Siderea

A lot of people are complaining that LJ Never Listens. Actually, they are listening. The post to news followed the suggestion/outcry to that effect on lj_releases. The first point on the clarification post to lj_releases was that while the beta had infinite scroll, making that optional was the first item on the to-do-before-launch list. The second point concerned adding custom controls for readability and accessibility.

LJ -- SUP -- is listening. They aren't getting everything right, and they aren't giving users everything users have demanded, but you know, "listening" doesn't mean "conceding all points immediately."

I'd remind everyone that SUP is not 6A. While SUP has done plenty of boneheaded things of their own, the really egregious contempt for users was shown by past management, not these guys. I keep hearing people talk about livejournal-the-company as if it was one continuous entity. It hasn't been.

There is this hellacious feedback loop going on right now where users have been freshly outraged (not unreasonably), and add their outrage to their memories of helplessness to get the PTB at LJ to take their outrage seriously. This leads to the users addressing the LJ team who have never done users wrong with, "You always do this to me!" This doesn't make the human beings behind the corporate identity want to communicate with you. They likely (not unreasonably) think, "Holy @#%*! It doesn't matter how reasonably we behave, a wave of unreasoning rage and hatred will fill our inboxes: why bother trying."

Except they are still trying. The cry went out, FOR THE LOVE OF LITTLE APPLES, PLEASE JUST COMMUNICATE WITH US, and so... they are! Could we not punish them for moving in the right direction?

I don't mean not arguing with them: by all means, argue with them. I don't mean not disagreeing with them: by all means, disagree with them. I don't mean not expressing strong emotion with them: by all means, let them know how upset you are with their designs (pun intended).

I mean only this: don't saddle them with the sins of their fathers. These are not the dicks who committed Strikethrough. These are not the people who brought ads to LJ. By all means, hold them accountable for what they do. Do not hold them accountable for what others before them did.

Because no human being handles the unfairness of being held responsible for someone else's wrong gracefully.

So knock it off with "LJ never listens." Try "LJ has had a terrible history of listening to us in the past. You can do better. Please listen to us now. We care about LJ and want to see it succeed, and we hate what you're doing, and since we're part of the demographic you need to please, you'd probably better pay attention to our opinion."

And knock it off the with "buts", as in, "Thank you for clarifying, but it's not good enough..." You can say that without the "but": "Thank you for clarifying. That's very helpful. Now that I have basis to discuss your plans, I want to let you know how much I hate that..." It's not a "but" statement -- it doesn't sit in contradiction of the "thank you" -- it's an "and" statement: "Thank you for fixing problem #1 and problems #2 through #46 still exist."

The only place that "but" of contradiction makes rhetorical sense is in the latent, imaginary argument in one's head as to whether one is justified in being angry with or hating LJ. "Your clarification is a righteous behavior but insufficient to compensate, in my assessment of how much you suck, for all the other crap you've done." Or more concisely, "Yeah, but LJ still sucks for the following reason", as if the matter of debate isn't whether what LJ has done sucks, but whether LJ itself (or its staff) suck. The "but" betrays that you're really, in your heart, arguing the case of Why LJ Sucks, not What LJ Is Screwing Up This Time.

Unless you really believe that LJ-the-corporate-entity is emotionally a 10yo girl which will respond to "You suck" by coming to you, crushed, pleading that you tell her how to get back in your good graces (a nice fantasy, yes), you have to grant that telling LJ "You Suck" is not likely to get the result you want. (You are totally within your rights to commiserate with other users as to Why LJ Sucks. It's in registering your disapproval with LJ that I am addressing efficacy.)

Life for everyone will be easier if we focus on telling LJ that things its done suck (or things it might do would suck), than telling LJ that it sucks. For one thing, the former is more specific and can lead to LJ, the corporate entity and the people constituting it, going, "Oh! Right! We should totally post that to news", e.g. Whereas the latter mostly results in a shirty, "Well, what do you want me to do about that?" (even if only articulated in the recipients' heads[*].)

[* I have a great story about that. Some other time.]