Nesting Online

*sigh* Well, LJ has cluster-fucked again. This time they seem to have decided that Child Porn = Art. ponderosa121 is down for posting art with "underaged minors", though any idiot can see that the particular piece stomped on only contained adults, and was chock-full of artistic merit. (I myself envy her ability with backgrounds and hands.) Basically, the LJ staff pulled a knee-jerk, went "ew, gay!" and it seems like they couldn't get passed that. I adored her work, to be honest, and I didn't even know she was on LJ. Now that she's gone I feel like I missed something good. *sigh* I followed her back in 1x2x1 on Yahoo!Groups. She's been invited back to LJ of course (they've shown they jump when users scream about particularly well-known artists and comms being banned), but I don't blame her for not coming back.

Note: After Strikethrough became a widely-used term synonymous with "LJ Fuck-Up", they seem to have changed the coding for banned/deleted journals from a Strikethrough to a Bolded. I wonder what they'll do when Boldthrough joins its predecessor in infamy? My bet is "[Suspended User]".

To be completely honest, LJ is trying to address art as "obscene" rather than "child porn", but they're looking specifically at underage-obscenity. Do we really all need to go over the whole "I know it when I see it" fiasco? Obscenity is beastly hard to prove, but they seem to have decided "better safe than sued". (Or, more accurately, "Better safe than lost advertisers," or, "Better safe than lost IPO.") Even disclaimers aren't holding up, nor is previously-deleted material. After the whole Strikethrough 2007 mess, I've been watching them pretty closely, and at this point I've made some (expected) discoveries.

Yes, this is going to be insulting. I feel the need to blow off steam, and unlike coffeechica and rachel (LJ staffers/offenders), I am capable of doing so in a non-official capacity.

1. No one on the LJ staff or the 6A team is able to find their asses with both hands and a map. How they expect to cover them if they can't find them is beyond me, but I'm sure they'll at least try.
   
2. Neither the LJ staff nor the 6A team is capable of making reasoned, non-biased judgments about what kind of socks to wear in the morning, much less what constitutes artistic/social/scientific/literary value and merit.
   
3. Collectively, the entire paid (not volunteer) Abuse Team seems to have stopped taking art classes in kindergarten, and possibly think three plaster ducks is a bit avant-garde.
   
4. Text wasn't mentioned in the changes, and since that was what caused the greatest number of cat macros in the last wank-storm, I can only assume that:
   
   • The Trolls aren't attacking/reporting text yet.
     
   • The LJ staff/6A team isn't attacking reported-text yet.
     
   • The Trolls are illiterate.
     
   • The LJ Staff/6A team are illiterate.
     
   • All of the above.
   
   
5. Finally, the LJ/6A staff have no concept of what constitutes good customer service in regards to their users.
   
   • This makes a certain sort of sense, as we're not customers anymore. We are, however, content providers, and therefore possibly more important than mere customers. This is something they have yet to grasp.
     
     • If LJ loses its customers (advertisers), they can always find more quite easily. The Users will still be around, pumping out content and luring more advertisers and eyeballs in.
     • If LJ loses the users, not only is it losing eyeballs and the content that attracts them, but it won't be long before it loses advertisers. It's harder to attract new content (and users) without old content (and users) than it is to attract new advertisers with new content.
     
     I equate it to fishing. Any good fisher-person will tell you that bait is important. The content and users are the bait, both to potential users and advertisers. With out that, they've got nothing.

I'm not going anywhere yet, but I'm looking around for other sites. Pretty soon I'll post a link to whatever alternate-journal I'm putting together, and start transferring my stuff. LJ isn't my online home so much as my online nest. I'm comfortable here, and I've collected quite a few bright and shiny things that would be difficult to move and re-coordinate (Friends, communities, etc.), but I'm not so attached that I'll put up with abuse from Abuse. It won't be fun if I have to move, but I'll do it. Call this a precautionary measure, like collecting canned food in case of an earthquake in California. You don't want it to happen, but you know it will. The only question left is, "Will it hit me and my friends too?"

If anyone has any suggestions for journal sites I should look into, let me know. I'd rather it be free, but I can dig out a small (small!) fee from my wallet if I have to. Also let me know if an of you are planning on building safety-nests for yourself elsewhere. The location of my friends will definitely influence my decision regarding my new nest.

ETA: Greatest Journal is looking like a decent option so far. Yes, Blogger and InsaneJournal look more professional, but GJ provides a nice, simple list of what I can get by way of photos, icons, etc. I'd be more interested in JournalFen if they were open to new accounts (you would think they'd be taking advantage of Boldthrough), but they also don't have a list of service enticements. They're still a major option though, since it's safe for fans there. Also, it looks like my layouts will work om GJ as well as LJ, which would be nice. I'm looking at starting to create all of my own layouts (not that twilightified isn't amazing, but I want to switch them up more often and I'm too lazy to go looking for truly awesome layouts every few weeks), and not having to toss my initial ventures is a definite plus. Does anyone have any experience with GJ, positive or negative? LJ isn't threatening me (yet), so I have time to make sure my next home is secure.

Also, if I do end up moving, I probably won't abandon this LJ entirely. I'll keep up with a few communities and such (mostly hogwartsishome ), but I won't post fiction or art, and I doubt I'll really update on personal issues either.

ETA2 (Revenge of the Sporks): Mozilla plugin, Deepest Sender? Completely and utterly awesomesauce, if I can get it to work.