We wanted to address some concerns about the program put in place last month regarding adult content. This system came about due to a variety of legal, community, and industry standards. There are no punitive measures for deciding not to participate, and is designed so that logged-in users over the age of 18 should not see any change in their experience on LiveJournal. With that in mind, we would like to communicate information we have regarding some concerns.
- A process for notifying authors that an individual entry has been administratively set to "Explicit" is in progress. As soon as this feature is released we will post again to let you know about it.
- For users who registered before a date of birth was required, we wanted to remind you that you may enter your date of birth on the Edit Profile page. Under the heading "Birthday" it is possible to hide that information, make it publicly visible, or show it only to friends. You may also decide what format to use when showing the information (Month, Day, and Year; only Month and Day; or only Year).
- We'd like to reiterate that there's no effect at all from a single user flagging another user's content. After multiple flags, the content will be reviewed. There is a system in place to make it so that flags used by someone for improper reasons (harassing another user user, working out a personal grudge, or systematically flagging content which does not fit a category) will no longer count towards the threshold for review in any category. This system has been working well thus far - we will make any adjustments needed to ensure this continues to work as intended and is not used as a tool for harassment. Part of this assessment may include changes to the internal processing or external appearance of the flagging system.
Blocked Search Terms
Some users have noted that there are certain search terms which are currently blocked from use. We can clarify the following things:
- The list was created in June of this year and an update was added in late October
- The blocked search terms are not related to the search filter which was put in place with the Adult Content program
- The blocked search terms are not related to the recent purchase of LiveJournal and were made earlier this year, as stated above
- We will continue to review the blocked terms and update or remove them as necessary; however, we will not be posting updates when we do so.
- We are reviewing the system for a different solution to the problem, but will likely not announce or comment on any changes
We're sorry we can't share more information, but we wanted to address the issue to let you know we are aware of your concerns. Whenever possible, we will communicate information to you, even if it's just to say that we can't comment.
Why not?
Edited at 2007-12-20 12:28 am (UTC)
Question.
Is there any way that Six Apart/SUP would consider lifting the new tag limit for LJ communities and individual users? It's particularly difficult as a customer when you're given functionality only to have LJ take it away.
Aside from the question of the new policy being extremely dubious customer service, tags serve a vital function for large LJ communities; they allow users to sort and find content that they need. This is particularly important for comms devoted to academic discussions, scholarship, current affairs, news, etc. There's also the question of RPGs, where a comm can max out the one thousand tag limit within a month.
When will the tag limit be lifted? Who should users contact if we want to express our concerns over this loss of functionality?
Edit: I'd like to echo the concern about your post stating that you won't be posting updates on the search term blockage. Is that really your idea of good communication with customers?
Jesus H. Christ.
Edited at 2007-12-20 12:30 am (UTC)
Re: Question.
This flys in the face of any claims of transparancy you could make now.
Could you fix the system so it doesn't ban terms containing similar letters?
(Edited to fix typo)
Edited at 2007-12-20 12:59 am (UTC)
Just a suggestion. I think things are heading in a more positive direction than they were previously, so as long as you pay attention to the issues that many people have brought up, I think things will only improve.
*Edit: First page!
Edited at 2007-12-20 12:41 am (UTC)
Thank you for the affirmative comment - we are reading and paying attention to what effects everyone and hope you'll see the result of that in the future, too.
2) I would very much like to see an announcement made if drastic changes are made to this list of terms, or if a different solution is implemented.
3) If searching must be restricted in this way, can more careful attention be paid to not blocking unrelated terms? e.g. blocking a particular term resulted in users being unable to search for such unobjectionable interests as "spicy food" and "hospice." These terms are now searchable, but so is the term I assume was being intentionally blocked. There's a similar problem with the word "fagioli"-- in the event that some were interested in discussing Italian cooking, this might be a problem...
"We're sorry we can't share more information"
We are reviewing the system for a different solution to the problem
What everyone is asking is, just what IS this problem? Or won't anyone know until some whistleblower has the courage to leak a memo?
Re: "We're sorry we can't share more information"
There are certainly many potential examples that come to mind. For instance, if I list 'murder' as an interest, that wouldn't make me a murderer or potential murderer -- or even weird. (In my case, I have more than one friend who has had a family member murdered, so it would actually make sense -- though I don't list murder as an interest.)
A person can take an interest in things they find entirely immoral and repellent. But being interested doesn't signify approval or participation in something. (Isn't this clear to everyone by now?)
(LiveJournal just isn't the same place I joined back in 2002, I'm afraid...)
Besides, I'm pretty sure that there's a legitimate, non-illegal reason to use every single one of the blocked interests. For example, "genocide" is a blocked interest. One of the things I studied a few years ago was genocide -- am I not allowed to be interested in the subject? Am I not allowed to talk to other people who are also interested in it?
[Except I didn't study genocide. I studied maths.]