Happy LJ Elections

[hummingwolf]

If you haven't yet voted in the LiveJournal Advisory Board election, please consider doing so! Relevant information and links may be found in this news post. It should be noted, though, that a couple of candidates have dropped out because the election has gone completely bloody insane (threats? threats?!).

I might have endorsed a selection of candidates in this post, but I'm starting to wonder if they're a bunch of politicians after all.

Comments

[daisydumont.livejournal.com]

that's really shocking. i don't understand getting so wrought-up over an LJ election as to make a threat. hope they manage to find the one who made the threat and take measures.

[rialian.livejournal.com]

===Well, the second one IS jameth...the ljdrama crew is quite famous for the sockpupet use.

[hummingwolf.livejournal.com]

Yeah. In spite of all those "In Soviet Russia" jokes, the Russian-language (or Cyrillic-using) LJ elections are said to be going smoothly by comparison.

[hummingwolf.livejournal.com]

In this case, it is mostly the fandom crowd being accused of sockpuppet use, since many already had large numbers of roleplaying journals they could use. I wouldn't be surprised if there were sockpuppetry going on on both the pro- and anti-jameth sides, frankly--he does tend to inspire strong feelings (to say the least).

[szeretni.livejournal.com]

Can I link to this? :)

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

I voted this morning, and what struck me the most when I saw the numbers is how little the whole thing generated any participation.

[hummingwolf.livejournal.com]

Well, I see you made your own choice about that by now. :-)

[hummingwolf.livejournal.com]

I know there are plenty of people who have chosen not to vote because they don't think the advisory board will have any effect on how LJ is run. Some people who have voted chose to vote only because they found out that someone they disliked was in the race.

[sophy.livejournal.com]

Some people who have voted chose to vote only because they found out that someone they disliked was in the race.

That'd be me, but I'd change "disliked" with "are totally offended by most of the time". It's not a matter of just not liking the person (I don't know him enough to like or dislike him), I just think he's a big drama whore who doesn't actually care about LJ and it scares me that so many people are voting for him just because his name is familiar or because people think he's funny.

And while I wouldn't put it past "fandom" (as if they're some amalgamous group) to use sock puppet accounts, I also don't put it past his group of fans to do it. And if there's a reason that suddenly a lot of people started running and voting for the more reasonable sounding people - I think it has a lot more to do with, umm, them sounding reasonable than some sort of fandom conspiracy. I'm not in any fandoms, and the person they're accusing of getting all the fandom sock puppet accounts got my 2nd choice vote because that person seemed to have a lot of experience and knowledge about LJ in general.

I couldn't get to the first link, though (not yours, the one to the LJ you linked to). I'm guessing that was the one about the threats? Any other info on that?

[hummingwolf.livejournal.com]

I just think he's a big drama whore who doesn't actually care about LJ

Oddly, I think he does care about LJ. I just think that what he wants out of LJ and what many of the rest of us want out of LJ are entirely different things.

cambler's post about the threat (and all his other posts about the election) are unavailable for public viewing now. His explanation: "On advice (the kind I pay for), I've custom-f'locked my election ramblings until after LJ makes whatever decision they're going to make. They're not deleted, just archived and frozen while I keep my opinion to myself for the next few days."

Basically, what happened is this: Several of the candidates (not all; it seems to have been the ones with higher vote counts who were living in the USA) received an official communication from Marta at LiveJournal. Jameth archived Cambler's post here:
http://jameth.whatthefuck.com/may2008/cambler.html
Relevant bit:

None of those issues, however, is the reason I'm withdrawing. I intended to continue to campaign and attempt to forward my platform until approximately 3am this morning, when I received an email from a representative of LiveJournal informing me that a credible threat had been made against a candidate and a further email clarifying that law enforcement is involved. The candidate was not named and the email also asked that this be kept quiet. I'm not comfortable with that for two reasons.

First, this kind of behavior is unacceptable and I want nothing to do with it. Second, as this is clearly a reason to exit the process, I'm not about to do so without an explanation. While, as I said, my chances of winning were zero from the start, the cries of "sour grapes" would be sure to follow. As such, I give you my reason. This is an online election. Threats of violence that require law enforcement involvement are another matter entirely.

I informed LJ that I was not comfortable staying in the election and would withdraw at noon, today. I invited them to provide me with a statement on the issue and they declined. As their request to keep this confidential was just that, a request, I feel that providing an explanation is not only warranted, it's necessary.

randomposting did not receive the e-mail, but did contact LiveJournal for further details and decided to drop out of the race as well, concerned for her family's safety. As it turns out, though, legomymalfoy says she was the one who received the death threat. Some of the other candidates are arguing that since LiveJournal knew this all along, they never should have accepted the withdrawals of the two candidates who were withdrawing because they didn't know if LJ had received threats to kill them or not. Jameth posted a later e-mail he got from Marta here.

Summary: It's all one big, ugly mess.