But those were also groups that had explicit names, like pornish_pixies (rest in peace, you crazy-ass community) or explicit interests.

The Lolita discussion group I don't know what to say. On the one hand, well known work of literature. On the other, infamous for a reason. *shrugs* That one shouldn't have gotten suspended, I don't think, but falls just within the boundaries of overcautious as well.

I'm not defending the suspensions by any means, although I do think fandom is pretty jumpy and paranoid right now. But this is one interesting component of livejournal--using a feature that isn't well supported and underused, or used in a cheeky fashion for something other than what it was intended for; mixed with the very real lack of searching options on livejournal, especially when compared with something like Vox. The search/interest tagging feature is extraordinarily underdeveloped, and brings back communities/users by most recent posting date. Which is why such an odd and apparently unrelated mixture of communities have been suspended--they may have all be related by a stray user interest, and this community of watchdogs, or whatever (if you self-describe as a "monster hunter" you have much bigger problems than I can understand), basically got a random selection of journals/comms and just clicked on links until they found ones with possibly illegal/TOS/restricted material.

Conversely, the average fanfiction writer and most fanfiction/fandom related communities are not at risk for precisely the same function. It is impossible to search livejournal with any real depth or classification because there isn't anything like that built into the system. Even other things like using a site: search on google, or ljseek, is largely imperfect because LJ is so massive (apparently bigger than the state of Illinois!) it's -- not impossible, but very low on the LJ feature/repair list -- to fully index all the servers, journals, communities, etc on livejournal to make such a search possible. And even then you're only viewing public data (you = nutso watchdog people) and smart journalers and comms lock that stuff down, thereby not making it publicly available. And while I don't know how that weighs in legally, or TOS-wise, it certainly cuts down on whatever miniscule possibility the majority of fandom has of being suspended.

I mean, I've already been through this exact issue with a bunch of the aheming communities I follow. If you make the name something obscure, keep the interests tame, and lock it down, there is barely a chance in the wind that you're going to get deleted. So far the policy of the LJ moderators has been a "don't tell us because we don't want to know" attitude. If they don't know it's there, they're not going to mess with it. And they're not going to know it's there if you do the above, because it's difficult to search and appearances can be deceiving, especially if you go out of your way to make them deceiving. It's only been when the sketchy-type comms are shoved in their faces--like this watchdog bullshit--that they will deal with something as a protective measure for themselves, to keep LJ around. And even then they are reluctant to do it. Even then, they won't go looking for more people to shut down just because they can.

But aheming communities, and RPF comms, and 'cest comms and everything else under the sun are still around, because the users got smart and didn't make a trail for someone to find. At the end of the day, though I firmly believe that LJ is on the side of fandom, LJ is a private company open to all kinds of legal issues, and they have to protect themselves so that they can stick around.

It's funny that this issue crops up right at the same time as fanlib backlash means that people are thinking about publically supporting fanfiction and the legal grounds/archives to do so. They aren't related, I don't think, because the watchdog wasn't targeting fanfiction or fandom, per se--they were targeting whatever they felt was in their construct of "wrong."

LJ is a private company open to all kinds of legal issues, and they have to protect themselves so that they can stick around.

I agree, generally. But every hour that goes by that LJ doesn't address what happened -- it just strikes me as insane. That's another hour for people to work themselves into a frenzy, swear they're going to leave LJ, etc. I would respect a post that said, "Look, this is why we had to do this. We're sorry, we think it sucks, but we have to protect ourselves and the larger community." I would respect a post that said, "We're aware of our users' concerns. Please be patient while we put together a statement, and we'll do our best to address your questions."

Right now, I am not respecting the big pile of silence.

it's -- not impossible, but very low on the LJ feature/repair list -- to fully index all the servers, journals, communities, etc on livejournal to make such a search possible.

not to *mention* that these are all user-generated interests, and depend entirely on spelling, spacing, and luck to actually get multiple people tagged with the same interest. which is why I am the only one with my single solitary interest right now.

Unlike something like, hm, technorati or digg or something, there isn't a set list of tags originating from LJ that its users can apply to themselves. instead, there are user generated tags (not unlike the ones you can use in your own LJ) that may or may not get picked up by other people. there is no way to select from a massive originating list for your tags, like a dating site, for example. the down side (or possibly up side, these days) is that it makes it extremely difficult to site-wide organize. the (other) up side is that you can be really cheeky with your tags, like so many LJ users have done.

the closest you can get to choosing tags you yourself have not typed in your profile is selecting tags from another user's profile. but that is on a 1-1 basis, not sitewide. Thus you have:

interests:

fanfiction

fic

fanfic

which are all ostensibly the same thing, but under three different tags.

Hence, again, why there is little chance of being "discovered" or whatever people are paranoid about, especially if you take basic interest precautions that you probably would if you were on any other site but livejournal.

That's another hour for people to work themselves into a frenzy, swear they're going to leave LJ, etc. I would respect a post that said, "Look, this is why we had to do this. We're sorry, we think it sucks, but we have to protect ourselves and the larger community." I would respect a post that said, "We're aware of our users' concerns. Please be patient while we put together a statement, and we'll do our best to address your questions."

I agree. But LJ is also notoriously slow for coming up with public statements.

But every hour that goes by that LJ doesn't address what happened -- it just strikes me as insane.

I am at this moment having a vision of the flop sweat on the brow of the Lower Minion whose proposed response post is sitting on the desk of a supervisor who is at lunch. (For digital-workers' values of desk and lunch.)

Poor Lower Minion. It's always the little guy who suffers.

SixApart has finally spoken (to the press) about the deletions:

"Our decision here was not based on pure legal issues. It was based on what community we want to build and what we think is appropriate within that community and what's not."

Well.

[link]

Wow. Classy of them to speak to the press before saying a word to their members.

Yes. And to decide community standards for 13 million members. I know I feel so very welcome, compared to how I felt a week ago.

I don't know. When I hear it from Ben and Mena (the 6A founders), I'm buying it - right now that sounds like a CEO taking a call from a very prominent tech journalist and creating another headache for his company.

Also, technorati's tags are all user-generated. Digg, I have no idea.

When I hear it from Ben and Mena (the 6A founders), I'm buying it

By which I mean -- I think Bernstein was trying to say "pedophiles are bad, and we at 6A are against them!" Ben and Mena Trott, not to mention senior 6A people like Anil Dash and Michael Sippey, have been heavily involved with internet culture for a lot longer than there's been a b.org, and I don't think they're turning a hair at the idea of kinky fanfiction.