ADMIN: Places for our back-up archive?

[virtualinsomnia]

Sorry to be so spammy lately! Hopefully we'll get things ironed out and formulate a plan of action soon, so the focus can go back to the fic.

***

Now, before I continue working on the lock down issue, I think our next step needs to be a back-up archive. It needs to be somewhere that uses LJ code, so that I can transfer the comm over (hopefully) without too much stress.

Here are the three places I know of that could work:

JournalFen
http://www.journalfen.net/
Home of Fandom Wank, so fandom people are a pretty big presence here. And I already have a free acct. with them, so I'm familiar with how they work. Sadly, they are not giving out free invites right now. But all that would be needed is one person with a paid acct. to request an invite, and we'd be in. Of course, the no freebies without an invite issue could prevent some of our members from following us over, which would be a huge problem...

InsaneJournal
http://www.insanejournal.com/
I know nothing about this one, except that a lot of the StrikeThrough/BoldGate refugees are migrating here. Does anyone know more about it?

GreatestJournal
http://www.greatestjournal.com/
And finally, the land of the thousands of user icons! *g* I already have a free acct. here, so I'm familiar with how things work. And there are quite a few StrikeThrough/BoldGate refugees here as well, from what I've heard. What do other people think of it?

Please suggest any other possibilities you know of in comments. I'll compile them all into a poll and post it later today. Thanks! :-)

ETA: While I still want opinions on where a backup archive might be most at home, I think I will keep the backup offline (and update it periodically) until such a time as it is needed (though hopefully that will never happen). But I will take all the comments to this post about the possible options into account and post a poll tonight, as planned. And then I'll make an acct. at the site that we choose and post the link here. That way, if something ever does happen to this archive, you guys will already know where to look.

Comments

[sorchasilver.livejournal.com]

I have free accounts at all three you mention, and of the three I think Greatest Journal is probably the easiest one to use. Journal Fen would be a problem, as you say, since people can't easily get new accounts there without paying.

[daikenpriestess.livejournal.com]

I would personally recommend InsaneJournal. I too have an account at GJ and IJ, and IJ is the closest to the current LJ code. GJ is using a much older version.

/end two cents worth

[xx-squish-xx.livejournal.com]

I think journalfen would be a real problem because it seems so limited and exclusive. I probably only know of one person who has an account there, so if the comm ends up going there, I would imagine not a lot of people would be able to follow.

I don't really know about the other two, but I have to say that Insanejournal is a real turn off for me because of they way they use cutesy little terms for all their options that involve mental illness and/or the mental health system. Yeah, I know, what is it really hurting anything, but I'm a psychologist, so I'm supposed to be sensitive about this kind of stuff. Just take that for what it's worth, it's only my 2 cents. ;)

In the end, no matter how fandom-friendly another blogging service is, they too are quite likely to have the very same problems in the future that LJ has. LJ has been targeted. If fandom moves, the instigators of the targeting will only follow.

I'm really sorry that this has been such a problem for you and again, if you need any help, I'm more than happy to offer time and/or modly services.

Some more things to read and think about:

[brithistorian.livejournal.com]

This post (http://angiepen.livejournal.com/48691.html) from angiepen has some detailed consideration of the pros and cons of the various services.

Also, the community leavin_eljay has a post to help people get journalfen accounts; I was able to get one that way.