Livejournal advisory board elections

[layla]

LJ is holding elections for a user representative to represent us (the userbase) on LJ's advisory board.

I didn't really care one way or another about it until (surprise!) the trolling and asshattery began. The candidate in (currently) second place, jameth, has essentially mobilized an army of trolls who invade and attack (with personal insults, offensive/insulting image macros and other trollery) any discussion they can find that criticizes their candidate or behavior.

The most disgusting example I've seen so far was a troll attack on the LJ of a person I know who was recently diagnosed with epilepsy. She had posted a brief PSA bringing up the rapidly-flashing "seizure the day" icons that jameth's supporters are using, and pointing out that it's not impossible for the icons themselves to trigger seizures and migraines (later supported by anecdotal evidence from other people who experienced migraine "auras" from the icons) -- at the very least, throwing these icons around as a joke is rude and insensitive. Someone linked her post in Jameth's LJ, and what followed was a sickening 300+ comments in her journal, with -- of course -- flashing icons, as well as personal attacks and insults, all coming from Jameth's supporters and regular commenters in his LJ. Jameth himself showed up to egg them on. Her entire journal is currently flocked due to this nastiness, and she's thinking about leaving LJ (and who can blame her?).

Here and here and here are a few more examples I found in a few minutes of clicking around on Metafandom and friends-of-friends. It's all over the place. Point out their asshattery, get trolled, assuming they find you.

Jameth's response to being asked to reign in his followers (specifically relating to the epilepsy discussion) was, first, "What post?" (a post he'd already commented on at that point) and then, when the link was pointed out to him, "She should learn how to control her journal's content; I'm not going to police people about their user icons" followed by a string of denials that he has any control over the situation at all.

Riiiiight. On the one hand, it's certainly true that you can't be responsible for every single thing your friends do. On the other hand, if you hold a political rally downtown, whip everyone up to a fever pitch of patriotic fervor, and then sit back with a grin, occasionally shouting encouragement, while they break windows and steal stuff -- good luck finding a jury who won't hold you responsible for that.

This is also a guy who, when another candidate overtakes him, posts unfounded allegations of massive sockpuppet voting (and has repeatedly refused to provide evidence). He and his followers are extremely nasty towards fans and fandom -- this link is one teeny example, but you can find them in pretty much any thread on his LJ, and then there's this thoroughly tasteless smear ad on the hugely popular ohnotheydidnt community. (His front-running opponent, legomymalfoy, is active in fandom, and Jameth's bunch, in the time-honored political tradition, are making hay of this, with slurs about "fanfic lesbians" and the like.)

I have yet to see a SINGLE thread on his LJ that isn't full of namecalling and juvenile, rude behavior on the part of Jameth and his friends.

Poking through his userinfo reveals membership in such tasteful LJ comms as rape_an_ljer and kill_the_pope. Looking through the journals of his friends, supporters and stumpers is appalling -- it's true that it's not entirely fair to judge a person by their friends, but one of his friends, weev, who's been going around stumping for him, has a journal that's full of this disgusting anti-Semitic drivel and another of his friends, queerdo, admitted in a thread in one of the discussions I was involved in (now flocked, though I could take caps) that he's HIV-positive and has a history of having unprotected sex with uninformed partners. This from a guy who was arguing, in that same thread, that epileptic people need to take responsibility for their own browsing experience and it's their own fault if someone else shoving flashing icons into their personal journal gives them a seizure.

The brief, tl;dr summary of this post: VOTE FOR ANYONE BUT JAMETH FOR LJ ADVISORY BOARD! For the love of God, don't let these assholes use trolling and namecalling to win this election. You think LJ's policies are a joke now? Wait'll Jameth gets a voice in making them.

I have no personal knowledge of any of the other candidates, but legomymalfoy seems to be well-known and respected both in and out of fandom; here is an endorsement of her by a former LJ staff member who knows and has worked with her. She's also the one who is currently in the best position to defeat Jameth, so even if she's not your top choice, please consider putting her down as your second or third choice (if no one gets a majority of the vote, the election goes to a runoff, where the lowest-ranked candidates are eliminated and your vote will switch to your next favorite if your top candidate washes out -- better explanation of the runoff process here).

All the candidates' campaign statements can be viewed here.

Once again, to vote, go here.

To change your vote after you've already voted, do it here.

The election ends Thursday.

Comments

[pamola.livejournal.com]

Why am I always carrying lists to elections. My wife does our research on which judges and school board members to vote for. Anyway, Voted.

[laylalawlor.livejournal.com]

Excellent! (Hee. My spouse does the same thing -- the research, and the list!)

[neosquirrel.livejournal.com]

Thank god I don't get involved in this asshattery. ^^

[neosquirrel.livejournal.com]

Oh god no! No no no. Not at the post. Just the asshattery that ensues with such internet battles. If I see it from the beginning, I just stand back and watch, chuckle, and continue to be amused. Then things get ugly, the point gets lost, and then eventually I get bored and move on.

You know me, I love your posts. ^_^

[laylalawlor.livejournal.com]

Oh feck, I hate not being to edit comments on the free account! Sorry! I deleted and tried to repost a more coherent version, and then saw you'd already replied and deleted the second version. AAARGH.

[neosquirrel.livejournal.com]

Well, it seems you can't do it from the mid-level either. At least, I've never been able to. Oh well. Don't worry, I didn't take any offense, and if you did to my comment, I humbly apologize. I feel for your friend's trouble, and admire you defending their honor.

So no worries. Plenty of love on this end. ^^

[laylalawlor.livejournal.com]

Anyway, I know you and I didn't think you'd be attacking me, which is why I couldn't figure out what to make of your comment.

I don't normally get involved in this sort of thing, either. In a couple of days, it will have blown over. But these people are a fairly well-organized group of trolls and they're literally chasing others out of LJ for doing nothing more than disagreeing with them, and that incensed me enough that I felt someone should speak up against them.

Sorry again for the deleted comments.

[neosquirrel.livejournal.com]

Organized trolls? Yeesh. Just when you thought it couldn't get any worse. Someone needs to open the dam and drown the rats out from underneath the bridge.

Don't worry about the comments. The more the merrier, I say. Gives me something to read in my time off. ^__^

[zixi.livejournal.com]

*shakes head*

Yes.

(Did you see the parts where Jameth's people are accusing everybody else except for them of running smear campaigns? Or the parts where they're whining about losing free speech for being banned from people's personal journals?)

And can it be Friday already so this can all be over?

[laylalawlor.livejournal.com]

Yeah. On all counts. And they're making a big deal out of how they never "censor" comments or ban people in their own journals -- which is like bragging about how, when *you* run a town meeting, you don't bother moderating and let everyone run amok. Somehow, requiring this lot to be polite and behave like civilized human beings in other people's private journals translates to violating their civil rights. And if they're losing the election, it must be because people are conspiring against them.

Whatever.

I'm actually a little surprised by how strongly I feel about all of this, because I don't normally have this much of an emotional reaction to this kind of thing -- but after two days of watching these twits stomp all over an innocent person and anyone who speaks up in her defense, I'm pretty much ready to see them run out of LJ on a rail. Or, at the very least, not profiting from their asshole tactics by winning the election.

[zixi.livejournal.com]

Well, technically I don't think there is a law against being an asshole. I mean, common sense and human dignity and being a functioning member of society rather than a destructive one, that's something else...

I'm actually a little surprised by how strongly I feel about all of this, because I don't normally have this much of an emotional reaction to this kind of thing

Me too. But then I don't usually see someone I know, respect, talk to semi-regularly, etc get viciously attacked like that either.
I don't have a lot of patience for bullying and treating other people like that.

[trishalynn.livejournal.com]

I actually like rm, mostly because she's the one I know (co-mod of newyorkers and she behaves pretty well there. But yes, I'm voting anyway.

[laylalawlor.livejournal.com]

That's cool! I wouldn't mind seeing rm in that position, either. I wish I had personal experience with more of these people than I do, since I've basically only got campaign statements and second-hand endorsements to go by.