Harrison and I

Friends/community cut

I just deleted a bunch of communities/journals that were either inactive or purged, as well as at least a few people I felt I didn't connect with any more. I didn't go through every single community/journal but I got rid of a good amount. Eventually I'll go through the rest and deal with them.
LJ <3
  • twissie

LiveJournal

So, after nearly a decade at this site, LJ finally does something that makes me actually rage. No popcorn and laughing as the masses storm to news posts complaining, this time I'm actually worried.

A while back I was invited to help out with BETA testing new LJ services (I got this invite via lj_releases).

They have just announced BETA testing of a new friendslist.

LJ is planning on redoing everyone's friendslists in the style of the new comment page and update page. They want to copy tumblr and make your friendslist into a dashboard-like system page (infinite scrolling and all). It's also been renamed to "feed" (this I don't mind too much, though). In fact the whole dashboard idea with infinite scrolling wouldn't be so bad if it weren't for the fact that everyone will be locked to one specific layout. The system style comment pages are bad enough, but now I'll have to strain my eyes reading my flist? That defeats the purpose of this entire site. The font, use of whitespace, oversized boxes and UI elements ... all contribute to making the page difficult to read, on a site where all you do is read. Aaaah. Even just the possibility of adjusting the font (style and size) would make this suggestion easier to swallow, but it's still not something I'd want for my journal. It would not improve my LJ experience in any way (in fact it would most likely make my daily LJ activities more time consuming).

Now, I wasn't able to make the BETA page display my own friendslist, so I apologise to the random users who are featured in the screenshot, but to give everyone an idea, the below image shows you what your friendslist probably will look like in a couple of months.


(Click for big)

[A couple of more screenshots]
I never switched over from Dystopia, so that adds to the weirdness. You're going to have to picture this with the standard LiveJournal drop down navigation + no blue sidebar to the left. Click the screenshots for bigger versions.

Top of page with links to journal, archive, profile


Example of text heavy post as displayed on friendslist


New buttons to the right replace the navigation strip. One tab for filters


One tab for Archive/Calendar, you can filter your feed to display posts from one specific date. These buttons follow along as you scroll down the page (infinite scrolling).



All friendslists will look the same.

Snippet from the locked post at lj_releases:
The friends page has been redesigned as a system page for all users, and is now available for Beta testers. There is a link at the top of your friends page allowing you to switch between the new and old versions, and will later go into public beta testing. You can switch back and forth between both versions throughout beta testing.

PUBLIC POST AT lj_releases ABOUT THE NEW FRIENDSLIST: http://lj-releases.livejournal.com….

You can also see the proposed changes for yourself by enabling the BETA on your own journal (instructions from ruljautonews):
It's trivially easy to test beta features.
1) Go to lj_ru_beta and request to join.
2) Wait to get confirmation that you've been accepted into the community (this could take a few hours.)
3) Go to this page and choose Go To under Beta.
4) That's it, you're now testing the beta release. All site-scheme pages should now display a big "BETA BETA BETA BETA BETA BETA" in yellow letters across the top.
5) You could make comments in the lj_ru_beta post, but if you do please keep this in mind: the majority of commenters there don't speak English and if they do it's not their primary language. Machine translation of Russian is lousy. "My hovercraft is full of eels" lousy. While you can engage in basic dialogue and get a feel for what the other person is saying, don't get too hung up on anyone's phrasing.

You can easily switch back to the old version.

Make sure you let LJ know what you think of these proposed changes, I can't be the only one who thinks this is a horrible idea.

ETA: It's nice to see that I'm not the only one worried about the proposed changes, but please direct your feedback through the proper channels. This is a private journal, I have no affiliation with LJ. Please also be respectful when addressing the LJ staff. They are just doing their jobs. Thanks!

ETA2: Russian news post about the BETA test: http://lj-ru-beta.livejournal.com/…

ETA3: Added more screenshots.

ETA4: Additional info at ruljautonews: http://ruljautonews.livejournal.co…

ETA5: An update on the new site scheme.

ETA6: Public beta has now been announced. Official announcement.

ETA7 (really?): RUSSIAN NEWS POSTS CONFIRM PAGINATION AND ABILITY TO CUSTOMIZE FONT AND BACKGROUND IN THE FUTURE, ruljautonews HAS MORE: http://ruljautonews.livejournal.co…
  • Current Mood
    what
Harrison and I

Friends only


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You can find my tl;dr about me post here. Highly recommended to read.

The Rules of my LJ

1. Absolutely no drama, at least none that you're starting on purpose. I deal with this enough in my own house, between my real life friends, whatever. I do NOT need to be dealing with it in my own LJ. If you do not agree with me about something, fine. But tell me so in a nice way, and I'll try to shrug it off, or don't tell me at all.

2. Do not insult myself or my friends. I am very loyal to my friends, and I am sure that as you read my entries you will find this out. Friends are very important to me. If you try starting shit with them, you are starting shit with me as well. You don't agree with them about something? Fine. Tell them politely.

3. When it comes to commenting, I'm not going to spaz out on you if you don't comment on every single one of my entries. I certainly don't comment on every entry my friends make, so I don't expect the same thing from them. However, if I find that you hardly ever comment, do not be surprised if you eventually end up being taken off of my list. All you have to do is ask to be re-added in this entry only if you feel like you'll comment more and I'll consider adding you again. In return, I don't expect you to try and bitch me out for not responding to your posts. If I don't respond, I probably don't think anything I could say will be very helpful.

4. Friend me if you find that we have something in common, you find something about me interesting, whatever. Do not just randomly add me for the sake of adding me and having a lack of friends.

Things you'll find me talking about in my LJ

My posts will be about anything, really. I'm private about some things and choose to leave those out, but generally I'll write about specific things that would be considered private, such as how my day at work or school goes.

Things I'll probably post about:
-Fandoms: anywhere between randomly talking about Star Wars, perhaps something I've noticed about it, to talking about a book I'm reading or a movie I've watched either for the first or millionth time.
-Writing: any sort of accomplishments I have when it comes to writing. If I finish a chapter, I'll tell you. If I make it past a word amount goal I've set, I'll tell you.
-Communities: from time to time you'll find me promoting communities off to you. I tend to make a lot of communities, as you may have seen above, so you'll probably find me posting about them and trying to get members, or just writing about things I need to do for them, or whatever.
-Graphics: cross posting to my community, jedigraphics, when I make graphics.
-Friends and family: Friends and family are very important to me, and I will talk about things that involve them and I feel I can talk about.

There's probably more, but those are the main things. Any non-friended posts will probably be specific to something about role playing, such as looking for someone to role play with or something. At some point I will set up filters for all of these things and I'll make a poll where you'll vote and tell me what filters you wish to be included in. I plan on doing this because there are so many things I post about that you may not want to hear about.

When you want to friend me, please consider the following:

-Whether or not we have things in common
-Whether or not you plan on commenting
-My rules and whether or not you'll follow them or find that they're too much to ask (though I definitely believe they aren't too much)

Once you've considered those things, feel free to comment to be added, and tell me why you want to be added. How did you find my LJ? What made you want to add me?

I guess that's it. Welcome to my LJ!

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Credit to creativeelf.

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All three David Cook animations (third one is in my profile) credit to yiddidea_icons.
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Post last updated on February 1st, 2016.

Note: as of April 28th, 2010, there are a number of entries that have been privatized from both before and after this entry.