LiveJournal News

Release 88, Paid time extension

Thu, 22 Dec 2011 02:38:13 GMT

December 21st, 2011 - Happy December Holidays and welcome to the official LiveJournal newsletter! Bringing you system updates, community events, and other newsworthy nuggets from the world of LiveJournal. Here's a look at what's news on and around LJ:

Release 88

Our final site update of the year, Release 88, is live. Here's a look at a the most notable changes around LiveJournal following Release 88:

Comment pages have been redesigned. Share your thoughts on the new comments page design here. As with any new feature, something unexpected may pop up. Please contact support with any bugs you encounter while using the new comment page layout.

Rest assured, we are paying close attention to all of your feedback. Problems with actual functionality (inability to use the new form or aspects of it, slow load times, crashes, etc) have been reported and are being worked on. We're also aggregating all your feedback about the presentation and usability of the commenting form in the general sense, including items missing from the previous version, and the appropriate project teams are reviewing this feedback to help guide what further changes will be made. Thank you for your patience as we continue to work on the new commenting system.
The LiveJournal homepage has been updated to include the LiveJournal Today feature, where you can find some of the recent entries on the site highlighted by our Editorial team.
The Update page and Edit entry pages have been changed. Most notably, the font in the HTML editor has changed, how lj-cuts appear in the Rich Text Editor (RTE) has been updated, and a few buttons/menu items are in different locations than they previously were.

Full details regarding Release 88 can be found here at lj_releases.

Paid compensation for site downtime

LiveJournal was the target of DDoS attacks a couple weeks ago that resulted in some downtime and other accessibility issues. In order to show our appreciation for your loyalty and support during our recent DDoS attacks, we're applying two weeks of free paid time to all accounts that were paid during the recent site downtime. You will receive a notification email when the time has been applied. You can view your account's new expiration date by visiting your Account Settings page while logged in.

Thanks for stopping by! Happy Holidays!

Paid time extension, Spam comments page, Community URL, DDoS, Privacy

Tue, 19 Apr 2011 20:07:21 GMT

We're pleased to report that LiveJournal weathered the recent DDoS attacks without significant downtime last week. We implemented new systems and processes to cope with heavy traffic loads, and these new systems have been working very well. In order to show our appreciation for your loyalty and support, we'll be automatically extending two weeks of Paid Account time to all users holding a Paid account for any amount of time during the period from March 30th to April 12th, GMT. Once again, we wish to thank you for standing by us during these difficult times.

DDoS Update

While LiveJournal has largely recovered from the DDoS attacks, when we're experiencing high levels of malicious incoming traffic, we have no choice but to place temporary blocks on the IP addresses responsible for that volume. While it's frustrating to be blocked, it's necessary to keep the site up and running for everyone. If you receive an error page stating that your IP address has been blocked, we suggest you perform a malware and virus scan of your computer to ensure that your computer is not being used to help propagate these attacks.

Suspicious spam comments page

As part of our ongoing efforts to reduce spam on LiveJournal, we've introduced a new feature to help you identify and ban spam comments. When you visit a comments page in your journal or in a community you maintain, you'll now see a link indicating the number of suspected spam comments. These comments are screened and will not display on the entry. Click on the link to review suspicious comments. You can then delete and ban spam comments or click the 'Not Spam' icon----to unscreen the comment and move it to the entry page.

In creating this new spam-fighting tool, we updated the Account Settings Privacy page. You can screen comments from anonymous users (the default setting), non-friends, and all users. Immediately below this setting, you'll see a checkbox labeled 'Spam Protection' that activates this feature, which reads: 'Comments containing a link to a non-whitelisted domain will be marked as spam and moved to a special section.' This option will be selected by default.

Important stuff to know

Community URL formatting: In the service of improved usability, the URL for community pages has been shortened to '[community name].livejournal.com' instead of 'community.livejournal.com/[community name]'; URLs in the old format will automatically redirect to the new format.
Profile page text message link restored: The option to receive text messages from other LiveJournal users has been restored for Permanent, Paid, and Plus users. If you activate this feature, a 'Text message' link will appear in the Contact section of your Profile page. You can update where you receive text messages on your Edit Profile page. While LiveJournal does not charge for sending or receiving messages, your mobile carrier may. Please check your service plan for further details.
Enhanced Privacy Settings: We've added new settings to the Account Settings Privacy page that gives community maintainers more control over inclusion of community's entries in external search engines. Community maintainers now have the same options available as journal owners to control whether posts and/or comments are available or minimized in search engine results. Note: If you maintain multiple communities, be sure to 'Switch to' the appropriate community before making any changes.
Spam: In an effort to reduce spam on LiveJournal, the text string 'rel=nofollow' will be added to URLs for entries and comments posted from Plus and Basic accounts. This will help reduce visibility in search engines and make spam commenting less attractive to spammers.

Frank's weekly giveaway

This week, Frank has been down with a cold. He's been stuck in the house for what seems like forever, and he's dying to get some movie suggestions. Needless to say, he's particularly fond of films featuring animals. Give him some suggestions (a coordinating userpic always delights him), and Frank will send you sugary bunny to make your day (up through the first ten pages of comments).

Did You Know ...?

We recently relaunched our Community Directory to help you find entries and communities based on your particular interests, ranging from Advice & Support to Television. If you're a community maintainer and you'd like to submit your community for inclusion, you can use this submission tool to add your community to up to two Interest pages. You can also delete your community by visiting the Interest page where it appears, choosing the community from the drop-down next to 'Work as Community,' scrolling down to the bottom of the page, and clicking 'Remove.'

For more fun with photos, Frank and Meme, and LJ_Scribe, we'll catch you under the cut!

Photo of the week

Congrats to voyager_a, who won our 62nd lj_photophile contest! Click here to help choose the next photo of the week. FYI: We pick entries for the poll based on a combination of comments, +1 ratings, and staff input. The winner receives 500 LJ tokens. We thank you for sharing your talent with the global LiveJournal community.

Welcome back, dear scribes

Congratulations to bridals, dashingmare, katiefoolery, and acolorshugh, who won our LJ_Scribe contest! After aching deliberation, we've selected ten finalists in response to our ninth prompt for your review. In addition to the joy of sharing your well-turned phrases, the authors with the most votes will each win 1,000 LJ Tokens. Finalists will receive 500 LJ Tokens (a limit of one award per user). For our next contest, we'll ask you to respond to the following prompt in the form of prose or poetry (no more than 100 words, excluding the prompt): "She had moved, but the shadow stayed behind." You do not need to include the prompt in your writing. Be sure to post your submissions as entries, rather than comments, to lj_scribe up through Monday, April 25th, at 4PM, PDT. You'll find the +1 rating link under each post, so remember to check back and vote for your favorites!

Frank and Meme's excellent adventure

Congratulations to ladyofavalon77, whose entry -- The Greatest Show On Earth -- was voted the next official chapter in the Frank and Meme saga. You may now start posting entries for the next context in frankandmeme. The winning author will be awarded 1,000 LJ Tokens. Other participating writers will receive 500 LJ Tokens. On behalf of our quarreling darlings, we thank you for keeping the drama alive!

Thanks, again, for joining us. We'll see you next week!

New LiveJournal Merchandise Store, Anniversary Design Contest, and Paid Time Extension

Mon, 17 Aug 2009 22:23:11 GMT

New Store, New Gear—Check out the goods at the new store for LJ merchandise.

Theme Design Contest—Show off your design skills to all of LJ.

Outage—We're sorry. We want to make it up to you.

Welcome to a Special Edition Birthday News Post—we have a few happy things to share with you as we continue our yearlong celebration of LiveJournal's 10th birthday. Read on to get dressed up, strut your creative stuff, and make up for lost time.

Prepare to Be Zazzled

One of our best birthday presents is the brand-new LiveJournal store hosted by Zazzle. Zazzle lets you customize just about anything you could want, which makes it perfect for LiveJournal merchandise. The awesome selection of LJ gear includes everything from the classic hoody to a thoughtful tote bag. You can even declare your love for LJ in Japanese, or wear your heart on your shirt (or your dog's shirt.) If you want to go the classy route, check out the embroidered shirts and hats. The only challenging thing about the new store is deciding which new design is your favorite (we love them all, of course).

After you've selected your unique blend of logo, shirt, and color, add your own special flair via tagline, journal URL, or any image or text by clicking the "Customize it" button!

It gets even better—Zazzle has international shipping to 67 countries. Whether you're in Afghanistan or Zimbabwe, you can get your LJ gear delivered right to your door. So check out the new store and let us know what you think!

Birthday Theme Design Contest

Are you ready to dazzle us with your amazing design skills? As of the moment this news release is posted, submissions are now open for the official LiveJournal Birthday Celebration Theme Design Contest. Here's the official scoop:

Who: You!

What: Create a new theme for the Minimalism style. Your design can be based on LiveJournal or LiveJournal's 10th birthday, but it's not required. You can submit a design based on anything you feel inspired by (as long as it's safe for work).

How: You can create your theme using CSS, S2, images for backgrounds or headers, or any other way that works for you. We'll code the winning styles into S2 for you.

Where: Submit your design by making a new post in the lj_turns10 community.

When: The contest opens for entries beginning now and ending at 11:59 p.m. PST on September 14th. Then we'll make a poll in lj_turns10 with all the eligible entries and you'll be able to vote on your favorites.

Why: The top 5 vote-getting themes will be added to the available themes for all LJ users. The theme with the most votes will also become the default theme for all new users through the rest of 2009. And the LJ staff will select a Staff Choice winner. All six winners will receive credit (by full name or username, whichever you prefer) on the "Select a Theme" section of the customization area, as well as adoration, fame, and the respect of your peers.

Check out this post in the lj_turns10 community for the nitty-gritty rules and requirements. We can't wait to see your designs.

It's on Us

As you might be aware, LiveJournal (along with Twitter, Facebook, and a number of other sites) experienced some outages and slowness starting Thursday August 6th and continuing periodically over the next few days due to a series of DDoS attacks. Some of you may have been unable to access LiveJournal or encountered considerable load times when using the site.

We apologize for any inconvenience or frustration that might have resulted from the outage. The cause was out of our control, but we definitely feel your pain at the forced break from LiveJournal, particularly those of you with Paid accounts. Your LJ time is money, after all. To make up for it, we're offering a 3-day extension of Paid account time to our Paid members. All users with active Paid accounts as of Thursday, August 6, 2009, are eligible for the extension. You can find full details on the extension and how to claim it in this post over at paidmembers.