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mellymellAs everyone else, I've been annoyed at LJ's reliability fail lately as they're assaulted daily by DDoS attacks from Russian hackers who are supposedly targeting a handful of specific Russian bloggers who routinely speak out against corruption... in Russia. I ultimately feel petty for getting annoyed, given the alleged reason for the outages. It's kind of crazy to imagine that in another part of the world, LJ is a serious and respected blogging platform. Whereas here, I get joked on by Chris all the time in the form of snarky, sarcastic comments like "LJ still exists?" and "I thought that died" and "people still use that?" I have to jokingly correct him that, no, it's MySpace that didn't make the cut when people flocked to Facebook and Twitter. I have to admit, even I'm surprised when I find an author or an established blogger or Jackson Publick (Venture Brothers) or Dmitri Medvedev has set up shop in our little lemonade stand of a blogosphere. I've come to associate it with my flist and not with a wider, more globally respected userbase.
That's what keeps me at LJ. I have friends and connections established. I'm the maintainer of a couple of communities (mostly by default, results of spam complaints), but I don't really participate in the groups much anymore. It's more about the small group of people that I've been talking to since 2003 and the additions I've made to that list over time as I've met people and discovered they had accounts. I have seen my flist activity die down considerably over the years as most people seem to have neither the capacity nor desire to maintain multiple social networking platforms. They've disappeared into the abyss of Facebook where I simply will not follow (yes, I'm over there, but apart from having Twitter update my status and responding to comments for which I get email notifications, I can only be relied on to check FB in the event of severe boredom).
But again, I am not immune to the frustrating side effects of political strife in Russia... which is a sentence I never imagined I'd type. Like so many others, my iritation coupled with fear of losing the past 7.5-8 years of my inane drivel have lead me to set up an account at Dreamwidth to act as sort of a backup of my journal as well as a reliable platform on which I can post. I've set it up to crosspost all my entries to LJ, so, for most of you, this means nothing changes. In fact, this entry (assuming it works) is a crosspost. You can comment at LJ, log in with OpenId at Dreamwidth, whatever. I don't care. I'll get notifications on both sites and will still be reading my flist on LJ (assuming it loads).
On a related note, I've revisited my LJ setup a bit as I'm trying to decide what to do with the Dreamwidth account. I'm spread so thin already with social networking that it no longer makes sense for me to keep a separate costuming journal. Originally, it was because all the communities I joined were overwhelming for one account (and because I just like to compartmentalize). But now I no longer read my flist over there at all, so I don't see the need for both anymore. The only problem is, LJ does not offer a content importer like Dreamwidth. Therefore, I can not merge my entries from my costuming journal with my general one for the time being. I am merging them at Dreamwidth, however. So, following me at mellymell there will get you both journals from now on. Consider mellymel_cos on LJ to be strictly an archive from here on out. Who knows, if LJ lands on their feet after this mess, I might pay for an account again.
So, to recap:
1) LJ sucks because of Russian hackers... or something of that nature.
2) I feel the need to back up the last 7.5-8 years of my pointless ramblings because [reasons]. Therefore, I can now be found at Dreamwidth under mellymell, though my entries will be crossposted to LJ.
3) This changes virtually nothing for pretty much everyone but me.
4) If you followed me at mellymel_cos on LJ, consider it dead (a note to that effect will be made there as well).
5) If you didn't follow mellymel_cos on LJ, prepare to see a lot more costuming content here. Current topic: crossdressing elves.
6) The president of Russia is on LJ. o_O
That's what keeps me at LJ. I have friends and connections established. I'm the maintainer of a couple of communities (mostly by default, results of spam complaints), but I don't really participate in the groups much anymore. It's more about the small group of people that I've been talking to since 2003 and the additions I've made to that list over time as I've met people and discovered they had accounts. I have seen my flist activity die down considerably over the years as most people seem to have neither the capacity nor desire to maintain multiple social networking platforms. They've disappeared into the abyss of Facebook where I simply will not follow (yes, I'm over there, but apart from having Twitter update my status and responding to comments for which I get email notifications, I can only be relied on to check FB in the event of severe boredom).
But again, I am not immune to the frustrating side effects of political strife in Russia... which is a sentence I never imagined I'd type. Like so many others, my iritation coupled with fear of losing the past 7.5-8 years of my inane drivel have lead me to set up an account at Dreamwidth to act as sort of a backup of my journal as well as a reliable platform on which I can post. I've set it up to crosspost all my entries to LJ, so, for most of you, this means nothing changes. In fact, this entry (assuming it works) is a crosspost. You can comment at LJ, log in with OpenId at Dreamwidth, whatever. I don't care. I'll get notifications on both sites and will still be reading my flist on LJ (assuming it loads).
On a related note, I've revisited my LJ setup a bit as I'm trying to decide what to do with the Dreamwidth account. I'm spread so thin already with social networking that it no longer makes sense for me to keep a separate costuming journal. Originally, it was because all the communities I joined were overwhelming for one account (and because I just like to compartmentalize). But now I no longer read my flist over there at all, so I don't see the need for both anymore. The only problem is, LJ does not offer a content importer like Dreamwidth. Therefore, I can not merge my entries from my costuming journal with my general one for the time being. I am merging them at Dreamwidth, however. So, following me at mellymell there will get you both journals from now on. Consider mellymel_cos on LJ to be strictly an archive from here on out. Who knows, if LJ lands on their feet after this mess, I might pay for an account again.
So, to recap:
1) LJ sucks because of Russian hackers... or something of that nature.
2) I feel the need to back up the last 7.5-8 years of my pointless ramblings because [reasons]. Therefore, I can now be found at Dreamwidth under mellymell, though my entries will be crossposted to LJ.
3) This changes virtually nothing for pretty much everyone but me.
4) If you followed me at mellymel_cos on LJ, consider it dead (a note to that effect will be made there as well).
5) If you didn't follow mellymel_cos on LJ, prepare to see a lot more costuming content here. Current topic: crossdressing elves.
6) The president of Russia is on LJ. o_O
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
on 2011-04-07 09:17 pm (UTC)It's more about the small group of people that I've been talking to since 2003 and the additions I've made to that list over time as I've met people and discovered they had accounts.
Yes! This exactly!
no subject
on 2011-04-08 01:23 am (UTC)I have to admit that I really like some of the subtle extra features at Dreamwidth, and the environment there reminds me of what LJ was back when I joined (ad-free, invite codes to join, etc.). But nothing will ever pull me away from my flist here, short of the site closing down for good!
no subject
on 2011-04-08 05:48 am (UTC)I'm with you on this! I keep getting a nostalic feeling over there, it's so much like LJ used to be. I think that's why my friend has gone over, although she continually cross posts onto LJ and her LJ friends don't really notice.
I may follow in her footsteps. Time will tell.
Hanging on to the flist is a must, in any case.
y
no subject
on 2011-04-08 09:10 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2011-04-07 09:23 pm (UTC)However, you comments also reminded me of this <ahref="http://xkcd.com/256/">online map, though it needs to be updated as Facebook as invaded and conquered Myspace and made strong inroads into Livejournal. However Twitter has also appeared on the map and is quickly becoming a power to be reckoned with.
no subject
on 2011-04-08 01:27 am (UTC)But even still, there's that possibility of a fatal attack or something. I just don't want to risk losing everything I had here. I mean, I've basically got Jonah's baby book here!
Ha! Aw, xkcd, how I love thee. Always relevant. :)
no subject
on 2011-04-07 09:50 pm (UTC)I love the import feature at Dreamwidth, and the fact that they allow us to automatically crosspost to LJ. LJ does not reciprocate on those regards. It did not occur to me to import another of my LJs to DW. I will be mulling that over.
A friend of mine has been crossposting from Dreamwidth for years now, since Dreamwidth opened.
And, indeed, it's funny how LJ perceptions are different depending on where we're from. I've found the whole Russian Politics thing interesting just for that reason, in spite of how irritating the interruptions have been.
I granted you access on DW. ;)
y
no subject
on 2011-04-08 02:42 am (UTC)I feel bad for LJ (and us) getting pounded for Russian politics.
Also, LJ is definitely the reason I have the friends I have today!