lettered | Oh, so, I meant that, about good bye.

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Oh, so, I meant that, about good bye.

Thought about it a lot, and I'm leaving Livejournal.

That's all dramatic and stuff, but I probably won't be gone until the end of the year. If most people decide to leave, and there's a mass exodus before then, I may be gone earlier. But this journal, my fic journal, and my private backup journal will be gone for certain by January 1, 2008.

I have a lot of stuff to say about the whole LJ/6A debacle, but for some reason every time I start a post on it I just have to get up and walk away from it, give it some time, read lots and lots of Harry/Draco, spend time with my family, or eat ice cream. Can't decide whether I'm too angry about it, depressed perhaps, lazy maybe, or possibly I'm an ostrich? Anyway, during the strikeout in May I felt very energized, but maybe that was because I thought that it was possible that LJ had made a mistake, and after hearing customer complaints, would fix it. In other words, I knew I was going to give Livejournal another chance. Well, I did, but I am still displeased as a customer. So, I take my business elsewhere.

I don't know where. One of the reasons I'm staying on LJ for another few months is that I want to see how many other people leave and where they go. Even if a lot of you leave (which I sekritly hope you will), it will not be all at once, and LJ will still be the place to be in the thick of fandom things for a while. If there is a mass movement, decision making, support/rallying/reasearch/etc to be done, I want to be involved. And if people are going to continue to discuss the issues connected to why I'm leaving, I want to be a part of those discussions. Because I do have a lot to say, and I want to say it to my flist, people who I'm interested in having around wherever I end up.

I'm going to back up the journals I have here and copy them to Insane Journal for now. I'm going to be cross-posting to Insane Journal (where I am tkp) and possibly Journal Fen over the next several months. I hope to gradually phase out: to just post links to fic here, instead of actual fics here, etc. Then I will be gone. I know I can make myself do that, but I know I can't make myself never visit LJ again. If you do decide to stay and not post elsewhere, I may still visit from time to time, but I will not have an account here ever again. I don't want to lose touch with any of you. I mean, well, except you; you're always talking about your grandmother's corns.

So, um, this isn't quite yet goodbye, and won't be for a while. Mostly I'm just posting this because once I say I'll do something, I'll do it. And now I've said it.

Okay, now that announcements are over: what're your thoughts? Leavin' on a jet plane? Why? Staying, why? Cat macros? Why not? Where are you going, if you go, where're you lookin' at, what are your hopes and dreams for fandom future? What did you think of the last ep of Mad Men? Is Jason Isaacs the man, or what? How 'bout that burr86, Barak, and Brad? Does the news comm make you laugh, cry, headdesk, or wha...? Did anyone even like the first two Bourne movies? What's your favorite pizza delivery service? Do you think Livejournal would disallow canon!Buffy/Angel fanart? How come I can't spell misogyny? What's the difference between a psychiatrist and a psychologist? And the number one question all of us are asking: how come Buffy never wore the go-go boots again?

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I feel like we've just met - and I really enjoy reading your posts - so this makes me sad. However, I do understand the principle behind what you are saying.

These are a few of my thoughts, if you don't mind. When I started LJ-ing (is that a word?) it was mainly for myself. I got all POTO fan-girly on 3-4 forums and met people there. Slowly people who read my fanfiction and forum posts wandered over here. Most posted anonymously because they didn't have LJ accounts. Slowly they started getting LJ accounts, and I was glad, because anonymous spam (for sexchats, etc.) started showing up occasionally, and it was just easier to limit comments to registered users instead of having to pick off the spam.

What leads me to stay are the people I've met (like you, and

my_daroga, who introduced us.) Another factor is that I've found some really interesting communities here. Even though many of them haven't been updated in a while, or are very sporadic, I still have mined their archives, which have been useful to me for writing.

I did get GJ and IJ accounts (both under the same name, stefanie_bean - feel free to friend me at IJ if you like, even though I don't have anything posted there right now.) Haven't wanted to pay for a JF account so far; maybe I will later.

I went ahead and backed my journals up - don't know if I'll try to "export" them to a new home or not. A great deal of the "meat" of my LJ is in the comments, and if the comments don't export to a new site, there doesn't seem much point in doing it.

Personally, I'm not sure the other sites (GF, IJ, JF) are any kind of absolute safe harbor against this kind of nonsense. There are bigger forces out there which aren't going away: increased puritanism; increased #s of lawsuits and a broken tort system that encourages them; confusing and chaotic child porn/child abuse laws that boil down to "I know it when I see it." These forces are going to pursue people who push the margins with their art everywhere they go.

However, I do understand your desire to "make a stand" by quitting LJ, and at least not including your journal in their "head count." I do hope that wherever you go, you will leave a "forwarding address" so that we can stay in touch!

-I definitely, definitely have so loved meeting and interacting with the people I've met here. And it's been a pleasure getting to know you. I think we'll be able to stay in touch, if you use your IJ account, and if you don't--well, I'll still visit your LJ. If you don't allow anon. comments, mind if I email if there's anything particularly interesting to discuss?

-You don't have to pay for a JF account if you sign up here. I need to go tell daroga about that.

-Pretty positive there's a method to export your journal with *all* your comments. I'll post a how-to once I do it myself. I will be most sad to lose all the posts in my memories; though if the people who made those posts stay on LJ I'll bookmark their entries, and if they don't I'll find them elsewhere. But I have a lot of random posts memoried, just to keep track!

-I don't think other sites are safe harbors either. I think fandom's best bet is starting their own journal/blogging/archive/site thing, but even that will always be in danger for the very causes you state. But my biggest problem here isn't that LJ is deciding to eliminate some forms of content--that really does suck, but I understand why they're doing it. No, my problem is HOW they're doing it.

-I am not really doing this to make a stand. I really haven't been clear, because I haven't been posting on this issue; eventually I hope to get my thoughts in order and post about it. But I sort of look at it as: I want a particular product from a particular company. They no longer have the quite the product I want, so I go to a different company. Furthermore, when the initial company stopped carrying the particular product I desired, they were disrespectful to customers about it, which makes me disinclined to use their company for any other products I might desire--not because I'm indignant or morally outraged, but because I don't want to have to deal with their bad customer service.

I mean, I'd do the same with a restaurant that had bad service. If I have a bad enough experience there, I don't go back. It's not making a stand; it's exerting my privilege as a sometimes paying customer.

Given the circumstances, I have just enabled anonymous comments, and will see how it goes. Picking off a few spam-nits is worth it to keep in touch with people.

You are also welcome to e-mail me anytime; my e-mail address is on my userinfo page.

Thank you SO MUCH for pointing me to that JF recommendation thread. It was pretty funny; my_daroga was the entry just before mine! I wanted to :wave: but I figured the OP had enough e-mail to deal with...

Maybe you can make a Word file of your memories posts? That's what I did for my friends list; I just copied and pasted the page into Word, and it contained the links as well.

Well, if anon comments gets to be annoying for you, I'll definitely keep up with your journal anyway and just do the email thing. I have anon comments enabled and never get that kinda crap; I have no idea how that happens.

Yeah, I always kinda wanted a JF account, even if I'm not sure I'll ever use it. I don't like the idea of ALL of my content only being accessible to those over 18; I do quite a lot of G rated stuff.

Excellent idea about making a file of memories posts. Maybe I'll do that!

Hullo! We have to stop meeting like this, Stef.

But to both of you: this is what I worry about. I worry that any area of the 'net that reaches the critical mass of FANDOM will, like, LJ, be bought by companies, like SA. Anything popular enough to be useful to us will be considered a cash cow by someone. What happens when IJ is inundated by new members? Well, they'll need more people to work it, more server space, more power in general. More money.

I'm just not sure how to keep something like this non-profit *and* big enough to house the amorphous thing fandom is.

BTW, I'm my_daroga on IJ and GJ, too. Hopefully JF as well.

Fod posted this picture which you may've seen before (or may've even linked to?) Anyway, her point is that LJ is on the edges of the etherworld, and that fandom is a reason for that. (She goes on to say that this is attractive to some advertizers 'cause LJ accesses a niche that might not be accessed otherwise, but I disagree with what she says about hurting LJ. If LJ loses fandom and thus some of its uniqueness, 6A will be more than happy to march straight into the mess of a galaxy or whatever and make money there just like MySpace.)

I said to someone else below: fandom is by definition non-mainstream. It exists on the fringes. But the metaphorical internet universe (as pictured) is expanding. And the way I see it, any place that fandom chooses will swell on its own, and everything else will swell to meet it, and I think that's what's happening here with LJ. So fandom, by definition (if it is to survive) has to keep on picking up and moving to the outskirts. And...that sucks, but I'd rather do that than get swallowed by the mainstream, and thus not have the stuff that makes fandom unique, the place where you can explore the things you don't otherwise get to.

So even if fandom eventually does construct it's own place, it's probable that in time, that will be bigger, need money as you say, get swallowed by something like 6A, and then get swallowed by mainstream restrictions. But to me that just says--we have to keep moving, and keep trying, or that which is so precious to us won't exist any more. Ya know?

It's so inter

So in a sense, you're saying that fandom is, by necessity, nomadic. Once we settle somewhere and "integrate," we might be content enough but our culture is lost. It's an imperfect analogy, but is that close?

I understand that. I'm also struggling, now, because I've only just learned about the new issues and, as others have said lots of us feel, none of them affect me. Which I'm not presenting as a reason to stay, just a consideration. My LJ is so inconsistent content-wise, and I'm so attached to people here, that whatever I decide will make things difficult.

On the other hand, I *don't* have a big reputation, or an active fandom life. So maybe it's not such a big deal for me to leave. Wait, that sounded like I'm saying that means I don't have to. I mean the opposite--What I'm giving up, I could retain through email, etc.

Yes, that's exactly what I'm saying. I have a lot more to say about it; hopefully soon I can finish all these posts and clarify all my reasoning here.

none of them affect me

I don't read chan. I don't like it. And I don't like visual porn much, period.

I don't feel very threatened insofar as my fannish production goes. Yes, I've written incest; yes, I read about sex with minors (post-pubescent minors, thus the distinction from chan), but despite all this hullabaloo I just don't see my content getting me deleted. So in that sense, it doesn't affect me either.

I feel threatened insofar as what my perception of fandom is. To me it's a place where you can explore things you can't elsewhere, through a medium that is safe, shared, insightful. Whether that exploration is sexual in nature or not. Limiting that exploration takes out what made it so special--the fact that you can explore things here that you can't elsewhere. So to that extent it does affect me. If affects me a lot, and I feel like it affects fandom as a whole.

That's my opinion. You're entitled to your own. I wouldn't leave unless I was truly dissatisfied, and I am. If you aren't, no matter how small your reputation is or how active you are in fandom life, I see no reason for you to leave.

But yeah. For me, there's reason to leave. And like you, I feel like I can also retain what I'm giving up. It might be a little more difficult, but I don't really mind that.

I feel threatened insofar as what my perception of fandom is. To me it's a place where you can explore things you can't elsewhere, through a medium that is safe, shared, insightful.

Yes. This, I agree with wholeheartedly; and what I think I'm waiting for is for the chips to fall and the lines to be drawn (if they are) and to know if such a space is real and available. Even if I become dissatisfied as a result of *your* dissatisfaction, it doesn't mean that if I leave, it will be all for you. If that makes sense. What I'm really trying to say is that you're experiencing me exploring this issue, so it might look like you're unduly influencing me; you're not.

Oh, that makes much sense. And I get the impression that lots of people are just waiting. Even people who've *said* they're staying--if fandom does find another place for itself, as I said, I think they'll come over too or visit enough for it to be a community like fandom on LJ is.

And yeah, I can understand people being sad if I leave, because I'm sad too, but...I wouldn't want anyone to leave because they think it's all falling apart, especially if they left and then it didn't fall apart.

At first I just felt "Oh, it's over! Everyone will be in different places, and everything will die."

Well, everyone already *is* in different places. I've got "identities" on a host of social networking and fan sites; I've got art/photography groups; even on LJ, there are RL people and fan people and movie people... There's already a juggling act.

As insurance, I've registered my_daroga at GJ, JF and IJ (not to mention Vox--ugh!--and DevArt). And in the world of web 2.0 and rss and the like, it'd be criminal to assume anyone can really be cut off.

Just found you on JF, tkp too - added you both.

We party everywhere.

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Oh, so, I meant that, about good bye.

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