| Sour Tones
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| Date and Time |
- | Apr. 28th, 2008, 01:44 am | |
| Current Mood |
- |  awake | |
| Current Music |
- | air purifier | |
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As ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) insomnia likes to point out, LiveJournal is shrinking. Many blame SixApart and SUP for this decline, and it true that the actions of those corporations have contributed to the slow bleed of users. However, I believe the root cause is much deeper. The tone of the LiveJournal community has changed. It has become more vicious, more snark-centric, more hateful and cliquish. There has always been drama on LiveJournal, but it has not always been like it is now. Often now one misspoken word in a community or the mention of a viewpoint out of the mainstream will be taken out of context and a flood of mean-spirited attacks will flood the comments of a post from users mobbing in from any one of the countless snark communities that have cropped up. I've been on LiveJournal almost 7 years at this point, and this increasing ugliness has me more concerned for LiveJournal than anything SixApart did or SUP is doing. Neither SixApart nor SUP are LiveJournal, LiveJournal is the community that inhabits this virtual place and that community is decaying. I'm sure I'm far from the only long-time user who is disenchanted by the current LiveJournal environment and I don't see what the motivation would be for many new users to become part of it. I have not been involved in any drama around here recently, so this post hasn't been triggered by a specific event. The problem is that LiveJournal doesn't seem like a community anymore, at least not a communities that I want to consider myself part of. I don't intend on leaving completely, but I've been spending a lot less time here. I've got other things to do. |
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| Comments: |
More cliquish, yep. I think some people set up communities just for themselves and their cronies and really don't want outsiders to join, unless they agree with everything said or keep quiet.
I blame the Bush administration. Everything has gotten nastier, colder, and more cynical, not just LiveJournal.
Funny, I've seen the opposite. Most of the communities I'm involved in have been really mellow lately. I imagine it really all depends on what the topic is and what's going on in current events that might relate to the community.
![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/community.gif) thequestionclub has been mellow? And davis_square now has it's own special snark community. But the mobbings can happen in any community, regardless of topic. All you need is one member to report it. Sometimes they don't even happen in communities, but in personal journals. New users are especially vulnerable and new users are what LiveJournal desperately needs right now. The total number of users lost each month is in the thousands. Every "flounce" celebration in the snark communities is another piece of that. Every person who leaves because they have been mobbed or because they see others mobbed is another piece of that. Every person who feels the need to be extra careful about what they post now, and just slowly becomes disinterested and slips away is another piece of that. The tone might not be the only cause of the shrinkage, but it is definitely a large part of it. Edited at 2008-04-28 02:08 pm (UTC)
I think it really does just come down to what the community is, and what the current events are for that community. Any community that involves any sort of political discussion is inevitably going to have cycles of messy discussion, particularly these days.
Regardless, what do you think we can do to make things better in the communities that are getting less pleasant to be a part of?
I'm not talking about political discussions and the like, I'm talking about the aggressive mobbings that flood in from "snark" communities. These aren't usually members of the attacked post's community, but the enter target posts and communities community to harass and shout down the members.
It's one thing to have arguments and debates with other community members, it's quite another to attacked by an online mob. And in seeing these attacks, other uses are going to be more hesitant when they post and potential users are less likely to want to join.
Interesting post I have to say I have not been swept into to much drama. Once I was slammed but it was personal assault by someone in a mycology community , the rest of the folks are quite nice but the guy had big problems with my MAD Woo Woo-ness it was not the community it was an individual I choose not to respond and ended up feeling sorry for the guy cause I realized that he lives in such a limited and small box of reality that it is kind of a sad thing but you can see what he wrote here it is based only on my public profile since he did not want to friend me to see who I was http://vyoma108.blogspot.com/2007/09/woo-and-mycology-collide.html
I read that before and it could be truth, and then again maybe not.
It is hard to predict what will people do and for what reasons.
I do have friends in my friends list that have been member for years.
So who knows what the future holds. | |
