LJ Advisory Board: can you help with community access?

[rm]

Do you run an LJ community that has been or could be directly affected by unclear TOS on freedom of speech issues (think: political, religious, abuse survivors, creative, academic, fannish, queer, kink, poly, adult lifestyle)?

Do you run an LJ community that has been or could be affected by sloppy attempts on LJ/SUPs part to massage LJ's image (think: mental health/illness, abuse survivors, fannish, queer, kink, poly, adult lifestyle)?

Do you run an LJ community whose users have accessibility issues with the site (those with vision impairments, etc.)?

Do you run a community on any topic whatsoever whose users would be interested in discussion the LJ Advisory Board elections?

If so, I'd like the opportunity to hear the concerns of your users and talk a bit about where I stand on those issues. I promise to make only a single post to talk about the election (unless invited to do otherwise) and my candidacy and not spam the community or its users in any way.

If you'd be willing to let me post in those communities please let me know here or email me at racheline @ gmail dot com. If you're not a community maintainer, but have ties to a community maintainer and want to broach this issue with them, I'd appreciate it.

Comments

[pete-diddy.livejournal.com]

Greetings! Pete-Diddy of Eljzeera news!

Have you thought about contacting each other (RM and JAMETH) and calling a cease fire until post-nominations? Then somone can set up a community for THE GREAT DEBATE! Where All the wank can be conveniently kept in one place!

Dramacrats vs. RMpublicans. The Battle South of Seattle! The Royale with cheese!

x-posted to the other candidate's journal.

[elionwyr.livejournal.com]

Ironically, it doesn't seem to be the candidates that are the problem.

Still. It's a good, logical idea, and I hope that the candidates' supporters are willing to accept the same cease fire. Because, really, very little of what's been posted above is relevant, warranted, or useful to the issue at hand.

[groovinmahoovin.livejournal.com]

I haven't really seen anything out of line from any jameth supporters. Most of the claims aren't even true, like one user in LJ United claimed she was "attacked by Jameth's friends" in the election thread. Does this look like an "attack" to you?

http://community.livejournal.com/lj_election_en/8419.html?thread=345827#t345827

[elionwyr.livejournal.com]

We obviously interpret the flood of comments directed towards rm differently.

I do not like what I see happening, and I hope that this 'cease fire' provides relief.

[groovinmahoovin.livejournal.com]

We do obviously interpret the flood of comments differently. The flood of comments really has nothing to do with either her or Jameth. I'm pretty sure that a non-biased observer reading this thread would interpret the ensuing shit storm as being caused by nebris and not the Jameth followers. nebris's comments were the ones calling the Jameth comments spam, and invading "his personal journal" when this isn't even his journal.

FWIW, even though I think nebris is batshit insane, that hasn't affected my opinion of rm in the least, aside from her banning Jameth because of his (non) "involvement with Frenditto," but that could have simply been a misunderstanding. Jameth had nothing to do with Frienditto aside from bemused observations from the sidelines. Blaming Jameth for the behavior of his LJ "friends" (when a "friend" on LJ merely means "a journal I read") is grossly disrespectful to Jameth. As an "LJ celebrity," Jameth can mention something that's read by 2000 LJ users, and if 10 of them act out of line in response, he's blamed for "the poor behavior of his LJ readers" when those readers represent two tenths of one percent of his overall readers.

While I understand why a casual observer would think that Jameth's offer of allowing his communities for promotional purposes is some elaborate troll, as someone who's read Jameth for years, I can assure you that Jameth's style is more in line with allowing other people to say what they want in his journal or his communities, and they won't get any flak from him for doing so, as long as they are reasonable.

Getting back to the original premise, Jameth does a lot of volunteering for gay causes and several of the stated communities were created in response to homophobia on LJ, so they are certainly in line with the stated premise of queer-friendly communities.

[palmer-kun.livejournal.com]

I second your first paragraph. I am completely neutral on rm. Hell, I don't even have a beef with nebris - I just find him to be idiotic and as a result, highly amusing.

My beef is with people who twist concepts to fit their preferences ("Free speech means silencing those I don't like") and who misrepresent others words ("She said she doesn't want this kind of comment").

If people don't do these things, I won't have anything to say, oddly enough.

[elionwyr.livejournal.com]

Your response was not, I gather, actually directed at me. Still, I'll play along.

From my perspective, jameth's supporters have been vocal about thinking the LJ Advisory Council is something to not be taken seriously and have flooded rm's LJ and ljunited with comments and then bragged about whatever reaction they've earned.

nebris was attacked here, and there's no excuse for that.

Should jameth be held responsible for what his supporters are doing in his name? Yes and no. No, because we all have free will; yes, because (at least in public posts) I don't see him asking people to cease exhibiting bad behavior in his name.

Personally, I do not blame him for the behavior of his supporters, though I do wish he'd use some of his influence to ask people to cease and desist. Such e-chatter becomes just that - chatter. Let the candidates speak for themselves.

If there has been history enough between rm and jameth to warrant her banning him back in 2005, I think that should remain between the two of them. My opinion, your opinion, doesn't really matter. Her LJ. Her history. Her choice.

Posts from rm about the Advisory Council have been well thought out, insightful, and indicative of someone that truly wants to see positive change and growth come from this new venture.

I've yet to see that from jameth. Your claims about his volunteerism et al may be true. But from looking at his LJ - and in this electronic world, we are judged by what we put out there for the public to see - he is not someone I view as a viable candidate for this position.

(And out of respect for the request for a cease fire, this is my last post to you on the subject.)

[amandathegreat.livejournal.com]

nebris was the one doing the attacking. I did not post any comments to him until he had commented to me, as did the others in discussion with him. I tried to handle him as reasonably as possible, and I do not see him as a representation of rm by any means, but any "attacking" was solely on his end.

[elionwyr.livejournal.com]

I saw nothing from him that warranted the abuse he received.

End of my part of this discussion.

[rm.livejournal.com]

You, sir, are at least amusing and reasonable. I will happily consider any multiple candidate debate, but I have no desire to go one on one with a pack of cyberbullies. It's not a meaningful use of my time, or, in lieu of that, fun. And it certainly won't do anything to sway voters or improve the spirit of the race.

Debates would be nice though. We'll see what happens.

[pete-diddy.livejournal.com]

Well, the cyberbullies part is not quite accurate. But you called me amusing, so flattery gets you everywhere.

You need a neutral person to set up the debate community for everyone, have 1 post for question submission, and then every day till the actual election, post a small handful of questions individually for your debate. Invite all sides, (including the dramacrats and rmpublicans.) And watch the feather's fly.

I will say you have osme really strange cats working your campaign. While internet is serious business, I hope you don't get caught up as bad as some. It's not like you're running for a million bucks. Its a trip to Istanbul.

And the other thing, setting the bar a bit high, eh? If they didn't listen to the Godfather of Blog, Brad, what makes you think they are gonna hold on to your every word? Mind you, I'd say the same thing to James.

In the end, this really is a popularity contest, no matter how you try to steer it towards issues, platforms, or extremely tightly wound cast of campaigners for your cause.

Good Luck, and may we all come out of this safe and sount....

[rm.livejournal.com]

In the past I had ban about 20 people from this journal in one fell swoop connected to the Frienditto drama which is very much connected with the other candidate in question and his supporters. It is not something I am interested in rehashing or recreating. I hope you can understand that.

[pete-diddy.livejournal.com]

I've been a supporter for a while. I remember the Frienditto goulash. He was more guilty by association with the author. It's still unknown who the originator was, but "he who shall not be named" in my own opinion, didn't have the time nor resource to pull that program off.

Not all of them are cyberbullies either. We're not bad, we're just drawn this way.

[shutter.livejournal.com]

i used frienditto. are you going to ban me?

[rhonan.livejournal.com]

Ah yes, I remember when all those spurious lists of suspected Frienditto Fellons were floating around. That was a long time ago. Sure makes a convenient excuse, especially since he had nothing to do with Frenditto, other then posting about it. Really suspicious, when you are associating with people trashing him for your benefit. Trust me, when any of your surrogates post to any community I belong to, they will get answered in force by people pointing out that you are the Hillary Clinton of the campaign. You're behind and can't win, so your friends will do anything to trash the opposition.

By the way, what is your position on sexually explicit default user picks?

[earle-gorgo.livejournal.com]

Testing for Frienditto related pre-emptive ban.

[(Anonymous)]

Then unban people.