(no subject)

[denise]

Update on the crossposting to LiveJournal issue: it appears it may be possible they've blocked all third party client access, period, not just us. Until we can track down accurate information they've posted publicly or LiveJournal is willing to provide us with guidance, at some point later today we'll be disabling the ability to crosspost to LiveJournal entirely, as it's clear this is not going to be a quick resolution or a "wait out the block" type situation.

I dearly hope we'll be able to re-enable it in the future, but if the situation hasn't resolved itself by now, it's clearly a longer term issue and there's no point in continuing to try something that is guaranteed to fail.

We will be leaving the import feature enabled for the time being, as some users have reported having intermittent success with import attempts. I can't guarantee that imports will work, though, and if they don't, we may turn that feature off as well.

I'm very sorry it's come to this, y'all, and I very much hope this crosspost disabling will be only temporary.

EDIT: Sorry, I was unclear while writing the above, and have fixed the bit that was potentially confusing! We will be disabling crossposting to LiveJournal: any crosspost attempts to LiveJournal will immediately fail and you'll get a message in your inbox saying that LiveJournal is currently unavailable as a crosspost source. Crossposting to every other site will be unaffected. We will also be pushing the fix for crossposting to InsaneJournal at the same time, so that will start working again.

Comments

[chuka_lis]

Thank you for the update.

[baranduin]

Thank you for working this above and beyond. You and Mark are the best.

[ysilme]

Thank you for your update, and for all your efforts on that behalf! I'm deeply appreciative that crossposing and import was possible for so long.

[denise]

Yeah, I'm sad that it's looking more and more like we aren't going to be able to keep up the interoperability we prided ourselves on for so long, but even if it turns out that there are ways we can, it's gonna be a longer issue to resolve than just a few days, so there's no point in allowing people to keep trying things that are guaranteed to fail.

[tabaqui]

Thank you for the update. This is so, SO frustrating, but kind of expected; LJ, unfortunately, is getting less and less responsive to issues and complaints.

We all appreciate that you're doing what you can.

[bluedreaming]

Thank you for the update, especially about imports as well! Your efforts are so much appreciated.

[chromaskies]

Thanks for the update and the being transparent, it's very much appreciated. I'd much rather (and I'm going to soon) get a paid account here rather than Livejournal. It's sad the LJ used to be so much better than this.

[chromaskies]

Oh damn, I realized how that sounded! When I say so much better than this, I mean it's been so much better than they currently are now. I didn't mean so much better than dreamwidth!

[matrixmann]

Hm... Like some have already guessed that there's a connection between the recent TOS change.
If other third party client access is affected too, then this would suit these changes.

It's sad to see Livejournal makes a coexistence that hard, after all those years where it worked somehow, but this seems the "new way" things are.
Hopefully there will be a pathway in the long term that shows up through which the interoperability can be picked up again...

[denise]

Yeah, "LJ has blocked all but a few approved clients the way that ToS clause implies" is on the list of possible root causes! We are hampered by a) not having any accurate source of information (ie any public LJ statement about the exact changes they've made, or an actual response from them to our attempts at contact) and b) being limited in how much testing we can actually do, because we only have a small range of IP addresses available to us, and if we burn all of them on testing and nothing we're testing works, we won't have any available "clean" IPs if we do figure out the root cause. But that's definitely one of our three-ish working theories right now, and we're trying to either narrow it down through empirical observation or find somewhere -- anywhere! -- LJ has discussed that changed ToS clause and how they interpret it. (Like, you can read that clause as anything from "you can't run a spambot or an account scraper" all the way down the spectrum to "we have shut off the API entirely and will never turn it on again".)

I do seriously hope we can come up with some solution (or rather, some solution that isn't "take six months to rewrite the crossposter from the ground up, introduce a shitload of new bugs, and then get the New Way of doing it blocked in 30 seconds"), because I still think the seamless (well, mostly seamless to y'all) passing data back and forth between the two sites was fucking awesome. I am not very sanguine about the chances of resolving this issue, sadly, and I'm trying to, like, mentally prepare myself for the idea that we might not be able to fix it :/

[matrixmann]

I did already wonder about how this particular paragraph can be interpreted.
For example, what's with harmless external clients people use to post to LJ? A server doesn't distinguish between a bot or an autmated activity that a real existing user sends loose intentionally.
And due to LJ offering own technical possibilities to crosspost to a selected stock of popular platforms, my mind already asked itself "How is this supposed to run from now on, if I read this clause here?".
On the other hand, nearly every platform to post on has some kind of phrase like that in their TOS, but did anyone ever encounter these blocking everything external? Nope - because they don't want to turn off their users who use the platform's service via several different external/client means. Often even specific browser extensions and apps exist for that particular platform that it distributes itself, so that users can access the service in a broad bandwith of opportunities.

So... this seems like technically not very thought through, how LJ seems to enforce its stated policy.

I also don't think to remember that there's been a recent change of laws in Russia again, so that they have anything new to comply with in order to continue operating...

[denise]

All I'll say is we have done some experimentation and will continue to do some experimentation over the next few days to see if we can figure out exactly what their plans are. Because lord knows they won't just tell us!

[mistressofmuses]

Appreciate the update, as sad as I am to hear that this is where things are at.

[ilyena_sylph]

Please see this previous comment from Denise about not lumping the people of Russia in with the actions of the Russian state at least in comments to official DW comms.

[kore]

I do think it's really important for us to remember that the primary target of any shady shit LJ pulls on its users are Russian citizens living in Russia and subject to Russian law, and that the first victims of aforementioned shady shit are always, always the dissidents, protestors, activists, and opposition inside Russia who have been fighting against their own government for decades, a government that now owns the site they used to organize on and (unless they took steps to protect themselves) has absolute access to everything they've posted as well as all their personal information, etc.

That is such an important point. I can't imagine having an inescapable totalitarian state suddenly having access to all my personal info and political posting, which they could at the very least immediately jail me for. That is terrifying.

[ex_flameandsong751]

^This. There are, for example, LGBT people in Russia who are being hurt by the actions of the Russian government, it's massively unfair to lump them in.

[cmcmck]

This!

I have a good Russian friend and fellow photographer on here and am glad of that since I left LJ years back at the time of the new ToS- I belong to a social minority placed at risk by that.

[madfilkentist]

It's a problem of the language, you might say, and infects many kinds of discussions. The same word is used for the government of a country and the people of a country. Can we talk about stupid American military adventures without implicating the American people? Can we talk about the outrageous things the Democrats and Republicans do without sounding like an attack on everyone who's registered with one of those parties because the other is worse? It is possible, but it requires precision.

In this case, though, I don't think "our Russian friends" can easily be read as anyone beyond the Russian government and the people running LJ. It's like "our friends in Washington." Anyone with reasonable understanding would recognize it means government officials, not the whole population of the city.

[winterbird]

I don't think "our Russian friends" can easily be read as anyone beyond the Russian government and the people running LJ.

I mean, I didn't interpret it the way you did. The owner of DW didn't interpret it the way you did. Other people didn't interpret it the way you did. Other people *have* clearly been using collective language referring to the Russians, if you'd bothered to read the linked post, and yes, it's entirely possible that many more people than you recognise will see continue to see it that way, which is why the correction was *appreciated* by many. Until you.

Is this really the time/place to hold a devil's advocate style discussion? You're literally the exception to the rule in this entire thread! How can you speak to what can or cannot easily be read? You really just wanted to imply that we all don't have 'reasonable understanding' because we didn't see it the way you did? No need to insult a bunch of people because they don't have your position based in devil's advocacy, especially in a thread where the note/correction is simply advocating for compassion.

Believe it or not, we're all capable of reasonable understanding too, we just prefer nuance in the language, because it's so hard to read meaning and tone in two words, and *plenty of people* have been lumping the Russians in together in these discussions, if you'd read the other linked post. So it's good to just avoid it in general in the future. :)

[jonathan_simba]

Absolutely agree.

[dustbunny105]

Thank you for you efforts and your communication on this issue!

[violetsugar]

Appreciate your looking into this and for keeping us all in the loop. Thank you.

[bemused_writer]

Such a shame that's how it's gone with LJ. Thank you for all your work on the issue!

Thanks for all your work behind the scenes.

[pronker]

It's distressing to many, I should think. I hadn't any trouble importing all my LJ on Jan. 2 and feel lucky. Let's hope the InsaneJournal issue goes well.

Re: Thanks for all your work behind the scenes.

[denise]

The IJ issue should be fixed now, I think! Unless Mark got ambushed by a sleepy toddler before he could finish the fix

[cpthorn]

Thank you so much, you and Mark, for supporting Dreamwidth and making it better! Just ditch LJ integration completely if SUP doesn't want to play by the rules. People who wanted to migrate to DW, have already done it anyway.

[denise]

Love and support to you from over here.

[cpthorn]

Thank you! Many Ukrainians, including me, had used LJ in the past, but migrated to DW because of Putin's aggression toward our country. Dreamwidth is a place of democracy and freedom.

[arethinn]

Yikes. If the importer permanently ceases to work that would suck. "You can import your LJ!" has always been a selling point for trying to get people to migrate :-/

[kore]

Thank you and Mark and everyone for your honesty and transparency and real effort to try to get this fixed. It bums me out because I remember when people were saying LJ and DW were not enemies! I think I even have a couple of "Make love, not war DW/LJ" icons from that time.

[ex_flameandsong751]

Thank you and Mark for working so hard to keep the site functional and for your openness and transparency with communication. Please accept these cuddles from my kittens.

period, not just us.

[rotbar]

Понятно.

Re: period, not just us.

[denise]

😢

Re: period, not just us.

[rotbar]

I moved to you on time, чо...

Re: period, not just us.

[denise]

It makes me so sad that it's come to this.

Re: period, not just us.

[denise]

we'll be here for you all as long as we can be, though, that I can promise ❤️

[pritkiy_kaban]

Thanks for the update.

It is sad that import feature might have to go, but I do believe it might affect only smallish amount of LJ users. Most guys and gals who'd ever contemplated using DW, with old LJ account coupled via crossposts, are here already.

[denise]

Yes -- if we have to then it off I will be sad, because of how hard we've worked to keep it working as well as it has for so long, but 13 years is not a bad record for keeping data flowing both ways, right? Especially since half the time was without any cooperating at all!

I'll repeat what I said to the guy below (I'm working on comments going up): I am so, so sorry about what you all are going through over there. I remember how happy we were in the very early days of LJ to realize how truly global our website really was! And now all those things we all built together are in the hands of the exact wrong people, and all I can do is watch.

[pritkiy_kaban]

Exactly. 13 years is not bad at all, especially while swimming upstream and "enjoying" a reluctant cooperation.

Seeing what LJ gravitates to is frustrating, to say the least. But it is not your doing, it can't be fixed (at least not under current domestic policy in Russia), and the next best thing to do was to offer ample opportunity for LJ users to move their content to safer place, which is what you did.

[dzatochnik]

It's just ridiculous. Are you users of LJ or users of DW? Make your choice. If you're users of DW, don't support rotten, blooding, f*ing LJ.

[denise]

I am so sorry about all the things you are all going through right now over there.

I am especially mad at LJ because of how *happy* we were to watch Russian speaking LJ grow back in 2002-2005. We built a place that became so global there was an entire other half of LJ most people from English speaking LJ never saw! It was AMAZING and I was so HAPPY to be even a little tiny part of making it. Even if I got teased about my very very bad high school Russian. 🤣 (I could never spell in Russian. At ALL.)

And now it's this. And I am just sad, and angry, and I wish I could do more for you all.

[dzatochnik]

Sorry? Thanks, but I'm fine. DW is a perfect blog hosting to me.
No ads, no stupid Facebook-like policy, great admins. Keep going, please!

[denise]

Oh, I meant you folks in Russia! I know there are a lot of you who know how to avoid the censorship and keep yourselves safe online -- and I know it's still not everyone who does know. And it makes me so mad that a site I put so much of my effort into is being used for that surveillance! Even if it did lead to something better over here, eventually 😁

[dzatochnik]

Oh, I get it! Yeah, our National Leader... I hope, democratic Russia and US will be friends again. Our friendship began in 18th century: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_League_of_Armed_Neutrality

[shirebound]

Crossposting has been a wonderful feature, and I want to thank you for having it for so long. If only all customer service and communication were as clear and customer-driven as yours.

[med_cat]

Agreed!

[kaishin108]

Thank you so much! I sure appreciate all you are doing.

[frith]

Thank you for the update. ^_^ I've been waiting since 2017 for LJ to drop their TOS and as such crossposting to LJ has failed for me since then. As of yesterday I've dropped the automatic crossposting to LJ setting. Dreamwidth is home.

[lash_larue]

My apologies for my ill-considered comment.

[dreamsrundeep]

You've done your level best. Thank you so much for transparency and keeping this community going! <3