Another update

[cleolinda]

Let me be clear about this boycott: I do not have a problem with anyone who wants to do it. If you do participate, I hope it meets with all success. I am personally concerned that 1) Russian antisemites are joining and co-opting the boycott, not running it, and that 2) it's not going to be very effective in the first place:

I don't want to harsh on anyone's slacktivism, and oh boy do i not want to get into an argument about this one way or the other -- the scars are still healing up -- but I can tell y'all that unless things have changed considerably -- something I do not rule out -- nobody even looks at single-day stats; the minimum aggregate time period inspected is a week. (synecdochic, via newroticgirl)

If I thought it was going to be effective, I'd plaster my journal today with anti-antisemitic (pro-semitic? Jewish-friendly? What's the terminology here?) disclaimers and do the boycott anyway. And hell, I may or may not post tomorrow anyway, just because I don't always post every day, and tomorrow's going to be busy.

What I'm more interested in, since statistically a boycott may go unnoticed anyway, is the idea of sending postcards, quite frankly. And you can boycott and send a postcard; it's not an either/or proposition. So while I'm at the grocery store tomorrow, I'm going to pick up a couple of cards and send 'em on out. As txvoodoo points out, a protest-a-thon might actually be more effective than silence, although I don't know how much they'll notice either way. I personally feel like it's going to come down to people persuading SUP that American-style (or whoever-style) customer service is a win-win situation, no matter what business is like in Russia:

Let me try to explain what I mean by that. Customer service in the Soviet Union can be summarized in the following statements (both translations of sayings that are very familiar and understandable to many Russians I know; I am aware that I cannot speak for an entire country or an entire political and economic era): "There are many of you [customers], but only one of me [salesperson]" and "Keep bitching, and I won't serve you at all". Unfortunately, you couldn't just take your money to a competing shop - there wasn't one (I am aware I am simplifying, but I don't want to wax loquacious).

It's not about people saying they will leave SUP like they said they would leave SixApart. It's about a business model not built on "we exist to serve the customer", not built on "the customer is the reason we are in business", not built on "hey, the customers are the guys who give us money, how about that". It's that cultural memory of "you don't like what I have to offer? Too bad, I am your only choice for goods and services" that is steering this ship. Learn about capitalism the hard way? Freedom to choose what to spend money on? Keep bitching. See if I serve you. (cormallen, via biomekanic)

I don't quite know the best way to go about this, but to me, the optimal solution would be to keep talking, to keep a dialogue going, in which we explain that LJ is not the only game in town--but it's the game we love, and we don't want to leave. We want this to be a win-win situation for everyone, where LJ prospers and we stay and SUP's (or 6A's, or whoever happens to be running the show at any given time) actions are introduced and explained to us in the full light of day. It's not even that the customer has to be right all the time; I do think that, apart from the secretive manner in which Basic accounts were discontinued, ads probably are necessary for LJ's growth (who pays for additional servers?), and we're going to need to get some good adblockers and move on with life. It's really the customer service/transparency issue and the shady, secretive treatment of fandom we're concerned with now. And it seems to me like the only way to accomplish this is to adopt a "squeaky wheel gets the grease" approach--I suspect they'll notice that more than a one-day boycott. But I think we're also going to have to sit down and figure out what it is, exactly, tangibly, that we want. Because I'm trying to think what to put on that postcard tomorrow, and I'm not sure what to say. They apologized. They retreated on the disappearing-interests issue. What's left to say? "Try not to be asshats in the future?" "Find a better spokesperson"? "Restore Basic accounts as an option," I guess, but I think of that more as a better way to attract new users for them than something that affects current Basic users as long as they're grandfathered in as promised. And maybe that's the way it needs to be phrased to SUP.

By the way: telling me that I'm fucking stupid is not the standard of discussion I expect or encourage on this journal. Tell me that you disagree in civil terms, or find another soapbox.

Comments

[scarletsherlock.livejournal.com]

Thank you for all of that information. I've been questioning the effectiveness of this whole thing for a variety of reasons, and I agree with just about everything you say.

By the way: telling me that I'm fucking stupid is not the standard of discussion I expect or encourage on this journal. Tell me that you disagree in civil terms, or find another soapbox.

Did someone...actually DO THIS? *boggles*

*edit* ohhh...I saw it. Jackass. >>>:(

[kestrel127.livejournal.com]

HUGE icon love.

[scarletsherlock.livejournal.com]

leelakin made it--she does a lot of cute Who-related artwork and stuff. Feel free to use. :)

[kestrel127.livejournal.com]

I think I shall!

[cellardoor28.livejournal.com]

telling me that I'm fucking stupid is not the standard of discussion I expect or encourage on this journal


......


What? No, really, WHAT?

[spectralbovine.livejournal.com]

Yeah, do I need to punch someone in the face?

[particle-person.livejournal.com]

The thread is already frozen. You might break a knuckle.

[christigilly.livejournal.com]

I would like to counter that idiot by saying, "I think you're f--ing brilliant!"

That is all.

[darth-snarky.livejournal.com]

I think you've made some of the most well-reasoned, intelligent posts about this boycott that I've seen. (Especially compared to all the knee-jerkiness and dumbassery that abound.)

To make a bad metaphor, you're an island of intelligence in a sea of stupid.

[mamapduck.livejournal.com]

Serrious icon love going on here...

[darth-snarky.livejournal.com]

Hee, thanks.

[chris-walsh.livejournal.com]

As someone who's still going to participate (and I will send postcards as well), I do appreciate how balanced you've been in presenting multiple sides (pro-strike and anti-strike) in this issue, and in keeping the information out there. You're being eloquent and reasonable, another of the reasons I'm a fan of yours.

Sorry about the asshat attacks. May their hats give them constipation, or something.

Peace.

[missmelysse.livejournal.com]

Followed a link here from wintersweet. I don't generally post directly to LJ ever anymore, it's all crossposted from an external blog, but my friends are here.

I work in SEO. Had I wished to engage them, I'd have mentioned your first point about stats windows. I decided, ultimately, that it makes more sense to let them feel like they are doing something by having their boycott, and just stay out of it.

I'm totally behind sending a postcard, however. Tangible messages tend to work better.

Anyway, much of LJ's content is rss feeds from major external bloggers, so even if a significant number of users chose not to post in their own journals, there would still be content here.

??

[kali921.livejournal.com]

Let me try to explain what I mean by that. Customer service in the Soviet Union can be summarized in the following statements (both translations of sayings that are very familiar and understandable to many Russians I know;

Er. Unless that person is being sarcastic, it bears pointing out that the Soviet Union ceased to exist in 1991, and was succeeded by the CIS. I know that ignorance about Russian (and Soviet) history is common in the West, but come on, man. Although I very much agree that customer service culture in Russia naturally has its roots deeply planted in the culture and history of the Soviet Union.

Re: ??

[biomekanic.livejournal.com]

Given that the original poster is a Russian emigre to the US, I suspect he's aware of Soviet history and Russian culture.

Re: ??

[kali921.livejournal.com]

Yes, I read that, although that's sort of like saying that Americans automatically are cognizant of American history, which...is not always the case.

Re: ??

[shezan.livejournal.com]

Yes, that was sort of the point.

Re: ??

[kali921.livejournal.com]

It's amazing that what Zoshchenko wrote in the twenties held true for another seven decades.

Re: ??

[mamapduck.livejournal.com]

No! They're still a big old huge threat! I know from Soviet Invasion Forces!

Sorry. Child of the Cold War and Red Dawn was on my TV a couple days ago. Teh Paranoia, Let Me Show You It. :)

Re: ??

[kali921.livejournal.com]

I tool three semesters of Soviet foreign policy from George Breslauer at UC Berkeley. At the beginning of each semester, someone would put up a picture of Tom Clancy right outside his office with a bullseye diagram on top of it, and we'd have at all semester long.

Re: ??

[mamapduck.livejournal.com]

Now, to be fair, in Clancy's recent stuff the Russkis are our Newfound Ally Against EvilDoers. The new threat comes from China, Japan and the Middle East.

I never took anything from Breslauer. I was too busy wallowing in the medieval goodness of Geoffrey Koziel's classes. If I'd been able to stretch my time at Cal by another 5 years I might have made a dent in the academic smorgasbord.

Re: ??

[cjk1701.livejournal.com]

Customer service in Russia hasn't changed much; it's only in places where the really rich buy that it's close to western standards nowadays. Otherwise it's pretty much the same as it ever was. Amusingly, it's changed a lot faster in Eastern European countries like Poland etc.

[biomekanic.livejournal.com]

telling me that I'm fucking stupid is not the standard of discussion I expect or encourage on this journal

Sounds like someone needs to have a size 13 boot delivered directly to their ass.

Just saying.

Thanks for summarizing things, I've posted my own feelings in my LJ, and included some links here.

Postcards seem like the logical choice.

[shezan.livejournal.com]

Nah, nah, nah, you're not fucking stupid at all. This makes a lot of sense and sums up the situation pretty neatly, I'd say.

[txvoodoo.livejournal.com]

Word to everything.

And the next person who insults you like that, call for your small but wordy Sicilian friend, m'kay? (Meaning, of course, moi!)

[ninepointfivemm.livejournal.com]

Just make sure that person doesn't have an immunity to Iocaine powder. ;)

[annlarimer.livejournal.com]

I doubt they have immunity to a softball bat to the head.

[txvoodoo.livejournal.com]

Never go in against a Sicilian when death is on the line!!

[mysticowl.livejournal.com]

Maybe we'll get lucky and the Japanese will buy LJ and then we'll really get customer service. In Japan, a waitress ran a block after me to give me back my watch, which I forgot on the table. Now that's service! Then again, there's the case of Square Enix versus FFXI players, so maybe not.

[foresthouse.livejournal.com]

I think, "Try not to be asshats in the future" would look GREAT on a postcard.

I think the postcards should be done all collage-y like Post Secret. Heh.

[etherealshores.livejournal.com]

I'm tempted to use that. xD It's short and sweet.

[foresthouse.livejournal.com]

Well, maybe not sweet, per se...heh.

[threeparts.livejournal.com]

I'm hoping someone here can give me a hand, O Great and Knowledgable Cleolinda Readership.

I was reading something a few days ago, it was posted on InsaneJournal, I think. I was a timeline of LJ controversies from way back when to the current kerfuffle. Has anyone got a link to that floating around?

My browser history is empty of clues and I've been to so many pages and followed so many links that I don't even know where to begin.

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

I actually linked to it earlier (in a very stealthy fashion):

http://stewardess.insanejournal.com/227815.html

[threeparts.livejournal.com]

Gah, I could have sworn up and down I'd gone through your recent entries. Thanks for the re-link!

[bigeyedrabbit.livejournal.com]

By the way: telling me that I'm fucking stupid is not the standard of discussion I expect or encourage on this journal.

Aaaaaand that's why my LJ is 99.99% friends-only. Thanks for putting up with the trolls in order to keep us entertained and informed. ::pats::

[disturbed-kiwi.livejournal.com]

Thought you might like this post:
http://theferrett.livejournal.com/1075134.html

[allthelivesofme.livejournal.com]

Well, here's my answer to whether I'm participating in the boycott or not, considering the day... ;-)

Something I am participating in, though-- my husband and I are working on this Muscular Dystrophy Association fundraiser (he's asking friends and family; I'm bugging people online. LOL). They're doing a Lock-Up theme so he gets to go to the library and have a picture taken for a 'mug shot' and any money raised is for bail. It's cute. :-)

If anyone's interested, here's his online donation page (https://www.mdaevent.org/ParticipantInfo.aspx?j=1c014afb-e55f-4635-be03-db98cc4bcbe3). Thanks!

Is this the droid you're looking for?

[kvschwartz.livejournal.com]

[anti-antisemitic (pro-semitic? Jewish-friendly? What's the terminology here?)]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philo-Semitism

[the-bumper-car.livejournal.com]

A great summary of the Anon vs Scientology fight going on. (http://radaronline.com/from-the-magazine/2008/03/scientology_anonymous_protests_tom_cruise_01.php)

Sorry if this idea was brought up before

[xander77.livejournal.com]

But Leo Caganov (a Russian web-comedian who is otherwise a bit of a waste of space) pointed out that a far more effective strategy would be a one days Journal deletion. You raise your concerns about Basic Accounts as the reason why you're deleting your journal, undelete it the next day. Since those forms go right to the people in charge of making money, you get... well, not double benefit per-se, but you're both raising awareness/creating publicity, AND using the companies own mechanisms to bring attention to the problem.

[xander77.livejournal.com]

Wow. Having read through the links...well, I've known for a while that being a mildly-retarded dickhead just naturally comes with any increase in you web-penis size on ru.net, but Nosik is just... bloody ludicrous.

[tragical-mirth.livejournal.com]

LOL SLACKTIVISM.

[soleta-nf.livejournal.com]

I really appreciate all the thought you've put into your posts on this issue. I really have to agree with all of your points here. You've brought up some things I hadn't thought about or didn't know, so thank you. :) I did participate in the strike, but mainly for my own reasons; I haven't been paying close attention to the latest hoopla. But I feel much better informed now, and yeah I think we have to accept the new ad accounts and just use pop-up blockers. And I feel very comforted by the thought that there IS a lot of cultural differences that explain the shady business as of late. 6A, at least, didn't have that to fall back on, and it's a very fair explanation. And postcards sound like a great idea.

Hope you're having a great Easter!