Luna del'Corvo

...you're like that ex who always finds a new way to disappoint....

I have been trying to get back here, again, as I have before, and have actually had a little success. Right in time for the new "Service Agreement." Where to begin? There are, of course, the censorship implications. And then there is the idiocy of making me sign an agreement that LJ itself declares is non-binding, but my consent to it (required to use the site), implies agreement to the version I can't read because it's in fucking Russian? Really? THat's taking Orwellian to a whole new level....

So, despite my what? 15 year-history here, I am am trying to actually commit to the transition for Dreamwidth. This really grind my gears since my account here has been a permanent one for...oh, a decade or so, and DW will end up costing me a pretty penny that I *really* can't exactly afford right now. And, my whole getting back here has a lot to do with those of you who are still here, and there seems to be a dearth of anyone I know on DW, or at least that I can find.

MY plan is to begin using DW full-time, while still reading and commenting here. Eventually, I will probably turn off commenting and essentially set this whole thing to private. I don't know if I can *quite* bring myself to delete it, though the new Soviet Overlords may take care of that for me - I've never been subtle about my liberal views, after all.

I will keep up here, but please, look for me on DW (link below) if you too have made or are contemplating the move there. Peace, all!

Look for me on my mirror journal, LunaDelCorvo on DreamWidth. If you are on DW too, tell me at this post so I can add you there!

I've been trying to get back to LJ lately (with mixed success; I doubt I'll ever use it or DW as much as I did 'back in the day'), but now it seems it has become a bit of a Russian police state. Lovely. So I suppose I will keep my liberal, democratic socialist, Tantrump-hating commentary here instead. Now the question is - do I delete that journal, or leave it? It sucks b/c I have a permanent account, and this one costs. Like I need another expense these days. Grrrrr.

But OK, then, here I am. :)

P.S. We need new moods! I need 'rebellious' and 'defiant,' just for starters....

P.P.S. Anyone know of any friending things? Anyone out there at all, come to think of it?

I don't want to be a drama-llama, but I think LJ has really screwed the pooch this time, and I'm done.

Read the lj_news posts here: http://news.livejournal.com/144003.html
and here: http://lj-releases.livejournal.com/79480.html

The upshot of this is: no matter what your layout is, you will now HAVE TO read your friends page in the default, ugly, LJ eye-wrenching blue and white site style. Had your layout customized for easy reading? Tough. Huge swatch of blank white space with dark type gives you a headache? Buy some fucking aspirin, sucker, 'cause we don't care. Spent hours laboring to get you layout just how you want it, so it makes you happy, is aesthetically pleasing to your soul? Too bad, aesthetics of for sissies; read it our way.

If that's not enough, LJ is also implementing a 'pay to promote' scheme, whereby you can pay to have your entries fasttracked to the top of your friends' reading pages. Oh, and if you've ever had your computer or browser lock up from one of those "infinite scrolling"sites like FB or tumblr? Get used to it, because LJ friends pages will now feature infinite scrolling.

If you think it sucks, comment on one of those pages, and/or fill out this poll: http://foxfirefey.livejournal.com/302406.html.

Be warned, however, that LJ will flatly ignore you, like it has flatly ignored user outrage (and exodus) over every other lame-brained "update" they've crammed down our throats over the years....

So yeah, if this is implemented, I think I am finally out, done, gone. DW full-time. (And damn, I wish I had never gotten a perm account!)

:::ETA::: I'm not honestly sure this isn't what they want; for US/European users to leave. Read this: http://www.dailydot.com/news/livejournal-shut-down-us-office/

End of an era of my life.... So, where can I find you all on Dreamwidth? I'm at http://lunadelcorvo.dreamwidth.org/. Come on over and visit. THey are still invite-free, so anyone can sign up. If you've been putting it off, I think now is the time.

Good god, what a joke! Will LJ NEVER stop screwing us over with poorly executed garbage?! Here is my submission to support about this, because I am too pissed to write any more ATM.

1. Roughly 1/3 of the pictures that were supposed to to have migrated are not there. They show as blanks squares in the gallery, and when I click 'original' it gives me a page of HTML (code, not rendered HTML) saying 'this pic was moved to...' These are not duplicate images, they are just not there. Some of them tell me the name of the image that was there, some don't. Am I supposed to guess?

2. I had several galleries which had sub-galleries - for examples, the gallery 'Panama' had several galleries broken into different areas of Panama. Now they are all at the same level. So there are no 'nested' albums now? No way to group related sets of images?! Seriously? You call this an improvement?

3. Minor, but this is exactly the kind of thing that should have been corrected BEFORE this went live - When browsing albums, the pane on the left shows the 'selected' or current album, the pane an on the right shows all the albums. So I page over to say page 4/6, and open a new album. But look, the album list reset to page 1/6. That is really, really stupid. To go over and check security on galleries, I have to page over in the list every. single. time. Yes, it's minor, compared to the other, more fatal flaws above, but it's an example of the kind of poorly thought-out, careless, sloppy work LJ turns out these days.

In summary, I am so, so SO, sorry I paid for a permanent account. I know my voice as a user means nothing because I can no longer threaten to withhold my almighty dollar. But I am vocal, and really, really, pissed. And plenty of other people are pissed, too. Maybe you hadn't noticed the steadily mounting numbers of people leaving to go to Dreamwidth, or just giving up on the journaling model altogether?

P.S. That nice little message saying I could view a detailed log of the migration (so maybe I could actually figure out what got lost in this mess)? That link takes me to 'Page not found.' OMG, LJ, you fail SO hard these days!

1. My user name is Luna delCorvo because it's Italian for Ravenmoon!.

Ok, that's probably not enough. Well, it IS Italian for Ravenmoon. But that matters because Ravenmoon (ok, "raven_moon"), is the username I've used on LJ for oodles of years now. It comes from back in my 'OMG, I want to be so uber-gawth' days (thankfully behind me - I look dreadful in black, really). Back then I wanted a pagan-ish, wicca-ish, goth-ish name for a blog which I started on Blogger, then moved to a webspace, then finally to LJ. I've considered renames SO many tmes, but it sort of stuck. Once I started on DW, I wanted something new, but not entirely, so Italian!

2. My name is not listed here because it's really distinctive, and I like SOME divide between here and RL.

Really, I rarely post photos of me, of my kid, and I try to avoid real names, places, etc. I don't always succeed, but I really don't see the need to plaster my real identity all over the 'net. After all, I started this thing (well, the LJ originally) to have a place that was apart from my life. I have IRL friends here, but I still keep this as sort of my 'other' place.

I will say, though, that my name is said (by my mom) to be Scots Gaelic, but I have always suspected there was more Middle Earth than Midlothian in my moniker.... However, one doesn't call mom a liar, and I love my name, so it's all good. (Though I sometimes notice those folks who are *really* into Tolkien look at me sort of funny....)

3. My Journal and Friends page are my username/'Voices in the ether' because what else?.

Actually, here on DW, it's just "lunadelcorvo | Recent Entries." Odd, I'll have to see where to change that. On LJ, it's ": : : R A V E N M O O N : : :" Not terribly original, but I like it. It has a sort of Charles Rennie Mackintosh look if you squint just so.... I had a subtitle, "Meus vita somnium quod umbra" (my life of dreams and shadows) but that seems a relic of those aforementioned gawf days, so let's leave that lie, shall we? The friends page is 'Voices in the Ether,' because really, that what we are out here, isn't it? And the idea fascinates me.

4. My default user pic is the one up there ^ because it's sort of me?

OK, maybe me as I really really wish I looked. But I have the red hair, and the medieval streak a mile wide... (I even ended up in a rusty-gold bliaut for Halloween a couple years back.) Let's just say it's an approximation of my inner self?

How about you?

I'm all happy and kittens about LJ being, you know, functional again, honest. But I'd really like my RSS back, plzkthnxbai!
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(When posting the tags for this I see I have a 'grrr' tag, and a 'grrrrrr' tag. This struck my as ridiculously funny.)

I just wanted to take a minute to thank all of you SO much for all the love and support over the last few days. I don't think I will go back and answer each comment individually, but I wanted to thank each and every one of you. Some may find it strange to draw such comfort from on online community, but I certainly do. Thank you all.

MySpace Deletes Largest Atheist Group in the World.

http://www.secularstudents.org/node/1933

While I know this is pretty old news, I am passing it on in case anyone might not have heard it. ( And, of course, because I want to comment on it. )