Not Crossing the Picket Line
21 March 2008I am going to respect the LJ content strike to-day by avoiding even visiting any LJ sites.
I believe that the strike comes far too late. I believe that mere strikes of any length are insufficient measures. I believe that this particular strike was announced with far too short notice (something like five days). And I believe that a one-day strike will produce unimportant statistical results, as it will be followed immediately by a surge of postponed entries and comments.
I also believe that, in response to any action that either seems serious or looks as if it might lead to something serious, the LJ administration will emit more unmeant pieties, and that a substantial number of those who engaged in the action will be all too eager to believe the pieties, rather than to extract genuine and significant commitments.
None-the-less, one forgoes very little not to under-mine this effort. Vayáis con queso.
Tags: LiveJournal
Ehh. You know, I feel like my anger really needs to be reserved for more important things. LJ provides me with a service and I pay for because I support what they do. And the uproar, as far as I can see, has just caused a lot of backlash -- people posting just to piss off the strikers. In the end, nothing's been accomplished.
I can do more good, I think, being pissed off about this stupid war my stupid boss.
Well, one could boycott without much anger.
I supported most of what LiveJournal did. And, although I do object to its ceasing to do much of what it did, my strongest objection is to its deceit in the process of transformation. This deceit has simply been to fraudulently retain existing members, if only temporarily, because new members will be attracted to an existing cluster.
(Given that you seem untroubled by the present trajectory, which eliminates LiveJournal's distinctiveness, I'm not sure what you in particular find in LiveJournal that you could not have found on one of the other social networking sites.)
Although I'd not considered backlash posting, I'd mentioned reasons that I expect the strike to fail. But, again, there's a tiny cost in letting the strikers have their miniscule chance at success.
I'm not sure by what mechanism your anger at the war might do good. If your anger at your boss keeps you motivated to seek other opportunities, then I will cheer that anger; otherwise, I will see it as simply damaging to you.