ADMIN: Taking a poll...

[virtualinsomnia]

I thought that more people might answer a poll, since it takes less time than writing out a comment. I'm leaning towards flocking everything at this point, since it really does seem safer, but I do want to get as much feedback as possible. Also, the second question is possibly even MORE important than the first, as it will help me figure out how I'm going to go about implementing things if I decide the flocking is definitely a go. It's all hypothetical at this point, of course, but it helps me plan more accurately, seeing as locking down the whole comm is going to be a HUGE undertaking.

Please, please, please vote! And vote honestly. That is crucial. Even if it's to tell me that you hate the idea of friends locking so much that you'd leave the comm over it, I still want to know. I want as much feedback as possible, good and bad. It's the only way to make an informed decision.

Thanks guys! :-)

[Poll #1036003]

Oh, and in case it wasn't clear, on question 2, option 2: when I say "a month" what I mean is a month's worth of fic. Like, you'd be assigned one month of past entries, and your job would be to check and see what fic hasn't been locked and comment on the posts in question requesting that the authors lock them. And then maybe check back in a few days and see if it was done.

It doesn't have to be exactly a month's worth, either. If you felt you could handle 2 or 3 months, that'd be awesome! And if you could only do, say, a week's worth, that would still be very much appreciated. Even a DAY'S worth would be helpful! *g*

ETA: We might not actually need people for question 2, option 2. kernelm is working on a script that might take a lot of the work out of it. But please still answer that question honestly, if you don't mind. For if the script doesn't work, we'll have to go back to plan B and assign months (or weeks or days) to people.

Comments

[jadeleopard.livejournal.com]

I'm really sorry, but I can't help out at all. But luckily I'm only a reader, so I have no community posts that need locking :)

[virtualinsomnia]

Hey, no worries. I know people have busy lives. Believe me, I do, too! I'm just testing the waters.

And also? Awesome icon! :-D

[thegiantkiller.livejournal.com]

I always log in to view LJ, so flocking makes no difference to me.

[virtualinsomnia]

Thanks for the input!

[franklymydear.livejournal.com]

The one thing I interpreted from LJ's "clarification" was that even if you did lock down posts, it wouldn't necessarily be a better protection if something was reported... Locking didn't seem to matter if they decided their TOS was violated on a reported post(s). That was my impression, anyway. Buuut... I'd totally be willing to help out. I only have an hour or two a day but I'd be willing to offer a week or two if needed.... :)

[virtualinsomnia]

I know you can still be TOSed on locked posts, however, it's my hope that nobody in this comm would report one of our posts, since nobody wants to cause anything bad to happen to their own comm. And if there was a post that DID bother people enough to consider reporting it, I'd hope that instead they'd come to me and let me handle it without bringing the LJ brass into things. My thought is, if the members aren't (hopefully!) going to be reporting anything, and non-members can't see the posts, then how would we ever get on the LJ Abuse team's radar in the first place?

And thank you so much for the offer! :-)

[laiquendai.livejournal.com]

just sticking a comment here saying I'd be willing to help - I'm a reader rather than a writer, so I don't think I have anything to flock, but if I can help, I'd be more than willing to.

[virtualinsomnia]

Thank you! It's much appreciated. If we proceed with the locking down, which looks fairly likely at this point, I'll be posting an official post asking for help and planning out how we're going to proceed, etc. So be on the lookout! :-)

[ceslas.livejournal.com]

Much as I think this is by and large just another hiccup of corporate being well...corporate, I appreciate the concern writers have. As the mod you must ultimately make the choice and the hope is that we have felt like this is home, so we will support you in any way we can. As most things in life though, I think it will blow over and become a largely non-issue. I could be wrong about that though.

[virtualinsomnia]

Thank you for your support! :-)

[ana-grrl.livejournal.com]

I think perhaps it would be better to, rather than lock the community as a whole, ask writers to lock any future fic that might be targeted as problematic (ie smut, anything with underage River, incest), or, post an unlocked LINK to the story (so that it's not on the comm itself).

Also, I'm not sure that requiring authors to go back and lock their old posts would be a great idea - I honestly can't remember when I've posted stories, and the archive is huge. If you do decide to lock the whole community, is there a way for the community owner to flock old posts?

[virtualinsomnia]

I'm not sure what the point would be of locking just the new posts. As long as Tamcest and other River pairings with an adult rating are in the archive as public entries, if such things get targeted, then we're in danger. If we don't lock them all down, then there doesn't seem to be a point to locking any of them down. And with the way they're handling things, they probably won't give us the courtesy of a warning before they simply start deleting accounts, should they choose to. Maybe I'm worrying too much about it, but I'd rather be safe than sorry.

I know the archive is huge. Believe me, I know. If you'll recall, I was trying to go through and tag all of the old fic, and we all know how that turned out. I never finished because the project was just too daunting! (And also, unlike with this issue, if I stopped tagging, nobody's acct. was in danger of being deleted, so it just didn't seem all that urgent.)

I wish there was a way for me to click a button and just lock everything. There's a way for it to be done on personal journals, so I don't see why it couldn't be done for comms. I think it should be an option. But alas, LJ does not agree with me. I can set it so that all new posts default to locked, but for the old posts they have to be locked manually, and I can't do the locking myself. All I can do is comment on them and ask the author to do it, or simply delete the post.

Basically, without help from you guys, my hands are completely tied. And since I am the sole mod of the comm, if they decide to go after us, I (along with the writers of the fic in question, of course) am likely to be targeted.

So without help from the members, my options are to either leave it alone and just take my chances, which puts me and the other authors at risk should LJ decide to start going after fic, or delete the whole comm, or move us elsewhere (which would be a huge undertaking in and of itself).

Basically, it's a huge mess. Man, I hate that it's even come down to this! :-(

[bookaddict43.livejournal.com]

From what I read of the TOS I honestly don't think you need to lock down the whole comm.

Perhaps a new rule for those who post CSI or underage fic asking that they, if it's possible, lock their posts?

[virtualinsomnia]

I agree that the non-River fics are not a danger, however locking down just the River fic is a lot more difficult than locking down everything. Either way, I (and anyone willing to help me) will have to go back and start asking people to lock their old fics. That's a given. But if we lock everything, then we can just ask everyone, and we won't have to go searching for the River fic. And also, I can set it up so that all posts default to locked in the future, which means this will never have to come up again. If I am just locking River fic, then I'll have to set up a watchdog type group to take turns being on the lookout for River fic when it's posted and check to be sure it's locked each time. If I set it all to come in locked, then I don't have to worry about future fic, which is TONS easier.

So to sum up, either way has it's problems and both will require a lot of work, but locking everything seems to require LESS work, all in all.

[ecchipiro.livejournal.com]

Yes, I'd f-lock at least the NC-17 material.

I'd state in the profile people have to join and be of age for reading it.

Anything below NC-17 I wouldn't lock down.
That way younger people can friend the comm at least and read the less juicy fics. :)

[virtualinsomnia]

As I just said in an above comment to bookaddict43, locking down just certain fics is a lot more complicated than locking down everything. After all the old fics are dealt with, I can set it up so that it just defaults to locked in the future, which means I don't have to worry about it. But if only certain fics are to be locked, I have to figure out some kind of monitoring system to see that everyone locks when they're supposed to.

[dknightshade.livejournal.com]

I kind of wanted an option that was something between 2 and 3 on the second question. Since you offered up modly powers as part of the third option, I wanted to say that to me it would seem to be more efficient to give volunteers modly powers for a day or two to go back and just lock all the posts in a given month (or 2 or 3 or whatever they signed up to do). I'm sure there are stories by people who aren't active in fandom anymore or who've dropped off the net. But obviously that's only if you feel comfortable with that.

But in reading things over again, I think that for now that comm is pretty safe. I could see that changing though...

[virtualinsomnia]

Honestly, the modly powers thing doesn't help for the actual locking of the fics. Mods can't change security settings for posts that they themselves didn't post. They can just delete them if need be. So regardless of how the mod thing turns out, the authors themselves will have to lock down the posts, which means that I and anyone who's willing to help me will be going back and commenting on a lot of the posts to remind people, I'm sure. The modly powers bit would just help for when somebody's dropped out of fandom/LJ and the post in question ends up having to be deleted. (And believe me, the mere fact that such a thing has to be considered in the first place upsets me a lot.)

I've just been thinking about finding additional mods for a while now, and I was testing the waters. This comm is so huge that it really is hard for one person to manage it, and I don't feel I do the best job sometimes. :-\

[tree00faery.livejournal.com]

I'm only a reader as of now, and I don't really have a lot of spare time (or computer skills) but if needed I could probably help a bit. I think it's a good idea to flock the comm, just to be on the safe side. Also if there's a way to back it up somewhere, that'd be smart too.

[virtualinsomnia]

Rest assured, backing everything up is next on my to do list for this comm, right after the proposed lock down.

And thank you so much for offering to help! :-)

[sorchasilver.livejournal.com]

I think that flocking is a probably a good idea, just to be on the safe side. I haven't posted any fic here, and I don't know how much work is going to be involved in the locking down, but I might be able to help. Not sure what a "month's worth" would be in terms of time needed though.

I also think a back-up of the site (using LJ-Sec or similar) should be a priority.

[virtualinsomnia]

Well, it would depend on the month, lol! The more active months would obviously take longer to do than the laggy months.

I was figuring (though I'll know more once I've done a few months myself and tested it out) that a month might take a couple of hours if done all in one fell swoop. But once I have a more official time figured out, I'll definitely let people know.

And then all that's left is the follow up. Basically, you'd need to check back once or twice and make sure people actually locked the posts down after they'd been asked to. And any that don't lock down would need to be deleted by a mod, so if the person doing that month wasn't a mod, they'd need to compile a list of links and email it to someone who was.

Sounds like a lot of work, I know, but for anyone who offers to help, I will work with you to figure out an amount that you can handle. If a month's too much, even a week would be helpful!

[invisibleshrew.livejournal.com]

Hi. Thanks so much for running this comm. I'm one of those who think that fic is safe and legal, but I understand that you need to make your own decision about what to do in LJs rapidly chilling climate.

Just thought I'd mention that I don't think that the_cortex will link to locked posts, which is something your members might need to bear in mind (either sighing in relief at going under the radar, or posting elsewhere so that they get picked up).

And copying people's content to another service without their express permission is another huge can of worms - that could be a harrowing debate.

[virtualinsomnia]

Perhaps before the move actually takes place, I'll post an unlocked announcement that says to comment with links to any fic an author doesn't want to be included in the transfer? And no comment denotes consent? Hmmm. I plan on backing it up on my own computer as a secondary backup, too. I guess that might suffice for now, and we could save the actual moving for if/when we actually got TOSed. (God forbid!)

Well, I suppose I'll include mention of the_cortex in my next announcement, and people can choose to do whatever they want in that regard (i.e. posting in a second unlocked place if they wish).

[xx-squish-xx.livejournal.com]

I chose #2 on Question 2, but I'm also willing to do #3. So, just let me know if you need any help!

Oh and nice header btw! :)

[virtualinsomnia]

Thanks! :-)

And I will definitely let you know.

[virtualinsomnia]

The friendly list?

If you mean being on the comm's friends list so that you can view all the posts, you'd just need to join. Go to the userinfo and click join. If you can already post and whatnot to the comm, and you can see the posts at the top of the main page with the little lock symbols by them, then you're already a member.

Non LJ users

[(Anonymous)]

I am a non-LJ user who visits to read the fic here. There are probably others too. (Do we get a vote? I don't think there is an option unless logged in..)

We will probably be forgotten in all the commotion. I will have to get my fix elsewhere.

On the other hand I understand the community protecting itself.

Re: Non LJ users

[virtualinsomnia]

*sighs* And this is exactly why this is such a hard decision to make. I had thought there might be non-lj fans who visited the comm, but I couldn't really know for sure.

I hate the thought that there are people out there who will be deprived of their fic fix. I don't want this to seem like some kind of exclusive club or something. I think it should be for everyone. I just wish it still felt safe to run the comm that way in LJ's current climate.

I wish there was something else to be done, but I don't know what that something is.

[shanaqui]

I don't understand why there would be a need to lock down. I'm no longer a member of this community, and I don't fancy going through and finding/locking all my fic. Besides the fact that there's no reason to be any more paranoid about simple fic. I could understand the desire to lock Simon/River fic after Strikethrough because of the incest bit, but all fic? Fic isn't what's being targeted, in the main, in any case. If you're going to get this paranoid about it, you might as well just self delete.

Depending on how many posts I have, if people comment telling me to lock them I might, but I'm not going to the trouble of finding them on my own because I don't believe this is necessary.

[virtualinsomnia]

I understand your feelings, but as I've said before, singling out just certain fics to lock in a comm this big is much more trouble than locking everything. I would love to just lock the adult fic and leave the lower rated fic open to everyone, but to do so would require establishing a watchdog group of some sort to keep track of everything posted from now on to look for ones that are not locked appropriately, not to mention it would require people to go through all the old entries manually and determine on a case-by-case basis which fic qualifies for lockdown and which doesn't. With an archive this huge, that would be a monumental task.

And with the new revisions in LJ's TOS regarding comms and adult content, I am in violation of TOS as long as adult content remains unlocked. It doesn't expressly say fiction, but I'm not willing to take the chance when this comm is one of the more high-profile Firefly comms.

That being said, if this lockdown does happen, we will be going through and commenting on unlocked fic. We've developed a script that will do this for us, so it shouldn't be too much of a hassle. *crosses fingers and knocks on wood and all that jazz* In such a case, I'd appreciate it if you locked the ones we commented on.