コマエダの希望理論

The demise of a social media platform: Tracking Livejournal's decline.

chiming-bell:

dojicons:

As someone who moved from LJ to DW, this is a pretty interesting read.

I only get involved in the site back in 2010, a few years after the start of the decline. I stuck with it because my friends, RPs and fandoms are there, but happily moved over because I’m worried about my friends’ inaccessibility and discomfort with LJ.

I still have my icon journal on LJ, but posting to my usual icon communities with it is more of a pain than normal (the brighter colour scheme and loading times bug me). So I’ve been using DW’s beautiful crossposting option.

So yeah.

LJ left many people with a bad taste.

No mention of how the staff, on the Russian version of the site, essentially stated that RPers were unwelcome on the site?

And I remember the massive fit over the subject lines being removed. Oh god. 

Ahahah, everything about that and R88 pretty much deserve its own post.

Which was a bad idea, since no matter whether we’re in the minority or not, RPers are still a part of their userbase (there’s still some RPers on LJ, last I heard?).

And yes, I remember the subject lines. Oh god, subject lines. Just switching to custom layout just to see them is more effort than necessary, and let’s not forget all the communities that need subject lines, or how people use them to warn for potential triggers (and spoilers, but triggers is a bigger issue).