Lexie ([info]polyhymnia) wrote,
@ 2007-12-20 14:07:00
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Current mood:annoyed
Entry tags:livejournal, metajournaling, poll

But what to do? Where to go?
So, I'm somewhat breaking my rule about posting (though I have resisted all temptations brought on by the FISA bill mess and the exciting arrival of a new vegan cookbook!), but I finally decided that I need to know more about what my readers wish I would do before I decide. There are some basic pros and cons about moving, things like accounts, comments, and syndication.

Blurty doesn't seem to have syndication, and it would require people to have accounts to make comments unless I enable anonymous commenting. I might do that, but I eventually had to disable it for this journal, because I was getting spam comments and there's no real system for dealing with them on LJ-clones. It also doesn't have tags to organize my entries. Perish the thought! Tagging is the most useful LJ feature in many, many years.

Blogging services or self-hosted blogs have non-threaded comments (yuck) and either require (easy) registration, or allow anyone to comment. In both cases I may have to run some kind of spam comment plugin because true blogs tend to get flooded with spam comments sometimes. They also have syndication so that people who stay on LJ can read my posts on their friends page using syndication.

There's also the question of whether I might come back to read (if anyone even wants that) or how to keep in touch with anyone who might be interested if it can no longer happen through LiveJournal. So, without further ado, the poll.

Poll #1109323 Where should I/we go?
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 13

Will you still read my journal if I move it away from LiveJournal? (I won't be offended if you say no.)

View Answers

Yes
8 (61.5%)

No
0 (0.0%)

It depends (see options below)
5 (38.5%)

Would you like me to come back to read your journal once I am not posting here?

View Answers

Yes
11 (84.6%)

No
2 (15.4%)

If not, how would you like to keep in touch?

View Answers

E-mail
7 (70.0%)

IM
8 (80.0%)

Phone/In person
5 (50.0%)

I'd rather not
0 (0.0%)

Where should I go?

View Answers

LJ-code clone (e.g. Blurty)
0 (0.0%)

Other social blogging service (are there any?)
1 (10.0%)

Independent blog
4 (40.0%)

Other non-social blogging service (e.g. typepad, blogger)
5 (50.0%)

Will you also change your journaling/blogging location?

View Answers

Yes
1 (7.7%)

No
5 (38.5%)

Maybe
7 (53.8%)

Any other comments? Site suggestions, complaints, your plans, etc.



If you have more to say, please comment, and if you can't fill out the poll but you do read my journal and want to tell me your answers, please send me email with your answers. Please respond as I am very interested in any suggestions.

(13 comments) - (Post a new comment)

It's an uphill battle
[info]pdx6
2007-12-20 10:19 pm UTC (link)
If you go indie, you can opt for Wordpress or MovableType (typepad). Both of these systems offer extensions to enable nested comments as well as advanced spam control. You can also do multiple authors, tags, feeds, and so on.

They also increase the amount you need to know about blogs and the amount of management you need to do to keep your readership thriving:

How do RSS readers handle comments?
How do people post comments? OpenID? Local registration?
Can people read comments via RSS?
And much more.

I've already addressed this long before the LJ debacle, and I have to say it is workable if you have the time, but can be ass. I have a wordpress site up and it is OK after a bunch of tweaking, but LJ is so much easier and already does what I want. :(

(Reply to this) (Thread)
Re: It's an uphill battle
[info]polyhymnia
2007-12-21 12:04 am UTC (link)
Really? There are nested comment extensions? That makes it ever so much more cool.

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)
Re: It's an uphill battle
[info]pdx6
2007-12-21 12:11 am UTC (link)
The last time I played with the nested comments in word press was a year ago, and I had mixed results. I eventually abandoned them for flat comments, but no doubt the situation has to have improved by now.

BTW, in wordpress, commenters are also authors, but of course you set them by default to commenters. They get profile pages and what not, but I'm not sure how that works with OpenID, which basically makes them an account for each site they register with. That means profile pics or any other custom data isn't carried from site to site, at least that's how it works with LJ and OpenID.

(Reply to this) (Parent)

[info]oddharmonic
2007-12-20 10:23 pm UTC (link)
Vox (owned by SixApart) has tags and is somewhat similar to LJ. I'm oddharmonic there too, although I don't post much there. A couple of my LJ friends maintain separate blogs there -- one for privacy, another to share music and video.

Vox tour: http://www.sixapart.com/vox/tour/

(Reply to this) (Thread)

[info]polyhymnia
2007-12-21 12:03 am UTC (link)
Unfortunately, I'm not comfortable with anything owned by Six Apart, either. They were the ones who started the idiocy on LiveJournal; the Russian company is just continuing it.

(Reply to this) (Parent)

[info]incidentist
2007-12-21 12:32 am UTC (link)
If all your posts are public, might as well go with either hosted WordPress or roll-your-own Wordpress. Hosted wordpress won't let us leave comments with OpenID, which is annoying since we all have OpenIDs by virtue of being here, so I'd say roll your own Wordpress and add extensions as needed.

Actually, Drupal is another option -- they've got tags, RSS and comment threads by default, and the imminent v6.0 has OpenID baked in.

Or, ha, set up your own LJ using more recent server code. :P

(Reply to this) (Thread)

[info]polyhymnia
2007-12-21 01:57 am UTC (link)
Drupal sounds really good actually. I need to get a decent webhost if I'm going to roll my own though. My current webhost is annoyingly useless and restrictive, much more so than they used to be before the third merger they went through. Any suggestions on that?

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

[info]momentsmusicaux
2007-12-21 08:52 am UTC (link)
I've been working with Drupal for a while now. Let me know if you go with that and want a hand :)

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

[info]polyhymnia
2007-12-21 04:26 pm UTC (link)
What's FB in your poll answers? Facebook?

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

[info]momentsmusicaux
2007-12-21 08:24 pm UTC (link)
Yup. Didn't know how long the field was.

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

[info]polyhymnia
2007-12-21 09:09 pm UTC (link)
I prefer email/IM/Skype to Facebook. Being dependent on Facebook is at least as risky as LiveJournal, if not more so.

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

[info]momentsmusicaux
2007-12-21 09:17 pm UTC (link)
True -- LJ at least hasn't sold off our interests list. That we know of. Just policed it.

(Reply to this) (Parent)

[info]pseudomonas
2007-12-21 09:08 am UTC (link)
Going independent (or at least completely portable and having no expectation that your contacts will be using the same system as you) is the only way to sustainably solve the problem. The alternative is that in a couple of years you're in the same situation again.

(Reply to this)

(13 comments) - (Post a new comment)

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