LJ

[desperance]

Funny thing. Ever since I heard that LJ might be under threat - half the workforce sacked, etc - I've been desolate; you are my community, you guys. And I feel like I've only just found you, and if LJ goes you'll just scatter, we'll never build this again.

But.

I'm a writer, I depend on the security of my texts, I back up as a matter of course and doing so has saved my career more than once: as, f'rexample, last month, when the desktop died and I had to transfer a nearly-finished novel onto the laptop to get it done and had it right there in my pocket, thanks. [And no, since you ask: the desktop is still not back from hospital. Bloody Dell...]

But no, I do not back up my journal. Half my f-list is running around anxiously doing that just in case; and me, I am sitting here doing other stuff and not even thinking about it. Not sure why, really: it just seems to be something I don't need to keep. I don't back up my conversations, either...

Comments

[pjthompson]

I figure we'll get at least some official warning, but you never know. And it's true what you said about the community. That will be very sad indeed.

[fjm.livejournal.com]

I won't be backing up. Here is where I write *for fun*.

[jemck.livejournal.com]

Ditto on the not backing up LJ as opposed to other regular and redundant (in the useful sense) backing up habits.

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

I think that's the crucial thing: you guys all write other stuff for real. Me, this is what I write, and I'm starting to back it up...

[irishkate.livejournal.com]

I back up for curiosity but I will be desolate if I can't track down all my friends and community again somewhere else.

[deborahjross.livejournal.com]

Was anyone else on GEnie? That was another wonderful community, the first one I was active in. We went through cycles of rumors of demise (that should be capitalized: Rumors of Demise) until the cataclysmic Y2K. Really. Us diehards were posting right up until the last minute, when the clock ticked over and their un-upgraded equipment went dark.

By that time, many of us had migrated to the "bolt hole" Dueling Modems, which eventually went bye-bye, too, in the new vigor of sff.net. I still hang out on sff.net, but find LJ warmer and easier to use.

So I have every hope that, regardless of what happens or doesn't here, we will reassemble and reconfigure ourselves. We are too precious to one another to do any less.

[cherylmmorgan.livejournal.com]

Half the workforce? C'mon, a few people in a small overseas subsidiary. LJ still has a large operation back home in Russia.

[lamentables.livejournal.com]

I was quite shocked when I discovered that I needed to back up. I don't go back and reread entries, I don't tag, I consider it all ephemeral, and anything long enough (in words or effort) to consider worth saving was copied and pasted to lj from a document on my hard drive. And yet I found the idea of being without it all made me sad.

[desperance.livejournal.com]

I fear the problem is that it would be somewheres else; nobody's going to go offline if LJ vanishes, but people would migrate in a dozen different directions, and that sense of community would dissipate. Like a more exaggerated version of post-graduation, where all your friends go off to jobs in different cities, countries even, and staying in touch just gets harder and less common as time passes...

[footlingagain.livejournal.com]

That's exactly what I'm worried about. I haven't backed up the journal - I don't need to know what I've said but I like to know what other people say.

I've been in a community that just disappeared and losing it was quite traumatic. Just like post-graduation blues.

[cinderberry.livejournal.com]

LJ? In trouble? What infamy is this? *is scared*

[desperance.livejournal.com]

The Russian uberbosses have sacked a high proportion (13/28? Something on that order) of the American staff; first reports were worse, and doomsaying may not be appropriate, but - well. Scary. Yes.

[autopope.livejournal.com]

Note that they are not sacking the Russian staff.

It appears that they're moving software development to Russia, because it costs about $140,000 a year to pay and house a programmer in Silicon Valley, and less than $40,000 a year to pay and house a programmer in Moscow. And they're Russians. LJ itself isn't in trouble -- it's the Russian equivalent of Facebook (indeed the Russian word for "blog" is their translation of "livejournal").

[owlfish]

I hadn't thought about my backup-up compulsions in terms of my pack-rattish tendencies before reading your comment, but I think it's a consequence of them. Oh dear. I do like keeping things.

[http://users.livejournal.com/la_marquise_de_/]

It's rather like letters, I always think. Words on lj go out into the ether to be considered by others, not to be kept by oneself.

[irishkate.livejournal.com]

yes- I do back up but I would love a way to back up my friends pages.

And yes, the idea that people would go somewheres rather than all move to a single other location - frightening but it is the most likely outcome. However I am remaining calm as I think every year for the past several there has been a threat that the lj universe and community was about to fall apart and it hasn't yet.

::fingers crossed::