Lessons I learned in the last couple days…

[marguerite_26]

Careful clicking on those [REPOST THIS] buttons on LJ.

They are so handy! And great for spreading the word about something quickly. And on a lazy Saturday morning, with your coffee in one hand and your finger scrolling through your flist, they are so easy to click.

I know this is part of the sexiness of tumblr, it's so easy to reblog! \o/ [and thus ends my knowledge of tumblr. /is old]

So, the issues that happened this weekend was that LJ posted an announcement about Scrapbook in Russian. It got translated. (not sure how well or how poorly) and a post was created stating a number of things that may or may not have been natural conclusions from that translation. Here is my post on that issue, which has now been edited to help mitigate the spreading of incorrect information. Including removing the [re-post this] button.

The first line was definitely an attention getter: Livejournal Scrapbook is going away. Your 10GB of Paid Member space is now 2GB..

This naturally induced some panic and the need to spread the word. So the 'POST THIS IN YOUR LJ' button got used rather a lot. In my post, for example, I have 3 pages of pingback-bots notifications of all the people that re-blogged my post.

However.

The information in that many, many, many, reblogged post was incorrect. Whether because of a poor translation or misinformation on LJs part, or misunderstanding on the original posters part, it's unclear. The original post has been deleted, and the links that it the post led too seem to have been 'corrected' to avoid confusion.

On Monday LJ finally provided a proper English translation of the release announcement of the new Scrapbook.

Which states clearly (among other things that would have avoided all the confusion on the weekend):

Will I still have the same amount of storage space for my images?
Yes, all account levels will retain the same storage space levels as before, including if you've purchased the extra storage space add-on. These levels are not being reduced.

However I am still getting pingbacks (another 10 today!) telling me that people are still ~spreading the word about LJs evil ways, and how outraged they are about losing Scrapbook.


I'm not saying LJ's not at fault. They should have had an English translation ready to follow immediately after their announcement in Russian. They should have anticipated peoples' worry that their pics would be lost or filtered fics made public.

I'm just saying that my personal lesson here is the power of that 'share' button and how once you share something that you didn't write, your name is still associated with those words, and as people continue to share it you lose all control of the message and the ability to correct it, if it's proved wrong. so... lesson learned. /o\

Comments

[girlofavalon.livejournal.com]

I confess that I thought the whole thing sounded a bit too sensationalist from the start.

[marguerite-26.livejournal.com]

Given everything LJs pulled in the last 6 months, can you really think that the above was impossible?

Maybe if we hadn't found out about the removal of subject lines the exact same way (ie: a Russian announcement that a user translated and started spreading the word) then I would say the same. But I think most people have lost trust in LJ treating their English customer base with any respect.

I can understand perfectly why this was so easy to believe.

[girlofavalon.livejournal.com]

Well... yes, even with the other things that LJ pulled in the last 6 months I found it a bit much even for LJ.

[marguerite-26.livejournal.com]

I don't share your faith.

[girlofavalon.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't call it faith. It's... I don't know. I believed in the other things. I just had a feeling about this one. It's not faith or trust.

[k-nightfox.livejournal.com]

As my dad used to say, "Live and learn, kid. Live and learn!" *hugs* LJ is good at teaching us painful and sometimes humiliating lessons, isn't it?

[marguerite-26.livejournal.com]

heh. "Just helping to spread the word... "

it seemed like such a good idea at the time.

[hogwartsvixxxen.livejournal.com]

*sighs* with LJ it's always something. Thanks for posting this ♥ *hugs* If people I loved weren't here...

[marguerite-26.livejournal.com]

If people I loved weren't here...

me too... damn. :/

[hogwartsvixxxen.livejournal.com]

♥

[rufflefeather.livejournal.com]

I... didn't even know there was a repost button. /noob

[marguerite-26.livejournal.com]

It's not on every post, though you can always click this '+' button at the top of a post to 'share' it.

But I meant the button you can add to the middle of your post. It's a special html. You've likely seen it on stop SOPA type posts.

[moonie]

Man, LJ really needs to start releasing information in Russian and English at the same time and through official comms only. That's the only way to stop these freak-outs based on misinformation, imo.

[marguerite-26.livejournal.com]

Yes. and Yes.

[junkshop-disco.livejournal.com]

I still think LJ was at fault for not posting the news in Russian and English at the same time - they should have learnt from the last debacle and anticipated that non-Russian speakers already feel out of the loop and are expecting more bad news every time there's a change to the service. I read the post about the new scrapbook when it went up along with the first few pages of comments, and maybe it's just my cynicism, but tbh, I didn't feel massively reassured. The only mention I saw of the rumoured downgrade of storage space was in the comments, with a member of staff saying as far as they were aware, there was no plan to limit to 2GB... but to me that just begs the question 'but are you aware of all the plans, random admin person who drew the short straw about announcing this to the rabid masses?' If you know there's incorrect information doing the rounds amongst your customers, is it not better to come out with a strong statement in the actual post and say, 'hey, we know this is doing the rounds. It's untrue. Paid users will still have 10GB'?

[marguerite-26.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it wasn't the first time. And that time it WAS true. :/


with a member of staff saying as far as they were aware, there was no plan to limit to 2GB... but to me that just begs the question 'but are you aware of all the plans, random admin person who drew the short straw about announcing this to the rabid masses?'
yes! It's definitely hard to be reassured in a long thread of comments that aren't confirmed with an announcement post. Consider the incorrect information (and the flurry of questions to LJ) started Saturday morning (my time) and nothing was officially announced in English until Monday morning, they are doing something wrong.

[katelinmr.livejournal.com]

I was so scared! But thilia translated it properly and yeah, I'm ok with it now.

[marguerite-26.livejournal.com]

Oh good, glad you got a good translation. :)

[tourdefierce.livejournal.com]

This post gave me warm fuzzy feelings inside because you're Maggie and I'm irrational and hungover.

♥

Personal lessons rock.

[marguerite-26.livejournal.com]

hey bb! ♥

I'm so glad my embarrassment makes you all fuzzy! You understand me. *tackles*

[moonlitdark.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately, the part of this that was concerning me is still causing me to fret.

1) Any images which are set to "Public" or "Registered Users" in Scrapbook will be set to "Public" in the new system.

2) Any other security settings you have used will be converted to "Private". Because custom groups in Scrapbook can differ from those in your LiveJournal account, this was the only way ensure that access to images is not granted to someone who isn't intended to have access.

I imagine this will take me a while to fix. I have quite a mixture of security settings for pics on individual posts and I have a LOT of art posts. :(