The Ferrett (![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} theferrett) wrote,@ 2008-03-22 15:32:00 |
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Just To Clarify My Stance
I'm not against protesting. You guys wanna protest? Go right ahead.
But whatever protest you do should be effective. A protest that doesn't work just makes you look weaker in the long run. I disagree with the idea that "doing something" is always better than "doing nothing," since planning and implementation counts heavily in my book (as perhaps may be illustrated by the fifth anniversary of the Iraq War, which also occured on Friday).
As many pointed out, not posting on LJ means that the company actually saves money and makes it easier for them, because they now have lowered bandwidth costs and servers with spare capacity. Furthermore, as I noted, it's quite possible that you'd miss the blip because, well, you probably don't post daily like I do. The folks behind the LJ Blackout looked at it not from the perspective of "What would really hurt the company?" but rather, "What would I hate to see happen?" The folks at LJ, by and large, don't care what you post as long as it's not illegal.
However, the![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/community.gif)
statements community (as well as a few others) turned the idea on its head: What if we posted a lot? They were trying to get to 9,000 posts, and they ended up at an astonishing 11,511. Posting a lot is impossible to miss, since even one guy can consume a disproportionate share of server resources, and especially if people comment and wind up sending emails everywhere. And as opposed to a negative, this is a positive that everyone can see quickly.
Admittedly, 11,511 posts isn't a drop in the bucket compared to the huge majority of LJ. (EDIT: And maybe I'm wrong on that - the current stats show 4,792 posts per hour, but I'm not 100% sure if that counts communities.) But if everyone in the LJ Strike had decided to post, say, fifty posts that day - which would also disrupt people's friends' lists and make it impossible for them to ignore the issue - it would have much more of a disrupting effect. (It might also land you with the banhammer, admittedly, but you pays your money and you takes your chances. If you wanna play it safe with your pals and not annoy them with your politics, well then create paid communities to post in.) And if you'd all agreed to auto-refresh your friends' pages every thirty seconds, creating a Firefox plugin to do it so they'd have much more bandwidth used that day, then that might be even better still.
(Though how close that is to a DDOS attack is worth questioning - there are some places I'm not sure I'd be comfortable going, hence the "might.")
If everybody for the LJ Blackout had instead decided to post seventy billion things, I'd probably have been a lot more for it. I'd still think you were intensely silly for getting bent out of shape because they're not giving you everything for free, but at least it would be a form of protest that had a much better chance of actually inconveniencing the people whose attention you want to get. That, I could get behind on some level.
But we shall see. They might try as best they can within the realms of profitability to listen to you anyway, which would be nice. (Their communication on these issues? Sucked ass.) We can all hope for that, just as I hope y'all can come to an understanding that "staying profitable" is an end that LJ not only can, but should, pursue.
(Also, sorry I posted on the day, not before, but I was busy on Thursday and had friends over last night. Not the best timing, but current events do not always sync with the post time of a weasel.)
I'm not against protesting. You guys wanna protest? Go right ahead.
But whatever protest you do should be effective. A protest that doesn't work just makes you look weaker in the long run. I disagree with the idea that "doing something" is always better than "doing nothing," since planning and implementation counts heavily in my book (as perhaps may be illustrated by the fifth anniversary of the Iraq War, which also occured on Friday).
As many pointed out, not posting on LJ means that the company actually saves money and makes it easier for them, because they now have lowered bandwidth costs and servers with spare capacity. Furthermore, as I noted, it's quite possible that you'd miss the blip because, well, you probably don't post daily like I do. The folks behind the LJ Blackout looked at it not from the perspective of "What would really hurt the company?" but rather, "What would I hate to see happen?" The folks at LJ, by and large, don't care what you post as long as it's not illegal.
However, the
statements community (as well as a few others) turned the idea on its head: What if we posted a lot? They were trying to get to 9,000 posts, and they ended up at an astonishing 11,511. Posting a lot is impossible to miss, since even one guy can consume a disproportionate share of server resources, and especially if people comment and wind up sending emails everywhere. And as opposed to a negative, this is a positive that everyone can see quickly. Admittedly, 11,511 posts isn't a drop in the bucket compared to the huge majority of LJ. (EDIT: And maybe I'm wrong on that - the current stats show 4,792 posts per hour, but I'm not 100% sure if that counts communities.) But if everyone in the LJ Strike had decided to post, say, fifty posts that day - which would also disrupt people's friends' lists and make it impossible for them to ignore the issue - it would have much more of a disrupting effect. (It might also land you with the banhammer, admittedly, but you pays your money and you takes your chances. If you wanna play it safe with your pals and not annoy them with your politics, well then create paid communities to post in.) And if you'd all agreed to auto-refresh your friends' pages every thirty seconds, creating a Firefox plugin to do it so they'd have much more bandwidth used that day, then that might be even better still.
(Though how close that is to a DDOS attack is worth questioning - there are some places I'm not sure I'd be comfortable going, hence the "might.")
If everybody for the LJ Blackout had instead decided to post seventy billion things, I'd probably have been a lot more for it. I'd still think you were intensely silly for getting bent out of shape because they're not giving you everything for free, but at least it would be a form of protest that had a much better chance of actually inconveniencing the people whose attention you want to get. That, I could get behind on some level.
But we shall see. They might try as best they can within the realms of profitability to listen to you anyway, which would be nice. (Their communication on these issues? Sucked ass.) We can all hope for that, just as I hope y'all can come to an understanding that "staying profitable" is an end that LJ not only can, but should, pursue.
(Also, sorry I posted on the day, not before, but I was busy on Thursday and had friends over last night. Not the best timing, but current events do not always sync with the post time of a weasel.)
