(no subject)

[geekchick]

Today is Sweetmorn, the 57th day of Bureaucracy in the YOLD 3172

First up, Robert Anton Wilson needs help. If you have a bit to spare, you might consider sending it his way.


Next, on the topic of various memes going around:

- I'm not reposting that meme all over the f-list today that orders you to do so or else labels you a bigot; not a big fan of the wording on that one. I believe in civil rights, and I think any of you who read me probably have worked that out on your own. And I tend to assume that all of you wonderful people on my reading list believe in much the same way, even if you pass on posting the meme. Let me add that my annoyance with the thing is directed at the originator and their framing of it, and not with anyone who's reposted it.

- Also, in the collection of "things that are worrisome to me right now", sponsored LJ communities barely even register on that list. I can ignore them in exactly the same way I ignore every other community I'm not interested in. I'm frankly rather more bothered by the way rahaeli was originally hung out to dry.

Comments

[patgreene.livejournal.com]

I rather like wordweaverlynn's take on that meme. </>

[tshuma]

On the topic of your first meme: Yeah. I get slightly annoyed and resentful every time I read it or even about it. It reminds me of chain letters promising doom without for not passing them on, only in this case the doom is manifested as virtual public shunning for being a bigot. I guess I should be grateful that the majority of my friends are sensible and unpreachy enough not to propagate it any further.

(I really need to learn to read my comments before pressing the "post comment" button.)

[geekjul.livejournal.com]

I'm not reposting that meme all over the f-list today that orders you to do so or else labels you a bigot; not a big fan of the wording on that one. I believe in civil rights, and I think any of you who read me probably have worked that out on your own.

Thank you for that. It's been bugging the crap out of me.

[purplecthulhu.livejournal.com]

In what way was rahaeli hung out to dry? She's still there, as far as I can tell, and still not doing a great job of managing LJ abuse according to reports. She certainly was less than helpful on issues I and others raised (eg. read yonmei's blog on greatestjournal).

reposted

[geekchick]

I didn't care much for Brad's followup post that sounded very much to me like "blame her, she doesn't know what she's talking about". He's since apologized for it. I just don't think that sort of thing public finger-pointing is a particularly good idea. I understand plenty of people have issues with LJ abuse; I don't happen to be one of them.

(bit removed here that in retrospect didn't seem like it was particularly necessary to say)

Re: reposted

[purplecthulhu.livejournal.com]

I've since read Brad's intervetion and it is a lot better than the original presentation. On this one they seem to be responding to users - maybe nipplegate taught them a few things.

As to the 'smackdown', I suspect there is some internal politics going on here, and it may be that this has been an opportunity for a shot across someone's bows since some odd things seem to have been happening at LJ abuse.

(re: removed bit, I'm astounded that you're even aware of said person - the internet and LJ are clearly smaller than I'd thought)

Re: reposted

[geekchick]

I suspect there is some internal politics going on here, and it may be that this has been an opportunity for a shot across someone's bows since some odd things seem to have been happening at LJ abuse.

I will confess that I don't know enough about the situation to even hazard a guess. Abuse is a truly thankless job, and I've never had the mental energy or thick enough skin to get involved. I'd still rather such things were handled a bit more...professionally, I guess. But then in essentially the same breath he announced to the world in so many words that the staff isn't doing a great job of communicating with each other at the moment, so...

Re: that last bit: Yeah, LJ is much, much smaller than the number of even active accounts would have you believe. ;) Friend of friends, at least at one time, and I believe I remember them from the comments section of a certain Big Name LJ Feminist's journal that I read for a while some time back.

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

i've worked with rahaeli. she's good and decent person, and probably one of the best managers i've ever met. i'd recommend her to any company, without any reservations. the way brad dissed her in that post was disgraceful (but that's nothing new; he runs roughshod over his employees regularly, and then half-assedly apologizes. all under the guise that he's just a coder, and what does he know about people skills. *snrk*.).

she's doing an absolutely amazing job managing abuse. i can't think of anyone else who could do as good a job with as lousy a boss and as haphazard a set of policies (this dates back to pre-6A). if you think she had anything to do with the bad choices LJ made around nipplegate, think again. if she was "less than helpful" (which, i presume, translates to "she didn't give us what we wanted"), it's because she only enforces policy, she doesn't make it. trust me, she has no personal problem with nipples in userpics. *rolls eyes*.

yonmei -- *bleagh*. not touching that sack of lying slime with a ten-foot pole. automatic negative points for pointing to her as some sort of evidence for anything.

[purplecthulhu.livejournal.com]

I'm sure she's a decent person, but she doesn't seem to be very good with customer service when under pressure. The messages she sent out during nipplegate to myself and others were unhelpful and tarnishing of LJ's reputation. Their tone might be explained if she was being forced to implement something she didn't believe in, but you don't take out your frustration on customers or start making arbitrary decisions.

If you're working for a bad manager, with bad policies which place you in a bad position, you need to do something about it within the company. The right thing to do is to stand your ground, opposing policies you can't support until they're fixed. If management continues to insist on stupidity then its time to leave. If what you say about her abilities is true, and I have no reason to doubt it, then I'm sure she'd have no problem finding anbother job. That is what would earn my respect. If she genuinely opposed various LJ/6Apart policies, knuckling under without visibly trying to change them is the coward's option.

I've known yonmei IRL for at least 10 years. She can come over rather bluntly online, I'll admit, but I have no reason to believe she is untrustworthy or a 'sack of lying slime'. She is very committed to what she stands for, sometimes obstinately so, but she is, I assure you, a good person. Indeed, loooking at your user-profile (I hope you don't mind!) I think you share a number of LJ friends and interests, and would probably get on rather well with her IRL. In fact, if you've ever been to any UK SF cons there's a good chance you've met her. Quite how we can both get what seem to be wrong viewpoints of people solely from their LJ presence is rather worrying.

[(Anonymous)]

see, i've seen her under pressure in a number of bad situations, and i've never seen her act unprofessionally. this recent post is the first post ever i've seen by her that has made me scratch my head and go "good grief, what did they put in rah's water", but it wasn't unprofessional, it was just ... so fake. i wasn't around anymore during nipplegate, so i didn't see many of the messages. i don't know what you mean by "unhelpful". how would you like to be helped when somebody cannot give you what you're asking for? i saw some people's reactions to LJ's policy, and they were ... "lacking in reading comprehension" is probably the kindest way i can put it. LJ abuse does not in fact prefer kitten killers over breastfeeding mothers, *sigh*.

those suggestions about how one ought to ethically behave when one has issues in the workplace are... well, talk is cheap; from the couple plus decades i spent in the employed workforce before starting my own company i can attest to how much harder it is to make changes or work one's way through to finally leaving.

there is one's belief in the basic goodness of people one has known for ages, even if they screw up; there's waiting and seeing to give new leadership a chance; there's loyalty to the community that one has worked so hard to maintain; there's wanting to protect those people whose line manager one is; there's carefully assessing how many karma points of reputation one can lose on another futile battle... and as to leaving, there are the perqs that make it possible to make a living even with a chronic illness and while still in school, which makes changing jobs not as easy as one's resume might otherwise indicate.

it's easy to judge from the outside without knowing anything at all about the inside. it's also not particularly fair.

Quite how we can both get what seem to be wrong viewpoints of people solely from their LJ presence is rather worrying.

not really all that worrying per se. pretty normal, no? people contain multitudes. it takes quite a while to really get to know somebody; sometimes years, especially online. you interacted with rahaeli in a single business context in which you didn't like her tone; i interacted with yonmei in an single LJ wankfest in which i didn't like her behaviour. i don't think my impression encompasses all of yonmei, i certainly hope you don't think you've got rahaeli pegged.

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

damn, that was me. how did i get logged out? *grmp*.

[purplecthulhu.livejournal.com]

The messages I'm referring to were not the ones on LJ, but largely in email from comments to LJ abuse. The main problems were a tone of arrogance, a refusal to engage, and refusal to admi there was even something to discuss be it with abuse or higher up the chain. The negative impression is one that many others acquired, so this isn't complete personal bias here. And I should emphasise that I was not one of those making comparisons to kitten killers. From what you've said this could be a reaction to being put in a poor position by managers, but it is still unprofessional to provide such a negative impression. As to what help would have been adequate, I'm not sure because it depends what was going on in the background.

As to ethical behaviour, I am not just talking here, I have done these things, sometimes successfully, sometimes not. Practicalities are often a problem, I will grant. But its sometimes easier to live with your conscience than with a large pay cheque, though different arrangements for legal support and social security change that balance from place to place.

Sadly we can never see inside, so the outside is what we have to make opinions on. When further information turns up, as provided by yourself here, its time to take a step back and reconsider, as I am doing. The message I'm getting is that LJ/6 Apart is even more disfunctional that it appeared during nipplegate. I hope you are also reconsidering the opinion you have of yonmei from the outside, and that you now consider that calling her a 'lying sack of slime' might also be unfair.

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

as i said, i didn't see the messages, so don't feel qualified at all to comment on them in specific. from my own experience of working on LJ abuse i can easily see how stock replies might have come across as arrogant and refusing to engage; when the policy is "NO! scotch this!" that's hard to avoid. i was forever tinkering with my own stock replies, trying to make them sound more personal, but the team becomes at times totally flooded, and then much of that goes out the window. the impression i got from the outside during nipplegate was that a fair number of the complainers were near hysterial -- i admit i felt for the team because i've gone through that, where there's nothing you can say nicely because the other people simply do not want to listen, they want to get something, and if you're not giving it to them they become abusive. while one has to stay scrupulously polite, of course. which tends to lead to distant, cold sort of replies, and the 20th person who writes doesn't get any personalized nice little bits thrown in anymore.

that is a problem, but i can't say that i've generally had great experiences elsewhere with this sort of thing either -- when the policy is unchangeable, the way customer service reps communicate with me often feels patronizing, and it's a rare person who makes me feel like i am actually being listened to. i've seen the abuse team as a whole succeed quite well in generally, but i've seen some failures as well, and i've failed myself occasionally, so yes, it is of course possible that rahaeli didn't do as good a job at defusing the bad situation during nipplegate as i've known her to do in the past. i'd ask her what went on there directly, but now is so very much not a good time for doing that. some time later...

i've made some hard ethical choices myself. heck, my choice to leave the abuse team was over ethics, though it wasn't hard -- i was just an unpaid volunteer, and i didn't have any years of loyalty for brad and LJ, so when i decided he was an asshole of a boss i walked after making sure rah would be ok (i felt a lot more loyalty to her). i gather you live in the UK? i respectfully submit that you might have little knowledge of what it means to live with a chronic disabling illness in the US. that paycheck (large? what gave you that idea?) can be the difference between life and death, and unless we're talking serious ethical violations i wouldn't dream of telling somebody to just chuck it because their boss is an arse. have you read the appeals for robert anton wilson? dying destitute isn't exactly a comfortable lifestyle choice. i don't know about you, but i would put up with an asshole boss before i'd go down that road.

ghod, i am getting angry again. i am flat out furious at what they've done to rahaeli. you really have no idea. and i am a total stranger to you; there is no reason why you should believe me. but she is a great person, and she works so hard, and her work is truly so good, under difficult circumstances, and most of all, she cares; about the company, about all those volunteers, about the users. she cares a heck of a lot more than brad does; his caring is for his baby LJ; her caring goes way beyond that into much more personal areas. i've worked in a lot of places, and i had exactly one manager who was as good as she was. i wish i could hire her; i would do it in a second.

when i say "inside" i don't mean inside a person's head, i mean inside a situation. i'd been on the support/abuse team long enough to get somewhat of a feel for LJ's management issues pre-6A, and you're quite right, they were dysfunctional in many ways (they were also pretty spiffy in other regards, which explains why a lot of people are staying loyal). this isn't a normal company. it's an organically grown geek dream with all the attendant joys and pitfalls. outsiders see mostly the pitfalls, of course.

and i don't know much of what happened post-6A acquisition. i think the end of the geek dream is near because venture capitalists don't give a fuck for that sort of thing.

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

as to yonmei -- sorry, i don't see why i should change my opinion of her. i was there, she lied. i saw it first-hand. she did it more than once. and she continued to lie after being corrected. she continued to lie weeks later about what happened. she never acknowledged that she was wrong, instead she continued to stir up shit in various journals, complete with sockpuppet account. i came to the conclusion that she liked confrontation so much that she violated ethical boundaries in the cause of her agenda, and wasn't interested in de-escalating conflict, but in winning at any cost. those are traits that mark somebody as "keep far away" for me. not for personal reasons, mind; i was only tangentially involved -- but both her and the main player in that wankfest went on my shitlist for their behaviour towards other people.

i don't think that that is incompatible with her being a trustworthy friend to you -- i've known more than one person who treated zir friends much better than zie treated third parties. if your objection is to the "sack" -- ok, yes, i should take that back, it was nasty hyperbole. i apologize. what she did is no big deal compared to lying politicians in the news here lately, of course. but she remains a liar and shit stirrer in my book, and i am not interested in reading anything she has to say about nipplegate; i would doubt its veracity.

[purplecthulhu.livejournal.com]

Damn - I had a long reply written to this, pressed the wrong button, and its gone.

In retrospect I don't think we're going to get much further here. So I'll try to keep this brief...

One may have a lot of reasons for putting up with an arsehole boss (long term illness, lack of any real social safety net, no union to help) but you will end up tarred with that boss' brush and will take flack for it. That's just the way the world is.

What you say about LJ's disfunction and 6Apart's attitude doesn't give me much hope for its future. Where that will leave us permanent account holders I don't know.

[purplecthulhu.livejournal.com]

Frankly I'm not prepared to believe you here unless I actually see evidence, which I doubt you can (or should - its probably confidential!) provide. I've taken at face value what you've said about rahaeli. I would hope you'd do the same for me, and suggest you think if there are any other interpretations beyond mendacity that can explain what happened with yonmei, and consider also that 'cockup' is much more common than 'conspiracy'.

Other than that, I think we're done here.

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

i am not sure how you came up with "conspiracy" -- there was no conspiracy involved. just plain lying.

i am not saying any of this to make you believe me -- i'd think that silly. i am a total stranger to you, why should you believe me? i said it to explain why i feel how i feel. evidence? yeah, i probably could, but man, i am not obsessed with yonmei, and going back through all that crap would require some serious obsession, and i have about a million better things to do. and, as i said, it's really not about convincing you. it's completely no skin off my back that she is your friend; i don't care -- why should i? the point was merely that i am disinclined to take her word for anything, and especially not as regards somebody like rahaeli.

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

and then some people will speak up when others tar a good person with the same brush as the arsehole boss.

that's where i came in. :)

no, i don't have a lot of hope for the future of LJ at this point, but i am really ticked off at the sponsor stuff. who knows; i might be taking that too seriously. here's hoping i do, and that permanent account holders get to enjoy their accounts for a long time to come.

[purplecthulhu.livejournal.com]

The 'conspiracy vs. cockup' thing is a common phrase over here. Maybe I should instead have said 'do not assign to malice what can as easily be assigned to incompetance' to make my point.

[purplecthulhu.livejournal.com]

I think we have reached a place we're in agreement :-)

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

yay! :) and thanks for having a reasonable discussion about a disagreement. i appreciate it.

[purplecthulhu.livejournal.com]

You're welcome!

I have a sneaking suspicion I was reading posts from you on alt.poly many years ago, but we both were using different names then :-)

Have a good one!