Bear with me. I’m angry but I’m trying to be rational.

First, since most of the people who ever read my blog don’t know much about Livejournal, LJ is a free blogging site that allows for users to pay in order get more features. It is also quite possibly the largest gathering place for those involved in a fandom anywhere on the web. As a result, there are many people who use their LJs to keep track of friends, fiction, and news, and a lot of people even use it to archive their own works.

Recently, LiveJournal, at the request of a group called Warriors of Innocence, banned hundreds of LJs in order to get rid of child molests and such. That’s a good thing, right?

In this case, no.

First, a warning. I’m not linking to the Warriors of Innocence website for three reasons. One: They do trackbacks, and I have no desire for them to find my blog. Two: Their site is filled with spyware. DO NOT VISIT UNLESS YOU WANT YOUR COMPUTER INFECTED. Three: If the spyware doesn’t give away some clues about what that site is about, I’ll explain. Although it seems to be site concerned with keeping children safe on the internet, a little research shows that the person running the site is a radical, extremist fundamentalist. I’m talking, anti-homosexual, anti-anything other than Christian, “lets go and better the world by protesting at soldier’s funerals” kind of fundamentalist. Yeah. Problem.

LiveJournal has a feature in which a user can list interests! Normally, you would think that interests such as “incest”, “pedophilia”, and “rape” would be bad as interests. Not always so; many survivor support communities use those words as interests so that other survivors can find them. Livejournal, at the encouragement of Warriors of Innocence, began banning LJs with objectionable content.

Except they didn’t actually look at the content. They banned mostly by looking at the keywords.

Sure, a lot of real pedophilia journals and such were found. However, many more communities and journals were also found and deleted or permanently suspended. Among those hit include:

• Fanfiction communities
• Erotica communities and journals
• Survivor support communities and journals
• Roleplaying journals. (Note, while the connotation outside the internet pushes roleplaying as sexual, for the most part, roleplaying on LJ is not sexual. Most RPs even ban any form of sex, as it’s mostly teens roleplaying as book, tv, game, anime, and movie characters. Roleplaying is not about playing out someone’s sexual fantasy, as the misconception seems to be.)
• Communities discussing literature. To be specific, Lolita.
• A few fashion communities; Gothic Lolita is a style of clothing in Asia. It’s quite cute, in my opinion.

It isn’t just a few journals. It’s several hundred, and the list seems to be growing, although deletions may have cooled down by now. (It’s difficult to judge, since there is new information coming in all the time.)

What we, the userbase, is upset about is not the fact that LJ is trying to take steps to protect the children, but rather that they are going about in a completely irresponsible and idiotic way that censors a good portion of the userbase.

Rumors have it that it’s spreading to hunting any type of erotica or violent fiction as well. For the most part, it seems to have slowed down, no doubt thanks to the huge backlash of negative commentary aimed at SixApart, the company that owns LJ. I mean, when an anti-predator organization slams LJ for their idiotic response to online predators, you know they’ve done something big.

Anyway, links with more information for those interested.
http://roaring.livejournal.com/70304.html
http://www.greatestjournal.com/community/fandomtossed/1338.html
http://fandomtossed.greatestjournal.com/
http://news.com.com/Mass+deletion+sparks+LiveJournal+revolt/2100-1025_3-6187619.html?tag=item
http://catrinella.livejournal.com/151812.html

EDIT: LJ issued a formal apology to its userbase. Frankly, I’m happy as they’ve acknowledge the issues that were bugging me. Others, it seems, aren’t as much.

There are 613 seniors in Fort Worth, Texas, that did not pass the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills exam (TAKS) — a standarized test that is required for graduation. As a result, those students are not allowed to participate in the graduation ceremony. A few of these students, wanting to still participate, have decided to picket against the policy.

All right, sounds fairly normal (As normal as that is, anyway), right? Check the sign in the picture.

“LET ARE KIDS WALK.”

Gee, I wonder why you didn’t pass the TAKS! </sarcasm>

Although, to be fair, I admit that the girl is mostly likely holding the sign backwards, thus indicating that she is aware of the mistake. But, still. What an error.

The thought of going to Chicago on my birthday fills me with much glee and joy and joyfulness. Of course, my mother and I will be there for business, in which I will be translating poorly for her, and we aren’t staying for even a full twenty-four hours, but I’ll be in Chicago.

Hopefully we’ll have enough time there to visit the Art Institute of Chicago. It will be my birthday; I should get something, right?

In less exciting news, Daylight Savings Time can go die. ♥

In slightly more exciting but still generally less exciting than Chicago news, China just banned LiveJournal. Again. Well, to be fair, they banned a lot more websites recently, and Wikipedia will probably never get un-banned, but. Still. I want my LJ when I’m in China.

Also, I want to design a new layout but I just finished one for another site I’m planning and I’m up to my eyeballs in CSS and HTML and no more I want to sleep now.

If I can’t use my own design, then I’ll at least use my own header. It’s not that I despise using other people’s templates or designs, it’s just that I really would prefer to use my own. It’s odd; web design is one of the few areas where I’m too stubborn to accept other people’s work and use it for my own purposes. When it comes to web design, it’s all about me. It has to be mine, even if my designs and/or images look like crap that popped out of MS Paint compared to the others.

. . .Right, I really should be asleep right now, shouldn’t I? Darn you, internet, for being so amusing and keeping me awake far past my bedtime.

…but it most certainly helps.

I understand that in the end, all corporations desire to make a profit. WordPress is no different, so I can understand that they must take certain measure to ensure that, yes, they are getting at least as much money back as they put in.

However, as a consumer, and an underage one at that, I believe that I have every right to whine and complain about it. Fifteen dollars just to be able to use a custom stylesheet? Pah; inconceivable. I am a poor rookie web designer whose only talent is writing, and I even to that with minimal effort. Where on Earth am I supposed to pull out fifteen dollars from? I might as well save that fifteen dollars for something of greater importance– like a Wii.

Eh, I’m not certain why I’m actually using this any way; I have a Blogger and a Livejournal, although I haven’t touched ElJay in a while… However, it looks now that I’m apparently making the switch to this instead. I’ve already imported my entries here. It’s funny how that works. I signed up only to be able to use my Creative Writing class’s blog, yet I haven’t sent Mrs. Allan the e-mail yet. How curious.

There was a point to this, truly. I just…seemed to have forgotten what it was. My memory is as poor as ever; good to know that it’s at least consistent.

Copy and pasted (I love how that is a verb now) from my El Jay (link) because I’m still the laziest person I know.

This is honestly one of the saddest things I’ve read in a while.

I have to admit; the source of this is Digg, so most of the people there are rather dependent on their computers and most likely spend a good time online or on the computer. However, it still bothers me that there are people like this who believe that cursive– and sometimes even writing in general– is archaic and should be stopped being taught in schools.

It’s not just writing, either.

Well…sometime it’s necessary to call some of these GenX Morons…idiots - for that’s the title they’ve earned. (not all GenX’s, of course) These uneducated GenX morons who make no attempt at grammar, punctuation or composition - and who can’t perform the simplest arithmetic without a calculator - want to lecture us on the utility of cursive writing? These imbeciles who can’t even take their own notes in class - much less in business (because they write soooooo slow) deem themselves fit to lecture us?

GenX: They can’t write. They can’t perform arithmetic. They want to rule the world. Oh happy day!

See, in a way, a part of me wants to be upset at this. The truth is, I agree. It’s frightening to be in a room with the top students of the school and realize that you’re one out of three people that can multiply and divide numbers in your head. Not long numbers, even. Several of the gifted students and those in the top ten percent can’t even multiply single digit numbers in their head. They have to have the calculator, or they can’t do it.

Likewise, while I love computers and use them everyday, I can’t believe that so many people are that reliant on their machines. Taking another comment from the entry:

What happens when your computer crashes and you can’t write a legible letter to someone? I’m beginning to think I’m a weird guy. A programmer with a strong Luddite streak.

We have such a dependence on computers and electricity that I fear the day that it all goes away. It’s bad enough when a hurricane strikes and we’re out of power for a couple weeks. Can’t get cash from the ATM, no gas because the pumps are electric…

And now we’re bringing up a generation that can’t use a pen…

It’s scary because it’s true. Most of my friends can’t hold a pen properly, and they can’t write in cursive because they don’t remember. People complain about in-house writing assignments because they can’t write more than a two paragraphs before their hands cramp up and they have to stop.

Technology is wonderful, and we should embrace it. We should not, however, sacrifice our basic skills in order to do so.

No, I can’t rant well, even on topics that I would rather enjoy ranting on. For example, I would love to construct a rant on how Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney was way too freaking short and how I want more of the gay lawyers, but, alas, I am not cut out to rant about it.

I am distressed and I do not know why. I find it highly amusing.