news: June news

Krissy (

ljkrissy) wrote in

news,
@ 2006-06-02 11:48:00

June news
We're back -- did you miss us? Do you like the new userpic

veroz made for us all? Here's what we've been working on since our last post.

Better Styles Management
Keep an eye on the Styles management pages for an overhaul that will be launching very soon. There are also big changes in the works on our style systems, which are currently called S1 and S2. We're working on making S2 your best choice by bringing in some of S1's functionality to it. The goal is to have one style system that's powerful, flexible and easy to use. We encourage you to switch to S2 now!

More New Stuff
While we're always working on big new features for you, we wanted to point out a couple of smaller tweaks and improvements. There are some changes to the Edit Profile page which resulted in the new pages called Viewing Options (where you can turn on the Navigation Strip) and Comment Settings. The engineers have pushed some fixes including the ability to change back to Plain Text from the Rich Text editor. There are other bugs they are still working on, but if you are experiencing issues please contact Support.

You've also probably noticed the new "Did You Know?" reminders that show up after you log in and after you post. These reminders are there to let you know about features you haven't used as well as new additions to the site. Visit the Did You Know? page to view all the reminders.

Sponsored+ Account Level
Since the launch of the new Sponsored+ account level back in April, we've enjoyed hearing all of your thoughts and opinions on it. A couple hundred thousand of you have already made the switch, and we really appreciate it. Your choice to move to the Sponsored+ level is a big support to the site and will enable us to make improvements to the new level and to the site as a whole. Stay tuned this summer as we start to roll out the feature improvements that have been enabled by your support of the site.

If you're interested in getting more features for free, switch to Sponsored+ now.

Gathering Data
We have recently re-implemented HitBox, a site-wide data-gathering service that will help us dig deeper into how users and visitors use LiveJournal. The data we collect will help us prioritize our improvements to the site, among other things. A few folks were very concerned about privacy with the Hitbox service, and thanks to their feedback we were able to make some changes to how we'll use the service. Most sites on the web do keep track of which pages you visit, and we're trying to be even more respectful of your privacy. You won't actually see a change to your experience using LJ.

If you'd like to know more about HitBox, please read all about it in this post to

lj_biz.

Staff Welcomes
Join us in welcoming

poignantly and

hachi to the Engineering team,

kimmi8 as our Product Manager,

joydtaylor to our Sales team and

chasethestars to the Design team!

Summertime
Congratulations to all the graduates of 2006! We wish all our users a safe, happy and productive summer. Stay tuned to

news,

tipoftheday and

lj_spotlight (and

frankthecomic for a laugh!) as we'll be bringing you tips on how to make the most of your LJ experience all summer long.

(Read 1774 comments) - (Post a new comment)

shamanix
2006-06-03 02:45 am UTC (link)

DISCLAIMER: While I am a member of the Abuse Team, I am NOT employed by LiveJournal and what I'm about to write is my own personal opinion and should not in any way be construed to be a statement on behalf of LiveJournal, the Abuse Team, or anyone else but myself. I am also not a lawyer and anything I say should not be construed as legal advice or a professional legal opinion.

The law protects the act of breastfeeding and the incidental exposure of the nipple in public. Whether or not that protection extends to pictures of an individual posted on a privately owned website is likely beyond the scope of the law and would have to be tried in court to establish a precedent. I suspect that it's fairly safe to say that if 60 Minutes ran a story on breastfeeding, they'd be blurring out any exposure of a nipple out of fear that the FCC would fine them for another "wardrobe malfunction".

LiveJournal is in no way restricting the ability of any person to breastfeed their child, which is what the laws explicitly protect. Further, LiveJournal is not saying that the icons cannot be used - they simply can't be used as a default icon. Just like any other form of nudity that wouldn't be acceptable for prime time broadcast television.

The statement "...the way the abuse team responded to people about it." refers to an incident for which

dougbryan has already given a public apology for. It was an unfortunate selection of wording used in one of the responses.

This entire situation has been blown far out of proportion by a number of people whose interpretation of the existing breastfeeding laws is fairly creative. Some of the people fanning the flames are involved solely because they have an axe to grind with the Abuse Team.

While I certainly understand where some of the arguement comes from, LiveJournal isn't the end-all-be-all of breastfeeding and United States law. The real issue here is the cultural barriers that exist in the United States towards nudity, not anything LiveJournal has done. Anyone looking for blame should first look to themselves, followed closely by their elected officials - the ones who have the power to change the existing laws.

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

realcdaae
2006-06-03 03:00 am UTC (link)

I didn't mean to suggest that the laws protecting breastfeeding in public meant that LJ was bound by those laws; it was just a response to comment that laws limit nudity. Though it does show that the "social norm" lawmakers are trying to achieve is that breastfeeding is not "inappropriate".

By "the way the abuse team responded to people about it" I wasn't referring only to the incident Doug apologized for - as the thread shows, many people were not particularly satisfied with that apology, but as it's half past three am, and it's all been said already, I won't go into them.

There seems to be the suggestion that people who have disagreed with the abuse team, or questioned them too much, in the past aren't worth listening to. I have no idea what

hardvice's particular disputes with the abuse team have been, but plenty of people have perfectly legitimate problems with the way things are run, whichever side they happen to take on this particular issue. While I've no doubt that there have been people "fanning the flames" (groups who have got together to report icons would seem a prime example), I hope that any user who's had disputes with LJ abuse isn't simply being lumped in with them.

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

hardvice
2006-06-03 11:22 am UTC (link)

I have no problem with the Abuse team whatsoever. I just like being a rude, obnoxious shit on the rare occassion I'm required to interact with them.

I knew the icon I had violated the TOS, and when they asked I changed it to one that didn't. It really is as simple as that, minus the in-character rants and delusional ravings.

That said, none of this would have happened if LJ-Abuse Marie wasn't so stupid that she didn't even understand the existing policy. They should shitcan her, at which point I will pour one on the curb for my fallen homie

elgorgo.

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

	realcdaae 2006-06-03 03:14 pm UTC (link)
	I certainly haven't found that being polite to them has gotten me very far. What did elgorgo get suspended for? (Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

	hardvice 2006-06-03 03:17 pm UTC (link)
	Failing to stepenfetchit when Marie asked, as I recall. (Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

	gerilsage 2006-06-03 04:29 pm UTC (link)
	Is that like failing to sieg heil? (Reply to this) (Parent)

	chilifinger 2006-06-03 11:16 pm UTC (link)
	don't you mean earle_gorgo? (Reply to this) (Parent)

kerinda
2006-06-03 04:44 am UTC (link)

I appreciate your response and want to say that while tempers are high and words are bandying about, I respect the way you, personally, worded this.

I do have to say that the FCC was contacted, and questioned about whether an image of breastfeeding would be inappropriate on television or in other media. Their response was that breastfeeding is exempt from all nudity violations, and is even allowed on G rated programming. So there can be no "wardrobe malfunction".

You're correct, however, in that the law might be too vague to cover a privately owned website, and it *may* have to be decided in a court. I hope that this debacle doesn't turn into the case that decides that. I, for one, am incensed that I paid money for a permanent account only to be told what I can and can't have as my default icon because of someone else's idea of decency *which falls outside the law of every state I've ever lived in* and may fall outside the law of all of them (except maybe Kentucky ;)). I cannot get a response from anyone at LJ in regards to a refund on my permanent account, and I'm sure they'd be all too happy to keep my money while *continuing to advance a societal ideal that is systematically degrading to mothers and is the reason there are laws in the states to protect breastfeeding from indecency laws in the first place*.

I had such hope when Doug issued his apology, I really did. When the suspension notices just kept coming, with no cooling off period or time for compromise, my hopes just kind of withered one by one.

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

shamanix
2006-06-03 08:26 am UTC (link)

If someone did e-mail the FCC and received such a response, I'm sure a large number of us would be interested in seeing it, although

news probably wouldn't be the best place to put it. ;)

The trick with "decency" is that there is no common standard, in case law or otherwise. Every one of us has different ideas about what is or isn't offensive. A great example of this would be images like "goatse" or "tubgirl" (If you don't already know, you probably don't want to.) - I'm not personally offended by them at this point, since I've seen them so many times over the last ten years. Other people have been known to literally lose their lunch after seeing either image. Who's to say that my idea of what is considered "inappropriate" is any more or less valid than someone else's?

Conversely, who's to say that yours is, either? Personally, I don't care in the slightest if you want to show any or all parts of your body in your default icon. There are likely people who *are* offended by the imagery associated with breastfeeding, or people who prefer not to have their children exposed to nudity of ANY kind, even if it is associated with something as natural as breastfeeding.

Since shortly after SixApart purchased LiveJournal, children under the age of 13 are permitted to use the site, with the express consent of their parent or guardian. If I'm remembering correctly, the vast majority of LiveJournal users are under the age of 18. Minors (and the associated laws there) are the primary reason that the policy on default userpics is in existance. Default userpics load by default on userinfo pages, top-level journal pages, searches and various other areas of the site. Looking at this from a parental standpoint; if a child were browsing LiveJournal unsupervised, it's entirely possible that they could come across default userpics that their parent(s) don't want them to see.

Now, I *firmly* believe that parents should be supervising their kids at all times if they're using the internet. The trick here is that a default userpic will still load even if the parent is sitting at the computer with the child, watching like a hawk. That's where the problem comes in - some people may not want their children exposed to anything that might potentially be provocative (and I use the word in a non-sexual sense).

This entire situation has effectively been a back and forth between two groups of people, with the Abuse Team caught in the middle. I'm absolutely not trying to portray the team as the victim here, but ultimately, I think we've just been trying to do the best we can in a really lousy situation. Yep, we made a couple mistakes along the way - we're all humans too. Thing is, what's happened is that a number of the breastfeeding supporters submitted scores of reports about other default userpics that violate policy (ie: violence, sex, etc). In turn, another group of people reports breastfeeding icons. Since common carrier status relies on the Abuse Team responding to valid complaints under existing policy, we can't just ignore everybody without risking significant legal liability to LiveJournal.

I think I'm running out of room here, so I'll continue in another comment. :)

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

	dreamalynn 2006-06-03 07:33 pm UTC (link)
	If someone did e-mail the FCC and received such a response, I'm sure a large number of us would be interested in seeing it, although [info]news probably wouldn't be the best place to put it. ;) Here's the shocker of the day - not all communication is via e-mail. Some of us don't live and die by pixels on a screen. (Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

	shamanix 2006-06-03 10:01 pm UTC (link)
	If it isn't in writing from the FCC, how do you prove that's their response? (Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

	dreamalynn 2006-06-04 01:03 am UTC (link)
	The inquiry wasn't made in order to generate "proof" for anyone. If someone at 6A/LJ needs to know the reality of the FCC position on the matter, they can contact them just like I did. (Well, they can't contact the person I did, but they can make contact with someone.) (Reply to this) (Parent)

shamanix
2006-06-03 08:54 am UTC (link)

What a lot of people don't understand about the Abuse Team is that we're all users too. Even the paid employees. The majority of the team (by a factor of around 20 to 2) are volunteers. We do the work because we love the site and we want to make sure it sticks around without getting sued for something or another six times a week. While that's glamorizing it a little, it's ultimately true. We're happy to donate our time to the site because we've all found good stuff here and we want to give something back.

Now, I obviously can't make any sort of comment about your situation with the permanent account, but please believe me when I say that LiveJournal isn't a huge big evil company just out to screw everyone - that's so completely not what's going on here. And to reiterate the point, nobody has said that breastfeeding icons with nipple/areola cannot be used; they just can't be used as a default icon, for the reasons I noted above. It's entirely possible that policy on that may change, as Doug said.

I'm actually a little surprised that we haven't seen more of an outcry against The Register for their story about this situation. They're portraying the breastfeeding community in an extremely poor light, complete with a thinly-veiled jab in the closing line of the story.

I'm going to disclaimer myself again here, because I'm going to state my opinion and I don't expect it'll go over well with some people. I am speaking only for myself. I do not, in any way, represent LiveJournal in an official capacity and am commenting solely as a LiveJournal user with a little more information about the situation. ;)

Both Carrie from ProMoM.org and Doug from SixApart made it well known that they were in conversation about this issue. Unfortunately, a number of people jumped on Carrie because the policy changes weren't being made IMMEDIATELY; as in, that same day. In a matter of 24 hours, things went from "hey neat, SixApart is listening to us" to "SixApart is totally ignoring us" based solely comments made to Doug's public apology in

boob_nazis and Carrie's subsequent posts to the community.

Rather than abide by current policy while the matter was discussed, knowing that Carrie had direct contact with one of SixApart's executives, a number of people deliberately changed their default userpic to something that they knew was in violation of the current policy in "protest". On top of that, there's the matter of the press release, which, in my opinion, contains a number of blatantly false and misleading statements. As I'm sure you're aware, some folks are planning a "nurse-in" for this coming Monday at 6A's HQ.

A cooling off period requires that both sides of a discussion step up to the plate and in this situation, that didn't happen. Instead, it's snowballed to the edge of a cliff. If things go one way, there is a great possibility that there will be irreparable damage to both LiveJournal and the breastfeeding community. If it goes the other way, I certainly wouldn't expect that everyone will be happy, but at least there wouldn't be any burnt bridges.

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

realcdaae
2006-06-03 01:10 pm UTC (link)

Carrie is the media contact on the press release though - it went ahead and was sent out because she felt she was getting nowhere in spite of Doug's assurances, based on their conversations. This time I suppose I'm in the position of not being able to give more details as a lot of that was discussed off LJ.

There's been a long discussion on this on another blog, which I can't quote from directly because it got so long it refuses to load for me anymore; but a couple of LJ support volunteers and one ex-abuse team member were posting there, and made a number of suggestions of other things people should have done, more appropriate ways to complain (such as using the suggestions community). Yet none of them were ever suggested by the abuse team, or by Doug. Things snowballed because people felt they were not being listened to, and that Doug wasn't addressing their points.

Of course the abuse team volunteers are only human, but so are all the other users of LiveJournal (excepting Frank the Goat, naturally). We don't get cut any slack for that. In this case Doug apologized for the poor wording of the initial notice and lack of clarity of the former version of the FAQ, but it took 1500+ emails for that to happen. When it's just one user, and perhaps a handful of their friends, pointing out that a rule was not clear or was not fairly applied, no one is willing to engage in a discussion with us - we just get our support requests about it closed, and emails ignored. If it takes an avalanche to get any attention, well, it's hard to stop an avalanche once it's started. That's why it's a good idea to listen to people before they shout loud enough to start one off.

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

	realcdaae 2006-06-03 03:33 pm UTC (link)
	I just heard from someone that she followed the advice to post a suggestion about it in the suggestions community, and the moderator rejected her suggestion saying that policy questions should be addressed to LJ abuse. So apparently even the LJ support people are confused about where such questions should be directed. (Reply to this) (Parent)

shamanix
2006-06-03 09:51 pm UTC (link)

I'd really like to know where these numbers come from. The Abuse Team certainly didn't receive 1500 e-mails. So, unless 1500+ e-mails were sent directly to SixApart, while totally bypassing the Abuse Team, I'm afraid I'm going to have to disagree with that assessment.

As for more appropriate ways to complain, let's face it, the people who caused this to snowball weren't interested in a "more appropriate way"; they wanted this to be a very public issue.

Lastly, given that you're one of the people who feels slighted by the Abuse Team, as evidenced by your postings to

abuse_lj_abuse, I'm afraid I can't put much stock in your opinion here.

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

realcdaae
2006-06-03 10:23 pm UTC (link)

No, that was the approximate number of emails sent through ProMom.org, which went to either contact@sixapart.com or feedback@livejournal.com (according to the ProMom.org admin). Those were the emails sent after the LJ abuse team sent out the stock "mass emails will not influence our decisions" reply.

Your attitude is showing exactly the problem that caused it to snowball - LJ abuse's dismissive response (which as you said, Doug Bryan apologized for, and as you can see from the thread, there was no need for any prompting from anyone for people to express their dissatisfaction with what he actually said).

Your final comment merely strengthens the view that the LJ abuse team members cannot tolerate people disagreeing with them.

I said in a previous comment, "There seems to be the suggestion that people who have disagreed with the abuse team, or questioned them too much, in the past aren't worth listening to. I have no idea what [info]hardvice's particular disputes with the abuse team have been, but plenty of people have perfectly legitimate problems with the way things are run, whichever side they happen to take on this particular issue. While I've no doubt that there have been people 'fanning the flames' (groups who have got together to report icons would seem a prime example), I hope that any user who's had disputes with LJ abuse isn't simply being lumped in with them."

So, if we ask the abuse team to clarify things or answer questions, if we expect LiveJournal's volunteers to treat us with any respect (or as human beings), our opinions are worthless.

This is precisely why a number of people think the team should be made up of more professionals and fewer volunteers. One who sees someone disagreeing with them or asking questions as someone who feels "slighted" is not cut out for work that has, or should have, some element of customer service involved with it. I have always been polite when I've written to LJ abuse. I don't think it's asking too much for them to be polite back.

	beyondinsanity 2006-06-03 10:59 pm UTC (link)
	"agree with us or else you aren't worth our time" that about sum up what your last line meant? I find it very,very unprofessional that the abuse team members are making such comments to livejournal users. Then again,what did i really expect? (Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)(Expand)

	shamanix 2006-06-03 10:00 pm UTC (link)
	The drama extends to both sides here, and I'm not going to be baited into this conversation. (Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

	dreamalynn 2006-06-04 01:05 am UTC (link)
	In other words, you're going to drop a loaded accusation into a public forum then backpeddle away and pretend that it didn't happen. Good form, that. Highly professional. Loads of integrity. I'm blown away. (Reply to this) (Parent)

	jesurgislac 2007-07-20 01:03 pm UTC (link)
	but please believe me when I say that LiveJournal isn't a huge big evil company just out to screw everyone - that's so completely not what's going on here. giggle I wonder if you now regret saying that? (Reply to this) (Parent)

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