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.

Yes, a response to the users would sure be nice right about now. Possibly before a response to the press, but I guess that boat has sailed.

Barak Berkowitz (Chairman and CEO) has posted an explanation and apology on LJ. Somewhere in the midst of it he says

We never intended this policy to cause the removal of journals that were have perfectly valid discussions about literature, law or culture. We never intended the policies to take down journals or communities clearly opposed to illegal activities but clearly we did. We love our members of fandom and respect their role in our community. We made a mistake and now we are going to try to fix it.

The line about fandom seems kind of thrown in there randomly, but at least we were mentioned, I suppose.