Charmian's Journal

Update

Mon, 19 May 2014 10:26:11 GMT

Updated notesonleaves a bit.

In other news, it seems LJ is updating its design again. Currently there is an opt-out while the design is in beta, but that will disappear after the beta period ends. In the meantime it feels like everyone has gone more to Tumblr than ever.

Currently reading a travelogue about Buddhist statuary in Japan. However I do not know enough about Buddhism so unless I have seen it I need to look everything up. I need the idiot's guide to Buddhist iconography.

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Wed, 17 Apr 2013 02:48:11 GMT

Have managed to post a bit more on http://notesonleaves.tumblr.com these days. I have gotten up to volume 9 of Onmyouji, and after that I skimmed through the rest and went "So Seimei has a Super Saiyan mode AND there are random flashbacks to Ancient Egypt and Greece. However the art is even more stunning than ever." (http://notesonleaves.tumblr.com/tagged/onmyouji/chrono to see it all in order)

So after I finish rereading Slam Dunk I plan to go and start blogging about The Ravages of Time. (there seem to be actually some fans on Tumblr)

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Onmyouji blogs on Tumblr

Mon, 25 Feb 2013 00:12:34 GMT

Am about 50% (somewhat less) w/ the Onmyouji readthrough I threatened.

http://notesonleaves.tumblr.com/tagged/onmyouji

I also made a tag index: http://notesonleaves.tumblr.com/tags

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Preview of new LJ site page designs

Sun, 20 Nov 2011 18:55:39 GMT

http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=ru&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&layout=2&eotf=1&u=http%3A%2F%2Ftema.livejournal.com%2F1021672.html

Biggest difference is probably in the inbox and the look of the comments.

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LJ to restructure backend, redesign interface, eliminate advertising?

Sat, 19 Nov 2011 19:55:59 GMT

http://translate.googleusercontent.com/translate_c?hl=en&rurl=translate.google.com&sl=ru&tl=en&twu=1&u=http://lenta.ru/news/2011/11/19/zhzh/&usg=ALkJrhhxg9B2Rg2k0WsNodEgzwrk3iiL9A <--Translation of a news article claiming LJ will not be using ads (however, users will be allowed to put their own ads on their journals).

http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=ru&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&layout=2&eotf=1&u=http%3A%2F%2Flenta.ru%2Fnews%2F2011%2F11%2F19%2Fzhzh1%2F <--LJ will create a revamped system for ranking bloggers, update the site design (wow), described as being unchanged from 1999, and the backend will be rewritten, allowing uses to have more friends. Now, since this is all via google translate, I'm not sure how accurate this is (anyone who reads Russian want to confirm this?)

Servers may also be moved from the US to Europe (I've seen other sources saying some, but not all will be moved).

http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=ru&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Faspix.livejournal.com%2F133821.html <--Better picture of new interface, and mention that there will be more extensive use of Ajax.

( thoughts )

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Change in Leadership at LJ

Fri, 18 Nov 2011 07:33:32 GMT

The head of Livejournal Russia has changed: the new person in charge is Ilya Dronov, who is igrick.livejournal.com, previously in charge of development. In his first post since his appointment, he discusses (google translate link) LJ Abuse Prevention, and future plans.

Also, Anton Nossik, who formerly worked for LJ Russia, has returned to SUP, and is now Media Director of SUP Media. He has given some hints (google translate link) about the future direction of LJ. Apparently there will be an upgrade of the engine, increase of site speed for Russian users, redesign of interfaces, 3rd party apps, more mobile, more template flexibility, etc. Apparently more details will be forthcoming when the project is officially announced.

BTW, could anyone who speaks Russian explain the part that is translated by google "Razrulivanie problems associated with conflicts of creators and moderators of the communities at the expense of the most distinct separation of management rights / ownership"?

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LJarchive not working? LJ RTE still buggy

Wed, 24 Aug 2011 10:11:56 GMT

http://news.livejournal.com/139294.html?thread=96710686#t96710686

LJarchive, the 3rd party program which lets you archive your LJ on your computer, is currently not working properly.

I found two support requests about it.

http://www.livejournal.com/support/see_request.bml?id=1366198
http://www.livejournal.com/support/see_request.bml?id=1365248

LJ staff, in later comments, say that the issue has been forwarded to the developers, so maybe it'll work again one day.

In other news, LJ's Rich Text Editor continues to have problems.

Here (in Russian), the head of LJ development talks about release 83.1, which fixes some of the bugs.

I haven't been posting to LJ recently (and I don't use the RTE anyhow) but I'm amazed they put out this release without finding or addressing any of these bugs. Something has gone seriously wrong in their testing.

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LJ updates Rich Text Update Page, hints of v. 84 to come

Fri, 19 Aug 2011 21:20:58 GMT

Release 83 is now live, which is mostly updates to the Rich Text update page. There seem to be a lot of bugs associated with this, however.

Also, there are some hints about what will be released in v. 84, which is scheduled for early September. Also, the Scrapbook II code has been uploaded, but due to some technical issues, beta testing hasn't started yet.

As far as I can figure out via Google Translate (anyone who can speak Russian, please help?) in v. 84 there will be:

Improved calculation of ratings (I think this is an RU-side feature only?) which will be better at calculating which things are truly popular.
Ability to create pending records for journals and comms (Is this a drafts feature? Might be http://changelog.livejournal.com/11284213.html or http://changelog.livejournal.com/11284531.html)
Some kind of self-promotion thing (I think this has been mentioned in changelog)
Remaking the comments form (I think this is what it's saying?)
m.livejournal.com can resize images on the fly
Something about SMS and personal messages/notifications

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a Russian user talks about DW, and what LJ is working on now

Tue, 16 Aug 2011 11:17:08 GMT

A post from a Russian DW user about using Dreamwidth: http://vserguey.dreamwidth.org/130399.html

In other news, LJ continues to be working on...

http://changelog.livejournal.com/11239637.html A new photo-hosting interface (this is being tested with a small group of beta-testers, IIRC)

and some mysterious thing called "self-promo": http://changelog.livejournal.com/11236661.html
I'm guessing this will allow you to pay to promote your posts on the LJ site?

The new photo-hosting is intriguing. Perhaps it'll make it easier to post and embed photos?

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more Russian-speakers are using DW

Fri, 12 Aug 2011 06:26:54 GMT

I've heard that more Russian speakers are using DW, and reportedly some English-speakers are complaining about it. They don't like the way that the Latest Posts page is not 100% English.

Actually, I think an influx of Russian users is not only not bad, but potentially a good thing for DW. The growth of English-speaking users IMHO seemed to have had plateaued prior to the recent DDoS. With a new group of users coming in, there's the potential for viral growth there as well. There seem to be at least 2K of Russian users, although I'm not sure how much that is relatively. However, growth may be limited by the fact that the site and its documentation are all in English.

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importing communities eventually planned?

Wed, 10 Aug 2011 10:57:49 GMT

http://lj-refugees.dreamwidth.org/46588.html

Huh, I had thought that Dreamwidth wasn't going to allow the importing of communities, but it seems that has changed, and it is eventually planned, but unlikely to happen soon?

I'm also kind of confused by the 'non-evil way.' As I understand it, right now OpenID accounts cannot post entries to DW comms (they can on LJ), and if this is implemented on DW, it would be possible to allow comm importation in a non-evil way? (Under the same understanding that governs the importation of comments). I wonder if it is possible to use LJ's code for implementing openID posting on DW, or if it's part of the non-open-source code.

However, I wonder about the social implications of this. Some people already disliked the comment importation thing. What about comm importation? The importation of a comm potentially affects many more people.

I suppose the people who really object are totally capable of getting rid of their stuff, but what if they've deleted the account? Or what if it ran in a way in which the mods posted something, not the actual owners of the content? Also, this involves even more comments potentially being imported. (BTW, if you are no longer a member of a comm, can you still delete the comments you've made in a post you no longer have access to?) Well, that probably won't happen with entries, since a comm owner can't change security level on entries, so if they were public to begin with, you can still delete them.

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anyone speak Russian? More details on the DDoS

Mon, 01 Aug 2011 12:47:53 GMT

http://igrick.livejournal.com/510012.html (Russian language link)

From what I can understand via machine translation, he gives more details on the DDoS attacks and says that it has stopped for the moment, but they are still continuing the mitigation procedures. He also talks about the origin of the attacks, and the wording of the English language message about the DDos, which seems to have upset/confused some Russian speaking users.

[Some of the content in these posts is similar to this post on SUP's official webpage: http://www.sup.com/en/news_359.html]

http://igrick.livejournal.com/510275.html (also Russian language)

He also wrote a post about how there were lots of 500 and 503 errors while posting as a side effect of the mitigation. He says that there may be fewer errors when posting with an app using xml-rpc api. (For example, the iphone/ipad/android apps)

http://igrick.livejournal.com/511301.html (again, Russian language)

This seems to have a scan of an official communication written by SUP. At the end, if google translate is rendering this correctly, he's saying that there will be two weeks compensation for paid users.

Anyone out there who speaks Russian know what the scan says?

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Ultimate cause of LJ's recent downtime a DDoS?

Wed, 27 Jul 2011 09:08:01 GMT

http://translate.google.com/#ru|en|http%3A%2F%2Fj.mp%2Fow3oXz Via Google Translate.

Apparently they've concluded it's a DDoS so strong that the backbone providers (Qwest and Verizon) couldn't stand the load, with an avg. traffic load of 6 gigabits.

I'm not sure why another staffer says that posting this is a bad idea. The people behind this know what's going on anyway, and most users will never find out about this anyhow because they won't bother to look.

Other links (in Russian)
http://www.gazeta.ru/news/lastnews/2011/07/27/n_1941485.shtml
http://www.sup.com/news_357.html
http://www.livejournal.ru/themes/id/32601?from=twitter&utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

The sup.com link may imply that paid users will be compensated for lost time.

[EDIT]

English language link
http://www.panarmenian.net/eng/news/75049/

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Anyone one know what this means?

Tue, 12 Jul 2011 22:35:06 GMT

http://changelog.livejournal.com/11009393.html.

It says "Creare RSS feed for friends page." Anyone know what it means from the code?

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recent lj news

Sat, 11 Jun 2011 04:44:03 GMT

LJ also briefly implemented geolocation and then turned it off in the face of massive user dissatisfaction. I suspect based on these staff comments that it might be a culture clash kinda thing. In any case the issue seems to be resolved for the time being.

Also the LJ news comm is moving towards a much more reasonable format. Instead of weekly posts filled with non-news and contests, it's becoming biweekly (twice a month), and focusing on updates and important LJ information. I hope this also marks the end of the annoying "comment to get a free vgift" things too. It always seemed like a HUGE waste of time for paid staff to be administering these things anyhow. I mean, at most a few hundred people participated, which might be a significant amount if we are talking about a userbase the size of Dreamwidth's, but not, I think, in the case of one like LJ.

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Posterous new api, Wordpress

Thu, 09 Jun 2011 21:52:21 GMT

http://technology.posterous.com/announcing-a-new-api-for-developers-to-plug-i

Posterous has announced a new API which will let developers create Posterous-powered sites on their own domains, and allow them to add users on those sites.

http://posterous.com/api

Documentation here. No idea how this works, but it sounds pretty neat.

Meanwhile, on Wordpress.com you can now post comments using Twitter or Facebook:

http://en.blog.wordpress.com/2011/06/07/post-comments-twitter-facebook/

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Retention and Tumblr, 'Like' tag on LJ

Thu, 02 Jun 2011 21:49:12 GMT

http://www.mb.com.ph/articles/319838/retention-selfexpression-tumblr

Article about why Tumblr is so good at retaining users, reportedly even better than Facebook.

I find myself using Tumblr more and more these days. The search capacity is especially useful.

Also:

http://translate.google.com/translate?js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&layout=2&eotf=1&sl=ru&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Figrick.livejournal.com%2F505032.html

Today (link processed through google translate) LJ added some code that will allow people to put the buttons for Facebook and Google (and others) in their entries. Since this is totally opt in, I am guessing this isn't going to be controversial.

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IJ problems, Identity accounts and "commitment"

Mon, 16 May 2011 21:46:45 GMT

http://asylums.insanejournal.com/announcements/83654.html?thread=4290758#t4290758

Above link has more details about the reasons behind Insanejournal's decision to institute a purge: financial and spam problems.

In other news, a majority of respondents to the "should identity accounts be allowed to post on DW comms" poll answered yes. In the comments foxfirefey points out there are some spam concerns with this. Spam is a big threat the the finances of a Web 2.0 site, so that's definitely a big issue.

Thinking more about the openID/identity account issue, I noticed that many people who opposed the change in that LJ thread cited "commitment" to LJ itself as being important. People may believe that such "commitment" to LJ means that the user is less likely to be a troll, yet wouldn't a really dangerous troll be the sort to put in more effort into their trolling? But does using an openID account mean that you are inherently a suspect character? Couldn't it be just indicative of not wanting to remember another login? What if you simply see no benefit in having a journal at LJ/DW? Now, on DW, it could mean that the person has no idea how to get an invite code, or just doesn't see any point in becoming a DW user because all they want to do is comment: however, I don't think that would make the person suspect.

I think there are more people who use LJ in this way, and thus have little need for anything other than an identity account. Personally, I often see many users who seem to have accounts solely to participate in communities, and with largely blank journals. If this describes more and more of the LJ clientele, it has consequences for LJ's financial model. And, if many people see LJ not as "site where I have a journal and talk to friends" but "where Community X is hosted," that's a significant change in usage, too.

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Insanejournal deleting inactive accounts.

Sun, 15 May 2011 01:37:39 GMT

Insanejounal is having a username purge. I have a largely inactive account at IJ, so it was placed in deletion mode, but undeleting it is a pretty simple and painless process. Squeaky, the admin/owner of IJ, claims that he has decided to do this because a) many accounts are spam, and b) because he receive "thousands" of messages asking for the deletion of inactive accounts. He gives more information about the username purge here.

Much of the reaction to his decision, both positive and negative, comes from roleplayers. Some welcome the purge because it puts less strain on IJ, and because they want some of the purged usernames. Others are upset that journals of inactive roleplayers will be purged.

(Personally speaking... since this isn't the first time Squeaky has deleted inactive accounts, and it's IIRC stated in the IJ faqs, I don't have much of a problem with it. I have a domain name and webhosting. If I stopped paying for that, I wouldn't expect them to keep it up; similarly, if I stop "paying" for an IJ account by not frequenting the site, I feel I'd have to accept the consequences of that also... Perhaps a way this issue could be dealt with is the creation of a mechanism to transfer ownership of accounts?)

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LJ allows identity accounts to post in communities

Thu, 12 May 2011 07:19:57 GMT

In the latest release, LJ has now allowed for identity accounts (openID, Facebook, Twitter, and others) to post in LJ communities. While this new feature has been overshadowed by the LJ nav strip revision, it seems to have already caused some controversy.

Personally, I'm for this feature (although I don't think that it'll affect me personally much); I really don't think there's much of a security issue with Twitter/FB accounts posting, and actually I'm puzzled by the assertion that LJ-Abuse has less data on the identity accounts than other accounts. I mean, isn't LJ Abuse able to trace even anonymous posters through IP addresses and other things? Anyone with more technical knowledge want to chime in on those aspects?

I now wonder, though, if Dreamwidth is going to implement a similar feature, and if so, would there also be this kind of opposition?

View Poll: identity accounts posting in comms on DW

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Increased Gtalk and AIM integration

Sat, 07 May 2011 21:03:53 GMT

http://techcrunch.com/2011/05/07/soon-aols-aim-wont-require-a-separate-login-to-chat-with-contacts-in-gmail/

This sounds nice. I use the Gtalk client and I hope this will allow me to potentially chat to AIM users within the client. If only Google would update GoogleTalk more. I'd like the potential for group chat there as well. (It's in gmail, but not in the client.)

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Google Trends on LJ

Thu, 05 May 2011 11:18:54 GMT

Hmm, this chart. I don't know if Google Trends's numbers are to be trusted (though I've heard some people saying they are fairly accurate in a broad sense), but if they are true, in March 2010 LJ had around 500K daily U.S visitors, and in March 2011, LJ had around 250K, meaning about half. Not sure what caused the drastic Feb 2011 downturn though. Anyway, I wonder what we're going to see come March 2012.

http://trends.google.com/websites?q=livejournal.com&geo=US&date=ytd&sort=0

In other news, congratulations to Dreamwidth on leaving Beta.

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Delicious Acquired

Wed, 27 Apr 2011 22:29:06 GMT

Delicious has been acquired by Avos.

http://blog.delicious.com/
http://www.delicious.com/help/transition

It seems moving your data over to the new Delicious will be an opt-in process. That is, if people don't explicitly agree to the AVOS Terms of Service and consent to having their data moved, it's not going to be on the relaunched site.

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New LJ anti-spam feature

Sun, 17 Apr 2011 22:01:21 GMT

http://news.livejournal.com/137089.html?thread=95366785#t95366785

LJ seems to have introduced an anti-spam measure which identifies and holds suspicious comments.

More info (Russian language)

It seems nowadays the best way to get info on what is happening on LJ is to read the journals of the Russian staff. Unfortunately, since I can't read Russian, I have to rely on Google Translate, so I am not confident on the details; however, it seems if you don't want to use this feature, you can turn it off in your settings. If this works, this will be a great advance, as many users are plagued with comment spammers.

Also as part of the new release, they've changed communities from being under their own domain to having URLs like regular journals. Possibly this may lead to better domain aliasing in the future? If this leads to comms being able to have persistent domain names, that would also mark a major advance.

There is also another change with external links in Plus and Basic journals: they will now have a "nofollow" attribute, which will, in the future, be applied according to a whitelist.

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LJ to allow identity accounts to post on comms

Mon, 11 Apr 2011 22:40:11 GMT

fiddlingfrog sent me this link:

http://community.livejournal.com/changelog/10368879.html

It seems that LJ will allow identity accounts (OpenID, FB, Twitter, Mail.ru, Vkontakte, etc) to post in communities. It's not clear when this change will go live, or how far they are along in working on the feature.

In my opinion, this is a great idea, and is a major step towards making LJ more interoperable. As detailed in my post on LJ's marketing towards advertisers, LJ is really emphasizing communities as perhaps the central part of LJ. Making it possible for people to post on comms without going through the registration process makes sense, because now they don't have to remember another login/pw combo as well.

Anyway, I think this is all part of the "message-board-ization" of LJ. People who complain about LJ becoming like Facebook, I think, have got it wrong, because LJ has essentially renounced any ambitions to competing in the real-world social graph field. Instead they tout their site as being centered around common interests, and connections between people who don't know each other IRL.

IIRC, this is a feature which has been talked about on Dreamwidth, although I'm not sure whether it has been planned for implementation, or if it has, how far it is from being implemented.

Also, not directly related, but total agreement here: http://helens78.dreamwidth.org/1022248.html

I'd like for both LJ and DW to implement this feature. I already find it useful on Tumblr and Twitter.

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