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deathpixieOriginally posted by ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
wendymr at Be warned: Release 88 is about to degrade LJ further
wendymr at Be warned: Release 88 is about to degrade LJ furtherI haven't seen this discussed on my flist, so thought I should alert people to it who aren't following ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
news. Release 88 is apparently going live on Tuesday and it contains changes to the comment interface and display that are very, very unpopular among a lot of LJ's users.
The most recentnews post mentions the release is coming without giving any details. However, people have been busy tracking down information, via a post by igrick (apparently LJ's senior site design developer). The post is in Russian, but the screencaps show the appearance of the comment screen and comment display under Release 88. The changes are summed up in this post on fail_fandomanon
The biggest change is the removal of subject-lines from comments, stated byigrick to be non-negotiable. Apparently, according to people who have translated his post and comments (or waded through the dozens of pages of comments to find a few where he has commented in English), he believes that they are ugly and used by less than 1% of LJ users (for which he apparently acknowledges he has no statistical evidence). The fact that subject-lines are used in many important organisational and safety ways on LJ has apparently escaped his notice:
- to organise threads in fandom auctions
- to organise fic posts and comments in anon fic memes, and comments in other anon memes
- to indicate the kind of content of the comment when threads are likely to become collapsed
- to provide spoiler or trigger warnings
- to carry on conversations
- to organise posts in RP comms
Once the change goes live, also, all existing subject-lines will become invisible - try navigatingsherlock_bbc or other fic/kinkmemes then!
Without subject-lines, it appears to me that a lot of LJ usage would become non-functional, or very difficult. Yet the only official response at all to that news post is in this thread, telling us that we can use customised comment pages to see subject-lines, or hope the community we're viewing uses them. Right. From what I understand, customised comment pages simply don't work for entries with large numbers of comments.
Another unpopular change is that the drop-down icon selection menu will disappear. Icons will be selected only through the browse menu - in other words, anyone with a lot of icons will have to wait for all their icons to be displayed (which is slow as it is). Icons in this menu also aren't displayed in any logical way, unlike the drop-down menu which is organised alphabetically by keyword. I have almost 300 icons - I do not want to lose the drop-down menu!
What can we do? Many people have commented onigrick's journal in an attempt to educate him about the impact of the changes. Unfortunately, not only do I think he's not listening, but many commenters have resorted to insults, which doesn't help. There are over 1000 comments on the news post - but only one staff response.
However, another option is to use the LJ Contact Us link and send feedback. Some people who did that posted to say they had a response to say that their comments have been passed to the development team. I sent a comment as well, reposted here. Perhaps if they get enough comments they might rethink the worst aspects of this change. After all, unlike the TwitFace fiasco, I don't see how there's money for LJ in this change.
Incidentally, there is one change in the release that I like: new comments can be flagged to show as new when you're reading comments. It sounds like this change is opt-in, in that you have to switch it on - now, why can't the removal of comment subject-lines and the icon drop-down menu also be opt-in?
ETA: should anyone want to link to or quote this post, go right ahead! This needs spreading as widely as possible.
ETA 2: Just received a response from LJ to my feedback comment:
Thank you for your feedback regarding these issues. I will ensure that your comments are passed along to the appropriate personnel for consolidation with other user feedback for review.
Regards,
LiveJournal Community Care
news. Release 88 is apparently going live on Tuesday and it contains changes to the comment interface and display that are very, very unpopular among a lot of LJ's users.The most recent
news post mentions the release is coming without giving any details. However, people have been busy tracking down information, via a post by igrick (apparently LJ's senior site design developer). The post is in Russian, but the screencaps show the appearance of the comment screen and comment display under Release 88. The changes are summed up in this post on fail_fandomanonThe biggest change is the removal of subject-lines from comments, stated by
igrick to be non-negotiable. Apparently, according to people who have translated his post and comments (or waded through the dozens of pages of comments to find a few where he has commented in English), he believes that they are ugly and used by less than 1% of LJ users (for which he apparently acknowledges he has no statistical evidence). The fact that subject-lines are used in many important organisational and safety ways on LJ has apparently escaped his notice:- to organise threads in fandom auctions
- to organise fic posts and comments in anon fic memes, and comments in other anon memes
- to indicate the kind of content of the comment when threads are likely to become collapsed
- to provide spoiler or trigger warnings
- to carry on conversations
- to organise posts in RP comms
Once the change goes live, also, all existing subject-lines will become invisible - try navigating
sherlock_bbc or other fic/kinkmemes then!Without subject-lines, it appears to me that a lot of LJ usage would become non-functional, or very difficult. Yet the only official response at all to that news post is in this thread, telling us that we can use customised comment pages to see subject-lines, or hope the community we're viewing uses them. Right. From what I understand, customised comment pages simply don't work for entries with large numbers of comments.
Another unpopular change is that the drop-down icon selection menu will disappear. Icons will be selected only through the browse menu - in other words, anyone with a lot of icons will have to wait for all their icons to be displayed (which is slow as it is). Icons in this menu also aren't displayed in any logical way, unlike the drop-down menu which is organised alphabetically by keyword. I have almost 300 icons - I do not want to lose the drop-down menu!
What can we do? Many people have commented on
igrick's journal in an attempt to educate him about the impact of the changes. Unfortunately, not only do I think he's not listening, but many commenters have resorted to insults, which doesn't help. There are over 1000 comments on the news post - but only one staff response.However, another option is to use the LJ Contact Us link and send feedback. Some people who did that posted to say they had a response to say that their comments have been passed to the development team. I sent a comment as well, reposted here. Perhaps if they get enough comments they might rethink the worst aspects of this change. After all, unlike the TwitFace fiasco, I don't see how there's money for LJ in this change.
Incidentally, there is one change in the release that I like: new comments can be flagged to show as new when you're reading comments. It sounds like this change is opt-in, in that you have to switch it on - now, why can't the removal of comment subject-lines and the icon drop-down menu also be opt-in?
ETA: should anyone want to link to or quote this post, go right ahead! This needs spreading as widely as possible.
ETA 2: Just received a response from LJ to my feedback comment:
Thank you for your feedback regarding these issues. I will ensure that your comments are passed along to the appropriate personnel for consolidation with other user feedback for review.
Regards,
LiveJournal Community Care
