LJ Idol Presents:

It's Week 13, Day 13.

So I course I'm going to wander right up to that line and dip my toe in.

First and foremost - thank you to everyone who has emailed me over the last 24 hours about the LJ Terms of Service situation. I haven't had time to get back to everyone yet. But, last time I checked, I have read everything that has come in. There have been more emails on this than anything else (other than the contestant only vote!) this season, so I thought it was worth a second Green Room.

It's a pretty big thing after all, and I was my usual flippant self in the last one. So this one will be a *little* more serious.

Probably not much, because I'm still the one writing it, and I can't stay completely serious for long about much of anything!

If you're interested in hearing what LJ itself had to say (in their brief statement with the few questions they actually unscreened and answered) http://news.livejournal.com/151767.html

It's notable that there is apparently a caste system where Paid members will be handled by Livejournal Inc in California while the free accounts will be handled by the staff in Russia. Which is just kind of weird and I wonder how long that is going to last...

As for me, I'll admit, I have an agenda. It's a highly secret one that I've never revealed to anyone else before, so I hope you guys can keep it under your hat -

I love LJ Idol and want people to stick around and compete in it.

How much longer this current incarnation will be around? That's up in the air and was before this announcement. Maybe it will twist. Maybe it will go somewhere else. I'm not sure. I'd love to keep it right here, doing the same things we've been doing for 10 years, with slight modifications. But I'm not sure that life is going to let that happen. Life has a way of throwing the Russian government at you.

But for now, I'm staying and Season 10 is continuing. I hope you will stick around and see this thing through to the end. I understand people have legitimate fears about what could happen. I've definitely been seeing all kinds of variations on them, including some things that I hadn't really considered. But I'm trying my best to be optimistic. It's how I've been operating for the last 70+ days without starting to develop a taste for alcohol. :)


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Btw - you are hallucinating that the deadline for the poll was last night. It's Thursday. It's always been Thursday. http://therealljidol.livejournal.com/1000163.html Someone must have spiked your drink. Putin is at it again... (or, due to the problems people have had logging in, I decided to extend it...one of those things actually happened...) See "Apology" post. Which should be the very next thing posted...

The longest "week" of the season continues!

Make sure to get your votes in: http://therealljidol.livejournal.com/876790.html I only have a couple right now and I'd rather space them out than get them all at once! Then again, I also want you to read everything (and comment on the entries) so get them in when you can.

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It's the last day of 2015. Which means that all you are doing is checking out "Best and Worse of 2015 lists".

So what were the best and worst things in your own life in 2015?

What do you want to see happen in 2016?

The creatures that I have summoned from the depths of the Earth are on their way from Siberia. http://time.com/3051402/siberia-holes/

They should be at your homes soon.

So I'd suggest that you get your votes in for this week as soon as possible http://therealljidol.livejournal.com/763043.html before you are destroyed.

Unless of course you can come up with a good reason why I SHOULDN'T have them destroy you. Can you?

I feel like I’ve stepped into a rabbit hole that doesn’t go down, it just turns into an ouroboros.

A couple hours ago, I was blissfully ignorant that there was anything in existence called a “Readercon”, and Genevieve Valentine and Rene Walling were just two more names that I had never heard mentioned before, on what I assume is probably a long list of “people who do stuff that I had no idea about”. Honestly, I still have very little idea of what they do, other than one makes LJ posts, and the other sexually harass people.

Apparently, it’s a big thing in a small circle of the people who actually know what any of this is about. That circle reached me due to my checking the Idol Friends Page tonight. I’m sure there were mentions about it before, but this was the first time that I’d heard any of the names or the situations.

Which makes me highly qualified to discuss it! ;)

Actually, I’m not going to, other than to say “Wow” to everything about that.. it does bring up some interesting questions (to me) about power structures of groups involved in decision making and the role of rehabilitation versus punishment as it pertains to the big picture, and the more immediate one.

I’ve been fortunate to only have been in a position to put a permanent ban on a handful of individuals. Most of them are fake accounts. So it’s not like a banned an actual person in the process, so even those numbers are deceptive!

In most cases, I’ve found that taking the rehabilitation route to work best: Bringing people around to, if not “my way of thinking”, then at very least to a “place where they can interact with other people in a semi-civilized fashion”!

There have been some people who I didn’t think could be redeemed. Or at least, not anytime soon. Maybe, eventually, they could be... which is why it’s always a good thing that LJ allows you to undo that sort of action.

I’ll freely admit, that some of my “rehab” efforts have gone better than others - and most have ended up pissing off someone else, who saw themselves as a wronged party, and me as “backing” the other person by not just removing them permanently.

So there is always a danger that you could end up losing people you would rather keep around, in an effort to give someone that you might not like as much one more chance at redemption. Not because it’s personal. But because you think that’s the right thing to do.

Part of that has always been the conflict of trying to maintain an actual diverse community. That is going to inherently have some headbutting going on, that a lot of folks aren’t used to in groups.

There seems to be a lot more bending to public opinion, than sticking to what you think is the right call for an individual situation.

(Which isn’t to say that the 30-member committee’s decision to ban the guy wasn’t warranted. I’m sure it was. I’m speaking in general. Or perhaps, in corporal.)

Not really sure what made me think of that, or feel like I need to say it. There’s nothing currently going on within Idol that I’m making a vague allusion about, and, like I said, I didn’t even know there was a thing called Readercon until earlier tonight, much less anything about the controversy that apparently has been going on all last week (or so)!

So really, it’s less about Readercon amd all the things that I don't know about the situation, and more about some of the things that popped into my head as a result of it... don’t get my brain started on figuring out why you have a 30-member committee and a separate 5-member board. I’m sure there are good reasons... I just don’t know them! ;)

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There are a couple things that I DO know about though - and I’ve known about them for a lot longer than 24 hours!

There is a poll going on: http://therealljidol.livejournal.com/595911.html

There are also Home Game entries - which is good, because those folks have their own votes to cast! http://therealljidol.livejournal.com/592005.html

So make sure to take the time to send some love!