Oh, LJ

[hummingwolf]

I really do love this site. There are so many wonderful people here who I never would have gotten to know if it weren't for this place. But LiveJournal? You so need to stop infuriating fandom and many outside with actions which, while they may be both well-intentioned and well within your rights, do not really make quite as much sense as you probably think they do.

Looking at the aftermath of Strikethrough '07, I honestly thought that LJ had learned something. Apparently what they learned was to re-do site code so that deleted & suspended accounts don't have a strikethrough anymore.

Copperbadge says it well.

Comments

[daisydumont.livejournal.com]

yes, i've been watching reaction since i got up. i went to the lj news thread where there was all-night commenting, and i was horrified by some of the fans' comments (especially the lewd graphics involving barak's face and frank the goat, oh please). way to make LJ think they've handled things right...

[hummingwolf.livejournal.com]

I see now that in one case LJ may have been responding to a complaint directly from Warner Brothers. It's easy to see why LJ caved if that's the case, though I do wish they'd handled it much differently.

[daisydumont.livejournal.com]

they haven't handled it well, no. warnings before complete suspension would've made sense, to see if the artists would voluntarily remove posts that were deemed in violation. i'm afraid at my fandom journal that i'll start losing friends right & left to GJ and IJ and Journalfen.

still, as i said, some fans are behaving badly in LJ's official threads. that's not good PR for fandom, either.

[hummingwolf.livejournal.com]

If LJ and fandom were individuals rather than groups, I'd say they need therapy for their dysfunctional relationship these days. It's really very sad.

I love that icon.

[daisydumont.livejournal.com]

it is sad, for sure. and i'm under the impression that some LJ personnel are in fandoms. they must feel a little split as to loyalty.

geoffrey! how i love him.

[mariness.livejournal.com]

Agreed to this. It's one thing to respond politely and logically -- and many fanfiction writers are. Unfortunately, the few that aren't are not exactly making a good case for supporting fanfiction.

[daisydumont.livejournal.com]

no, they aren't, and i'm afraid their obnoxiousness is going to incline 6A to have less patience with the rest of us.

[speck.livejournal.com]

gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

[hummingwolf.livejournal.com]

Yeah. I can appreciate that they want to comply with some annoyingly vague US laws, but they could still be doing it in a better way.

[seraphimsigrist.livejournal.com]

why would one think kiddie porn has
rights? or am I missing something?

[mariness.livejournal.com]

The issue, and i'll probably be chatting about it later on my own LJ, isn't so much defending child porn. I'm all for ending that myself.

There's two related problems: 1) LJ is using California's age of consent, 18, which is not the age of consent in all countries or even all U.S. states. What this means is that LJ can be restricting writing about activities that may be perfectly legal for the user. 2) Despite a major firestorm the last time this happened, LJ has gone back to the suspending without warning. Since I didn't see the material I frankly have no idea if the suspensions were justified or not, but I would agree that it might have been better to give the users 24 hours to take down any offending material.

[seraphimsigrist.livejournal.com]

of course I am not at all knowledgeable
in this and I am happy that my respondent,you,
is mild and sensible and not intent on pointing
that out. :)
what you say is fair...
at the same time I guess I do not understand
the psychology of people who want to write borderline
trash, including slash fiction etc which lj(rightly)
(of course)
does not censor but seems to me a stupidity etc
given this mindset which is not,I think, contempt
bur rather the wish that people with real talent would
find some higher form of sublimation...
I am not inclined to be too patient with what this stuff
seems to be.
get a life etc one wants to say. well but it is not
that simple and writing trash can be a necessary example
of doing what one is able to do to keep on keeping one etc
though in other cases it can be a living below ones level
as it were I would think
but if kids are involved
then get your own website and a good attorney too etc
dunno too much from me I guess
+S

[aekiy.livejournal.com]

I agree with you on the warning before suspension issue. Just wanted to point out, though, that's it's standard practice for any website to require all users to act in accordance with the laws of whatever state where that site's hosting facility is located. Unfortunately, otherwise, LiveJournal itself (or Six Apart) could be held responsible for whatever documents are hosted on that server.

[hummingwolf.livejournal.com]

As I understand fandom reaction, there are several issues involved here.

1. Since the characters involved in these cases are fictional, it's hard to see how any real children could be harmed, thus making it difficult for fans to understand why child pornography law would be applicable in the first place. Unfortunately for fandom, the law really does apply to unreal beings as well as real ones--a fact which needs to be made clearer.

2. The characters in the paintings were (apparently) clearly portrayed as adults, not as the children they are in the books. This makes the whole "kiddie porn" description even less understandable to the fans involved. Personally, though, I'd hate to be the one given the task of determining whether a fictional person in a painting was or was not over the age of 18.

3. Many people are confused about the idea that LJ is applying California law. "But I live in a state/country where the age of consent is much younger! All my work is perfectly legal for me!" This issue is not in itself one where LJ is to blame. What LJ does need to do, however, is communicate with its users and clarify once again that, since LJ's servers are in fact in California, LJ has to comply with California and US Federal law even when its users are making their entries from an entirely different part of the planet.

4. Where the law is not clear, LJ's policies about what is or is not acceptable are also not terribly clear. Since obscenity law is notoriously difficult to clarify (and anti-child-pornography law is a different animal which complicates things further), many LJ customers are understandably confused about what may or may not be acceptable for them to post.

5. After the mass suspensions earlier this year, barak, SixApart's CEO, had said that upon review, they did not find that any fan activity had violated LJ's terms of service. In other words, fans believe they were told that what they had been doing was okay, that the suspensions were all one big mistake, and they were free to go back to posting the kinds of stories and artwork they'd been posting all along. Now that there have been permanent suspensions without warning of a couple of fan journals, many folks understandably feel that they have been deceived.

[seraphimsigrist.livejournal.com]

I am not familiar enough with the
case to have a full opinion (well and
fortunately it is not up to me)
I never heard of "fandom" I expect it
is likely a sort of writing which I would
find between a silly waste of talent and
thought and contemptible but that is a
separate issue.
I do think though that "freespeech" can
be a little too easily invoked as a defense
for anything on a site which is finally
only partially ones own.
but anyway ,whether it accords to my
reactions or not, let the best prevail...

[hummingwolf.livejournal.com]

The concept of "fandom" isn't necessarily related to writing. Fandom is simply the community of fans, of people who care about a book, author, TV show, movie, rock group, or sports team enough to get together and talk about it on a regular basis. Many people in fandom do like to write what's known as fanfic, but even though fanfic may involve characters created by someone else, that doesn't make it all trash. It's really an extension of the spirit that impels you to ask your friends questions like, "Which of these famous fictional detectives would you most like to have a beer with?" Fanfic can be a way of going on to say why someone would give the answer they choose. By writing their stories or painting their artwork, fans can try to show others why they like the characters they do, to fill in plot holes that an author left behind, or to answer hypothetical questions that interest them even more.

I do think though that "freespeech" can
be a little too easily invoked as a defense
for anything on a site which is finally
only partially ones own.

Oh, I certainly agree with you. But when customers who have been paying their money to a business for years believe they have been lied to, it is understandable that they get angry about it.

my experience with fan writing etc

[seraphimsigrist.livejournal.com]

yes...well let it play out as it will.
of course not all fan writing is trash
I think in their hearts each writer, if
sensitive, knows if what he or she is
writing is right for writing or is trash
and unfortunately some know and continue
to write trash...but many write things
worthwhile more or less
not to give myself as an example of the
latter in fanfic but I was for a time an
oz fan, was familiar with the pastiches
and continuations of the already at least
40 book canon, I wrote articles for the
baum bugle and one piece of fiction agout
the character the woozy which was published
in sweden by march laumer the
somewhat neerdowell brother, now gone but
corresponded with him long,of sf writer keith laumer...
the oz fan fiction that I approved of was that
which was true to the principles of the series
(so heinleins intrusion in oz in number of the
beast is in fact true to the series, philip
jose farmer's barnstormer in oz introducing
violence and death is not in my opinion...
but anyhow ...
well and I have enjoyed many pastiches of
sherlock holmes and of the first star trek
series...
but that is where I am coming from however its
not about you or me and let it play out as
it will...+S

[hummingwolf.livejournal.com]

Note: I meant barakb25 above, unless I've mistyped it again in this comment.