Impolite Conversation: Religion and Politics

[tcpip]

Last two services at the Melbourne Unitarian Church were former Senator Janet Powell speaking for International Women's Day and Stephen Stuart, President of the Humanist Society of Victoria, on the separation of religion and state. Powell's speech was not to my liking; too much obsessing over the proportion of women in parliament. Stuart's presentation was dry, formal, with impeccable dress, and cautiously explained how the State has become a defacto funder of religious organisations. Tomorrow night I'll be attending the Sea of Faith to hear David Miller talk on the resurrection-denying ancient Christian Church of Marcion

Global politics has become very interesting; Foreign media has been expelled as the troops seal off Tibet. The Dalai Lama is criticised for adopting a non-violent path. China is concerned with ensuring that its policies are supported at home (after all, if the Tibets can overthrow the dictators so can the Chinese). A popular petition on the matter (130K signatures so far) is available. Dr. John Powers of ANU argues the Tibetan cause - and notes how this would benefit China.

In virtual politics, apparently there is going to be a Livejournal Strike! Local times are available



What's this about?

* It's about free and ad-free LiveJournal accounts being abolished for new members, ignoring the advice from the newly-formed Advisory Board.
* It's about LJ staff trying to sneak this decision in under the radar, and when people found out, telling the users it was done 'to make the signup process less confusing'.
* It's about LJ staff failing to apologize for trying to hide the facts from view and for lying about the actual reasons for their actions.
* And finally, it's about the latest decision to hide certain user interests from the list of Most Popular Interests, some of them being fanfiction, bisexuality, sex and depression. This decision was not announced or explained in any way. Users found out for themselves.

Comments

[missmilky.livejournal.com]

:) I'm not sure if it would be affective for me seeing as I hardly ever post!

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

That's about the same as 90% of users. The key thing I guess is to cause a notable drop in usage on Friday.

[catsidhe.livejournal.com]

"on Friday."

Yeah... Good Friday. Does anyone know if this is being spread in, say, the Russian Orthodox crowd? (Given the popularity of LJ in Russian.)

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Wouldn't they use the Eastern calendar? i.e., next week.

[catsidhe.livejournal.com]

I think I had two points intertwined there.

1) The Anglophone world will be more-or-less celebrating (or trying to avoid) a certain rebadged pagan fertility festival at the time of the strike. Isn't that a little like calling a general strike on Sunday?

2) The Russian speaking crowd will indeed be celebrating Easter on a different date (I'm assuming that the Eastern Orthodox Christianities share this calculation). And they are massive contributers of content (there's just not much overlap between them and the Anglophones). So... has anyone told them about this little Action? Cause if not, what is the point?

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

1) No, quite the opposite I imagine. Because it is holiday I believe that typically there would be more content.

2) See the link from anonymous below; I believe that this proposal comes from the Russians.

[khrysha.livejournal.com]

This Friday will probably be higher use as it's a Public Holiday.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Yes, under usual circumstances. It'll be interesting to see if this actually has an effect.

[greylock.livejournal.com]

And finally, it's about the latest decision to hide certain user interests from the list of Most Popular Interests, some of them being fanfiction, bisexuality, sex and depression. This decision was not announced or explained in any way. Users found out for themselves.

Which has since been undone.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

As it should; let's see what else can be undone..

[zey.livejournal.com]

* It's about free and ad-free LiveJournal accounts being abolished for new members, ignoring the advice from the newly-formed Advisory Board.

I can't say I notice them. NoScript blocks them.

* It's about LJ staff trying to sneak this decision in under the radar, and when people found out, telling the users it was done 'to make the signup process less confusing'.

Choices are actually very confusing among the computer barely-literate, and I'd imagine those are the new users the new LJ owners are going to have to chase if they're ever going to make any money out of this site.

* And finally, it's about the latest decision to hide certain user interests from the list of Most Popular Interests, some of them being fanfiction, bisexuality, sex and depression.

I'm guessing that's all about heading off the "Why won't somebody think of the children!?" crowd before it turns into a court case, but, it seems like a pretty clumsy, ham-fisted way of doing things. Needs a re-think.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

NoScript looks interesting. I'll have to look at it more carefully...

[ruth-lawrence.livejournal.com]

I wrote a compliant and will also be striking.

The sleazy interests list tweak bothers me more than the suitish accounts levels behaviour, truly.

(I saw it coming, once Brad sold LJ).

Not *only* a lack of respect for the marks, but also a desire to *express bigotry* dishonestly, eh.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

It's bad insofar that they have ljusers in a bind; it's a good technology, but the content-providers want to keep their content.

If only someone mirrored el-jay so everyone could move over one day..

Say...

[ruth-lawrence.livejournal.com]

It's an idea :-)

[khrysha.livejournal.com]

Everyone could go to DJ - Dead Journal.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Sure, but I want to keep my username, my friends usernames, my posts, replies, and communities. With DJ (et al) you'd have to start nearly all of this from scratch. That's why I think a mirroring solution would be better...

I just have to work out whether it is technically possible..

[khrysha.livejournal.com]

Hop to it!

Its now about more than just these reasons you stated

[(Anonymous)]

Have a look here at this entry.
Very interesting.

http://darkrosetiger.livejournal.com/373663.html

Re: Its now about more than just these reasons you stated

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Thank you for this.

[phasmaphobic.livejournal.com]

I think this strike will be as effective as a lot of people refusing the buy gas on a certain day.

That, and everyone agrees to LJ's "Terms of Service" when they sign up, which I do believe states that they can change the rules at any time without notice. Frankly, I'm not seeing what the problem is. There still is a free account (in that it is unpaid for by the user), the Ads can be hidden with Adblock and Noscript extensions in Firefox, and the community continues to grow.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

I think this strike will be as effective as a lot of people refusing the buy gas on a certain day.

Or withdrawing all their money from a bank on a certain day.

I do believe states that they can change the rules at any time without notice.

Which is a core problem, no doubt.

the Ads can be hidden with Adblock and Noscript extensions in Firefox,

That's hardly the point.

and the community continues to grow.

Eh?!? No, livejournal has been dying for a number of years now. Content is falling.

[phasmaphobic.livejournal.com]

"ivejournal has been dying for a number of years now. Content is falling."

I doubt that has anything to do with the business practices, and more to do with more appealing sites and mediums. LJ still clings to a lot of vestiges of older, more BBS-like times, and lacks more of easy-to-implement user tools common to other sites, like Myspace, Facebook, and others. Plus, with free blogging software become a lot more accessible and popular, LJ seems kind of a relic.

[mia76.livejournal.com]

thanks for letting us know about the strike...

[khrysha.livejournal.com]

Live Journal's days are numbered. It's censorship net is widening and it's not pleasant. More and more I'm heading elsewhere for my networking. It's such a pity.

Someone said the Russki's own it now... surprising they're so conservative considering they love sex and drugs and mafiosi!

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure whether its days are numbered given the client base and the technology itself. But it sure ain't going to grow under these circumstances.

[longi.livejournal.com]

Install the software yourself and take your friends and communities as RSS feeds.

Then you can decide whether or not to censor yourself or serve yourself ads.

At least you be able to target accurate and interesting ads at yourself :)

[evil-genius.livejournal.com]

What a concept.

I want to see nothing by Alzheimer medication pop ups. So I can wax about constantly forgetting to turn them off.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Good point :-)

[evil-genius.livejournal.com]

It's seems to be the way of things in life. Both online and off.
Something is born and it's free and awesome. A bunch of people get turned on to how awesome it is. A few of them realize there is profit to be made. So they set up a structure to support the awesome and make a profit at the same time. Slowly the original founders are replaced with people who are concerned less and less with the awesome, yet more and more with the profit. In the interest of appealing to a wider audience and thus increase profits, much of the awesome is subjugated or removed entirely. The masses stick around long enough to provide the profit. But those of us who came for the awesome slowly trickle away.

I can think of a short list of 1000 sites this has happened.

[evil-genius.livejournal.com]

Totally off topic here:
What do you like for an Enterprise Win2k3 FTP server these days?

Sorry, can't help.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

I don't do MS-Windows servers anymore. They just too annoying, not to mention risky.

[darknova666.livejournal.com]

very sneaky of lj.

i like em less and less