Meta Roundup

First, the cause for comment rot on the site seems to have been found and fixed by squeaky. You can take a look at the bit of code that gave us all so much trouble in the news post.
However, the issue as such might still persist a few days because when the code sets some comments to disappear they aren't gone immediately, they are still in the memory cache for a while. So we might have a few remaining instances from back when the code was still there but after those are gone it should finally be over for good. (source)
To celebrate all this, there's a week-long Permanent Account sale (50$ each).

Changes have been made to the message/notification center - items in your inbox can now be marked as read and deleted, and the maximum number of subscriptions ("notices") has been increased.

Tangentially related: squeaky said he's working on a multiple icon uploader next, and via the comments I found an old resource post by sherlock with a third-party tool you can use in the meantime.

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With the issues and discussion surrounding exporting LJ comments to Dreamwidth, stewardess wrote a post on content syndication/aggregation and LiveJournal, titled Exporting comments from LJ to DW: is there a money?

bridgetmkennit: counters and me (and maybe you): "Every time I see a meta post about comments, whether lack thereof or not, I just want to create a meta post about how people should learn to love counters."

the_rck posted "a list of thoughts inspired by reading (mostly bad) fics" -- "A few of the items in here are mini rants about genuinely offensive stuff regarding race and transsexuality. The rest mainly complain about sillier stuff."

rubyfruit_pixie: WTF?: "And not only do people think that it isn't complete bullshit to say that one writes yaoi only because het is icky or that girls are icky, people actually state this as a point of pride."

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brownbetty: re: Thirteenth Child, and a million other things: "But you have, actually, a higher responsibility than being a writer, and that is your responsibility as a human being."

magpyr: Growing pains: "You see, I used to be ignorant and happy. I read books, watched films, and listened to songs, never once pausing to think about their attitude toward race and gender."

telesilla: No, we aren't the freakin' Thought Police: "Because honestly, I am so sick of people yelling "censorship!" as if professional writers somehow had an inalienable right to show their asses and not get called on it."

Again, I'm splitting up this issue. The general meta goes into the next entry.

yonmei: Actually, I’m kind of annoyed.: "For two reasons: One, saying Dumbledore was gay after Book 7 was published and there aren’t going to be any more is kind of a cop-out. [...] The other: Lupin was gay. Tonks was a dyke. They got married off to each other as soon as possible after some fans pointed out to Rowling that Lupin “read” as gay, and they were both killed off ..."

rian: My ass is twitching. You people, you make my ass twitch.: "Please, someone, point out to me anywhere - in any of the books - it would have been appropriate, or relevant in any way to the main plot of the books (ie Harry's quest to defeat Voldemort), to reveal that Dumbledore (or, indeed, any one of the adult characters) was gay." (Cont. in My ass is still twitching.: "It is not Jo Rowling's job to teach children tolerance towards gay people.".)

svartalfur: *grumbles about Dumbles*: "The HP books aren't all of a sudden gay-friendly or less conservative. The hetero-normative world view still prevails, (heterosexual) marriage and breeding is still the way to salvation."

accio_arse: Dumbledore is gay' sez JKR: "So, fair dos. A big, major character is gay. Okay, my statistical annoyances are mollified. Yet I still gripe..."

emiime: Oh look! Another Dumbledore post on your flist!: "She definitely hinted at it in the text--I think we all saw it. But, looking at this from her perspective, she is in this to make money. And with the homophobic contingent [...] making up a portion of her sales, she was probably smart not to do so, from a financial perspective."

memorycharm: the news. yes, THAT news.: "This is GOOD news, y'all! It's a major character, not some random one liner Blaise/Ernie/whoever."

tigresslilly: Here we go from the top: " I predict that JKR's announcement that Dumbledore is gay is about to create a sexuality wank. Sure we're talking canon vs non-canon right now, but we'll move past that. [...] Also, I wonder about what sexuality means in the HP world."

lilithilien: I can't believe I'm glad the weekend's over!: "My personal opinion on all this? I just really wish the woman would shut up. [...] I've seen others who think we should just give her a break because gee weren't her books great (sorry, but a BIG no -- she should be held to the same standard as any other author is)."

gueneiriol wants to host a virtual convention. Help would be greatly appreciated.

celandineb has a Friday Fandom Poll with a few diverse, not fandom-specific, questions.

the_willow:

On Anglinization & Westernization Of Texts: "There are things that are lost by such mis- translations. And yes they are small things. But they are small things that add to the richness of the world building."

Random Harry Potter Thoughts. "The House System, to me (in my real life and as I perceive reflected in the HP books), seems a good focus for school spirit and for a boarding school second family/house spirit and togetherness. But it's not, and I can't believe I'm meant to think it's a sets up of a kind of blind mass prejudice; an organized otherness."

xie_xie_xie:

Please explain: RPGs: "And one of the things that makes no sense to me, holds no appeal, seems like an incomprehensible idea, is role playing games for TV shows. (...) So tell me, what is it that you like about playing them or reading them?"

Fannish thoughts before a marathon: "I simply feel that looking at the show itself is what is important and useful in analyzing the story, especially for me as someone writing in the world of the show. I also don't think it matters very much -- or at all -- what exactly was intended by the multiple creators of the show (writers, actors, etc.) as far as interpretation goes ..."


LiveJournal/6A

On 07refugees: Barak resigns as CEO of Six Apart. elfwreck offers a translation of parts of 6A's press release. ms_katonic informs us about the fandom_lounge thread on JournalFen dealing with the subject.

nosselinfea has some additional info on LJ's forthcoming Flag As Adult Content option.

Other:

morgandawn: Blogging: I "See" You!": About various search engine tools to find someone's entries, including journal posts.

I'd like to add that some of those search engines store public posts in their entirety, including images. Usually they use the built-in feed url for one's journal, so it can be helpful to change your feed settings to "title" or "summary". Simply go to http://www.insanejournal.com/admin/console , type in set synlevel title or set synlevel summary and hit "execute".

LiveJournal / 6A

kieeeeye (on 07refugees) linked to an online article from German newspaper "Der Spiegel" about the LJ Strikethrough. Link to a translation included.

bemysty (untitled): "What IS happening, however, is that independent bloggers (...) take note of this affair (...) And while the fanfic community is nearly universally disregarded as freakish, the issues themselves are being discussed from a different angle - it's not about fandom for those people because they don't belong it; they see the business and customer relations side of things."

babydraco: throwing rocks and stuff. skip if you're on my LJ: "YOU'RE normal, YOU'RE not a pervert who draws pictures of naked seventeen year old boys. -- What happens when they change the rules? And they will, because they already have more than once. Here is a list of things Livejournal has done to their customers in the four years that I've been on here."

p_zeitgeist: But, why are y'all assuming that getting rid of fic would be good for an IPO?: "I keep seeing the this line of reasoning around LJ today: Six Apart is known, or suspected, to be getting ready to do an initial public offering. (...) But I have to wonder, because it seems to me that a damned good argument can be made that getting rid of fandom would be ghastly for that projected IPO."

emilie_burns: 6A is sailing the failboat in the sea of stupid.: "However, 6A has determined that while fictional porn is harmful, illegal, and dangerous, and should be removed from their servers, there is nothing wrong with communities which advocate dangerous eating disorders and assist other users in 'tips' for self-starvation and purging."

ketchupblood (untitled): "Frankly, I'm kind of upset at how incredibly immature the fandom is being. I saw a post where they were trying to max out LJ's bandwidth or something by flooding pictures onto LJ servers. That completely reminded me of something I did in fifth grade with my fifth grade class, where we tried to cost the cafeteria some money by boycotting school lunch."



InsaneJournal / Fandom Migration

[scorienne: settling in: "I really probably ought to try to post something in the communities I've joined, because it's possible that everyone's expecting someone else to do it (the same way that I am)."] Journal has apparently been deleted by its user.

entrenous88: fannish squee and glee, part the first: "For all that keeping up with the situation and taking action is very, very important, something I'm not seeing as much right now -- and dude, this is highly important stuff -- is fannish squee and glee. To me, that's part of the fight to keep fandom alive and strong, keeping vital the reason we all started out in various fandoms to begin with -- our love for various canons, our excitement for fannish products, and our interaction with both of those resources as well as with other fans."

anniemoon asks whether we'd be interested in a fandom-oriented friending community.

ceruleagos has a poll about InsaneJournal usage.

das_dingsi: Asylums and Tags / Kategorien in Communities (tutorial on the usage of tags on InsaneJournal and how to change the tag permission level for asylums directly at the admin console)

brown_betty links to a tool that migrates not just journals, but communities.

chrome327 links to source codes / layout help for the Flexible Squares and Smooth Sailing S2 styles. Eta Aug. 15th: These layouts are NOT licensed under the GPL, which means it's illegal to use them on a site other than LiveJournal. (source)

quiltyred (on 07refugees) reminds us of the navigation strip feature.

liz_marcs found a Fake LJ-User Tag Generator to get rid of all those not-working journal links in posts.


General Fandom Meta

jadeblood: Would You Want To Be Shipped That Way?: "I have a question for people that write fan fiction, make art, or just generally ship real life celebrities together: would you want someone to see you and a friend together and begin pairing you up?"

mahoganyhandle: something that leaves me confuzzled...: "I've read a few slave fics recently and I noticed a theme that rather baffles me. In a slave fic, people seem to think that the slave would be bound so much that they'd want to serve. (...) I don't, however, see the point in making the slave so helpless and dependent on his master that he can't even take care of himself, let alone anyone else."

baffledking: Babbling about Authorial Intent: "At some point the phrase 'authorial intent' has become dirty to me. I am firmly, firmly of the opinion that the minute a text (text in this usage meaning source material) becomes available to me in it's finished form then the author's opinions are no more valid than the average internet Joe's."

yourlibrarian: How do you like your stories?: "[T]he profic/fanfic differences to me generally come out in favor of fanfic. And this is mostly because fanfic can do what profic does but the reverse is not true. One thing, for example, that I can't ever imagine seeing in a tie-in novel is a truly dark story."

purplefeen: It's rant time: Sex is not a dirty word - or a dirty act!!: "Hon, if you're going to make Willow (or any other character) ashamed, you're giving in to the small-minded toadies of the world who once told women that they were whores if they made a sound during sex."


As usual, you can leave comments with interesting links or use the screened entry mentioned in the FAQ. Older meta entries are fair game, as long as they're on InsaneJournal and from 2007.