.

I said that, but I agree with marycrawford about it sounding negative. I just meant, that's where I'm most likely to read you. But I'd strike out the "and only to LiveJournal" if the poll gave me that option. :-)

[flambeau.livejournal.com]

I don't like change, either. Troublesome stuff. I've noticed that my flist seems quiet lately, but I thought it was just the season...

Anyway. I'm torch on journalfen, but that's about it, and I don't post there. Or read there, come to think of it.

The more I try to think about this stuff, the more I think about other things I could do instead, like write, or bake bread, or clean the oven. heh.

[ratcreature]

I crosspost my personal journal right now to LJ, IJ and GJ, but I recently created an art comm (not exclusively fannish, it's supposed to become a place to practice drawing with others), and I did that on IJ, because of LJ's policy changes that impact art the most. So some of my sketches will probably only be posted there.

I'll keep crossposting for now, and most of my own journal is fairly harmless, but I do have a drawing of Superboy and Robin groping each other for example (not with visible genitals or anything so it's unlikely to cause trouble, but who knows), and one of Batman kissing Robin, and I think I've recced underage stuff which I then linked to, so I don't feel safe on LJ anymore. I mean, I do get semi-frequent trolls because of some comic related posts, and some of these were dedicated enough to create LJs to rail at me in my comments (since I don't allow anonymous ones to prevent spam), and some where really enraged, so I can imagine some of the angrier ones going through my conveniently tagged back entries looking to report things to LJ Abuse with that handy new button, you know?

[gloss]

Change is scary! It's also been wonderfully liberating, however, as I moved to IJ. Just saying.

[laylee.livejournal.com]

I'm staying put, mostly because I can't be bothered moving, but also because I can't see it being any better anywhere else. JF, IJ and GJ will likely all come up against similar problems as they grow and who's to say they'll handle it any better than LJ?

[maygra.livejournal.com]

I've got two years of paid time left on this journal, so, it's not going away, but I'm pretty much cross posting now, and the only problem thus far is that Greatest Journal doesn't send notifications when someone comments, ergo, that one's not getting a lot of my attention. I check it about once a day. A lot can happen in two years so, we'll see. I may have hied mysefl to a nunnery before this all falls out.

Anyway, fic, as always is on my journal, and I'm still reading LJ, but I've filtered it down to a much shorter *read every day list*.

Cari-be-gone for all your caribou removal needs!

[dzurlady.livejournal.com]

I'm staying here, because I still like lj better than the alternatives, although if something good comes up I would probably shift to cross posting or set up a feed or something.
I think you should rec however you feel like it, although I like having you here on lj.

[thefourthvine.livejournal.com]

Hi, lurker!

Thanks for the link; I hypothetically have everything set to crosspost, but, well, the real test will be actually doing it. I may well need those instructions, since things do not always work as they're supposed to.

I'm still having trouble keeping track of everyone who has moved, and would love it if some clever person could come up with a way for me to have one flist which pooled all my friends from all the journal services!

Yup, it's difficult; I don't want to miss anyone, but at the same time, I'm not sure I'm up to three or four friends lists. (In all honesty, it's hard to keep up with one.) I'm seriously hoping that one of the programs people have recommended to aggregate feeds actually works. *crosses fingers*

[thefourthvine.livejournal.com]

See, yeah. Duplication isn't ideal, but then at least I'd have a backup in case one of the sites went wonky, and also people who have migrated away could read me without feeding me if they wanted. (Feeds are problematic in a number of ways, not least because they seem to eliminate cuts, which - I post a *lot* of text sometimes. I also sometimes discuss spoilers for the stories I'm recommending. So it'd be nice if my cut tags worked, and on feeds, they won't. At least, that was the case the last time I was on a feed. On the other hand, feeds are easy. So...yeah. Have I mentioned I'm not good with change or decision-making?)

[rydra_wong]

Thirded. I really don't care whether something's only posted to LJ, or whether it's posted in other places as well :).

[vass]

My thing with InsaneJournal: the insanity theme. Not cute, not funny, not clever. It's not like I've never made, or laughed at, jokes about mental illness, goodness knows. *points to icon*

But IJ goes beyond just the name, and beyond "joke I would laugh at", and into "oh boy, I'm not going there." I've seen the arguments about using it in a reclaiming sense, and the appropriateness of the term 'asylum', and I'd give them more heed if, one, it was mentally ill people who made the joke in the first place, or two, Squeaky'd reacted differently to criticism.

[thefourthvine.livejournal.com]

Hi hi hi! I have an email response in draft form to send to you, and I must get it finished and off to you before, oh, next August. Coming soon to an inbox near you! I hope!

I love your recs and it would please me greatly if you kept posting them to LJ, as I'll be staying on LJ for a while, but if you crossposted to various journal sites that would be fine too, and if you were to move to a blog-type thing I would just add your RSS feed to my blog reader.

Thank you! And my guess is that I'll be staying on LJ for a while, no matter what else I do. It's just, with the new linking policy - all I do is link. I don't think it's at all likely that I'll get into trouble, at least in the short term, but if the possibility is there I'd like to have a backup, you know?

I'm staying on LJ because I don't really think there is a better alternative - as GJ and IJ expand, they'll probably run into the same problems as LJ is dealing (badly) with right now.

I certainly expect this. (And, yes, I agree - there's no single better alternative right now; a flat-out move is unlikely to be my choice.) I mean, it took quite a while for trouble to find us on LJ, but anyone who truly wants to make trouble now knows exactly how to, so - yeah, I think IJ and GJ are likely have the same sorts of issues in the future. But I do think crossposting at least gives me a bit of redundancy, which is a kind of security. (Kind of annoying, too, for people who are following more than one list, but I assume they'll cut me in every place but one.)

Squidge

[shusu.livejournal.com]

I think a lot of people would be interested in squidgestatus, where Squidge is starting to develop a fandom bloghub. Ideally, *one* flist no matter what blog or journal a fan is using.

[darthfox.livejournal.com]

[points] What they said. I chose the second option, "mirrored to wherever", but I'll be reading the LJ-side mirror of whatever it is. :-)