What with, you know, life getting in the way, I've managed to completely ignore the LJ User Rep elections this year, which is probably just as well. It's surprising that practically no-one (in fact just plain no-one) on my flist has mentioned them at all over the last couple of weeks - I guess this goes to show how much legomymalfoy managed to destroy anyone's faith in the post being anything meaningful.

I intended to stand myself, but just basically never got around to it. However, with the major change to needing 300 supporters to qualify, rather than just 100, I figured I probably wouldn't qualify anyway - only a tiny handful of people did, compared to last year.

The voting is closed now and the results are announced tomorrow, but you can see who has won - and I confess I'm very, very surprised it's not jameth. Pleasantly surprised, actually. kylecassidy has won by a fairly hefty margin, by the look of things, unless the instant runoff process changes things (but I don't think it does).

His platform seems a little bare - almost entirely focussing on technical things I'm not sure many people care about - but at least he has an LJ with a lot of public posts in it, and seems willing to engage with people. He might actually make the job worthwhile.

I wonder how many death threats he recieved?

Bring on the madness!

I'm glad - and surprised, to be honest - that they're going ahead with this following the dismal performance of last year's winner. At least she hasn't screwed it up for those of us who would like to do a good job, and yannow, actually communicate with people.

It'll be interesting to see how the Fandom Hive Mind approach the election this year, given that their Officially Approved Candidate was so utterly useless. It could massively improve the chances of people who actually have a broader or more balanced view of things, but I suspect jameth will win hands down. And I don't think that's a good thing either.

Still, I fully intend to stand again! It was fun last year, despite my coming last... :) Make sure you all support/nominate me.

I just sent the following private message to legomymalfoy...

Could you please outline to me your plans concerning the Advisory Board? How may people contact you, and where do you plan to discuss their concerns? I'm not aware of your policies on these issues, given that your LJ is f-locked.

Do you have plans to publish any info, or open any communcation channels such as a community or an alternative LJ?

Thanks

primitivepeople (fellow election candidate)

I hit the send button and was greeted with this:

There was an error processing your request:

* This message cannot be sent to [info]legomymalfoy because the recipient has enabled the privacy options for their messages.

Wow. How helpful.

Football

I'm so happy that England failed to qualify for the European Cup this year. It starts on Saturday, and we've been spared the idiotic cod-patriotism that accompanies every single football tournament. In fact, I didn't even realise it started on Saturday until a EURO 2008 link appeared on Yahoo and I looked it up.

So...no flags everywhere, no drunken tossers exposing acres of sunburnt fat flesh yelling "EN-GER-LAND! EN-GER-LAND!" hogging all the space in pubs, no morons going over to Europe to cause trouble and making the entire nation look terrible...wonderful stuff. Long may England's crap performance last.

Far-seeing

There's been some good telly on of late. "The Inbetweeners" finished last Thursday in fine style, and it's been an excellent series, with some really spot-on moments. I don't know if a second series is planned, but I hope it is - this has generated some serious belly-laughs, with a great range of characters, some great running gags, and a really good cast that deserves a lot more work.

"Peep Show" was a little weak on Friday, I thought - the script for this series does seem to be degenerating into something rather formulaic, and it's a shame. There's been some good moments, but it's relying too much on Jeremy being an unlikeable bastard, Mark having bad luck with women, and just about all the women in the show being rather negatively portrayed. The one exception to this is, of course, Dobby, who hasn't appeared for the last two episodes. I hope she makes a comeback, as in my opinion she should be promoted immediately to Supreme Ruler of the Entire Universe.

Anyway...Friday's episode featured a Christian music festival called "Life '08", which had the potential to insult the mighty Greenbelt, but thankfully didn't, and actually portrayed things moderately accurately. Last episode of the series this week - I hope it goes out with a bang. Apparently there's a twist in the whole Mark and Sophie storyline coming up.

"Doctor Who" this week was absolutely top-notch, I thought - it's certainly an interesting storyline, that's ended on a cliff-hanger and it's not obvious at all where the plot is going. Good cast too, with Alex Kingston who is always watchable, and Steve Pemberton of "League of Gentlemen" fame - "you lied to me! There is a Swansea!" Can't wait to see how this storyline concludes. The Library is a fascinating and intriguing creation. :)

Also on Saturday, I watched a bit of "I'd Do Anything". I'd not seen it before, but seriously - how can shite like this be so popular? They're constantly going on about "looking for a Nancy" - isn't there one presenting the show?!? Some of the performances have been quite good, but really, I can't understand the loyalty and appeal that shows like this generate, especially when they end up getting better voting turnouts than General Elections...

Flat

Our new carpets are now laid, and we've swapped bedrooms with the children. I made a good(ish) start on shifting furniture around, and our new room is now looking lovely. The living room is still full of CHROS though, as every inch of space is taken up with junk. We need to shift it all about and get rid of things we don't need - this needs to be fairly ruthlessly carried out, as we desperately need to declutter. As for the bedrooms - well, what an improvement. Abby suggested doing this ages ago - as per usual, she's The Wind Beneath My Wings (tm), and Everything She Does Is Art. Uh-huh.

There's now only one room in the flat that needs dealing with, and that's the kitchen, which is bit of a disaster area. Quite a bit could be solved by a good clean, a lick of paint and a new floor, but the rest is a bit more of a challenge. We got some quotes a while ago for a completely new kitchen, and they were laughably ridiculously high, so we didn't go ahead. What we want to do is just improve the place to the point where the flat will be easier to sell, i.e. cosmetic improvement. So...new cabinet doors will be a good start. Currently none of them match and they're all different sizes. Does anyone know a good purveyor of kitchen doors that will be able to supply us decent doors at a good price? Or do a bargain-basement basic kitchen refurb? Answers on a postcard to the usual address.

Fandom

Before I get crucified by everyone for saying this, I'm not tarring everyone in fandom with the same brush - just pointing out some of the more extreme elements within the culture that have ended up hijacking LJ's agenda, against the common interests of "norms" like me.

Reading the fallout from the LJ elections continues to be interesting. There's now a conspiracy theory that legomymalfoy was LJ's preferred candidate and that the voting was rigged to get her elected. I don't believe this for a moment, but both her and jameth almost certainly took advantage of mass sock-puppet voting, underhand campaigning and a certain degree of LJ fame. legomymalfoy was supported by the infamous bookshop, of t-shirt-burning fame, and this resulted in a huge fandom campaign to get her elected - and it worked. Having read around, it seems that the more lunatic fringe of fandom can't understand (a) the needs of anyone else, and (b) why it might not be a good thing to have someone elected who has a completely f-locked LJ, and (c) why fanfiction is such a lame thing to try to defend.

Fanfic baffles me. Apart from the fact that most of it is extremely poor indeed, I can't understand why it's a genre in which people invest so much effort. Fanfic authors demand rights to publish their work, and go on about all the time and effort invested in it, and how it's all original and creative - but it's not, is it? It's stealing someone else's ideas. I can understand role-playing in fandom, as that's something that's good fun, but why rip off other people's work and defend so passionately a genre that's almost entirely dreadful? And if you're going to write something, why not write something genuinely creative and original, that might stand a hope in hell of being successful commercially? Let's face it, yet another HP fanfic isn't going to get you anywhere, especially because authors like J.K. Rowling guard their copyright so closely.

That brings me on to something relevant to the LJ election winner, who describes herself as a "Pervy Immoral Slasher". Great...I'm represented by someone who writes gay Harry Potter pr0n. Notwithstanding all the stuff I've just mentioned above, plus all the debates about Strikethrough and the legality of non-photographic depictions, erotic fiction etc., isn't there something slightly sick and wrong about sexualising children's book characters? I'm sure J.K. Rowling is oh-so-happy that the term "Snape rape" even exists...

Also, as loads of people have pointed out...legomymalfoy is a member of LJ Abuse. I say conflict of interest - almost any company worth it's salt would say you can't be on an advisory board and directly involved in the company's operations, especially as this post is meant to represent the Average Joe user. Network Rail has elected Members to scrutinise the operations of the company, and these people have to be unconnected with it in any other way, i.e. not employees. So - legomymalfoy has to resign one of her positions. No wonder people think it was a set-up.

Farce

If you think LJ handles things badly, Faceparty is even worse. I used the site for about five minutes a while ago, until I realised how utterly, utterly vile it is - and it gets viler. Apparently, some sort of legislation has been passed in the UK concerning vetting of sex offenders and their use of the internet, and something or other within it only applies to over-35s. So...Faceparty decided that everyone over 35 is a potential paedophile and arbitrarily deleted them. Charming! I knew it was all downhill from here when I entered my 30s, but I sincerely hope I don't resort to kiddy-fiddling in two years' time. LJ may not be all that clever at times, but let's put things in perspective - they've never sunk that low.

Well, I officially came last in the LJ Elections, but I really don't care, given how farcical and dramatic the whole thing turned out to be. I should have known - anything LJ does always ends up getting hijacked by the lunatic fringe.

I've not really caught up on everything, as I've been in Wales for the last week and had lower-than-normal net access, but now I'm back, I'm catching up on what's gone on. I should have expected all this crap to happen - somehow, depressingly, it's not surprising.

One of the candidates in the election (don't know for sure, but I suspect it was jameth) was sent a very threatening message including a lot of personal info, threatening serious harm if they didn't pull out of the election. Law enforcement has got involved. I got an e-mail from marta a few days ago that I've only just seen, saying that other candidates (but not me) were contacted to see if similar threats had been made against them, but they had not, so it had been an isolated incident. Those contacted had been asked to keep the info confidential, but cambler dropped a massive drama bomb by blowing the whistle on it.

Meanwhile, the Fandom Hive Mind got busy, with people like bookshop launching a massive campaign to get fandom users to all vote for rm, vichan and the ultimate winner, legomymalfoy. There's all sorts of accusations of vote fraud, which I'm not sure can be proven, but whatever - it's clear that it all descended into farce, and the winner was elected by mass fandom hysteria spread by multi-community spamming.

I think the winning candidate will probably be hopeless for the job, but given the huge amount of drama this has generated, legomymalfoy will soon end up LJ Public Enemy Number One, so I'm better off out of the whole thing. As per usual, the whole LJ agenda has been dominated by the more deranged fandom users throwing their toys out of the pram, and acting like they're special, and no-one else matters.

The more extreme elements of fandom culture completely baffle me. Sure, I'm well into lots of film, books and TV, but the obsessive nature of fandom is quite terrifying at times - all this fandom_counts nonsense is just the start. The more extreme fandom users seem to take any even remote criticism staggeringly personally, and can't cope with anything that they think impinges on their rights. It's all very childish behaviour, and many of these people are grown adults who should know better. It's depressing that so many people can't be bothered to think for themselves, but just follow the crowd in "fighting for fandom", just because jameth said something insulting to Harry Potter fans.

For fuck's sake! jameth has said something insulting to just about everyone, so what is so significant about that? I didn't want him to win, but I didn't want legomymalfoy to win either. I didn't stand a chance myself, but there were plenty of capable, sensible, non-partisan people running, and of course, none of them were able to compete with the rather pathetic collection of people who came out near the top.

Given everything that has happened, it's hard to take the results all that seriously. With confirmed threats being made towards candidates, accusations of mass sock-puppet voting, and the drama generated by vote counts being visible all along, the whole thing is seriously dodgy-looking. I don't think there was any deliberate fraud on LJ's part, but there seems to have been far too little in place to protect the integrity of the process, and that's a big, big problem they need to fix.

I think it's fair play to them that they were willing to host these elections as a response to recent criticism, but it's backfired in a grand style, and will be keeping Encyclopedia Dramatica busy for years.

In future, I'm just going to enjoy being Mr. Average Joe LJ User, and leave the drama to the trolls, furries, HP slash authors, blah blah blah. I love using the site in the manner that I use it, so why mess with a winning formula?

Thanks very much to all who voted for me. :)

Things start to turn nasty...

Oo-er. I can't believe how stupid this is all getting.

I'm aware that I've said a few controversial things, but thankfully I've slipped under the radar and none of this nastiness has spread as far as me. However, I do share cambler's concerns that this whole thing is being fought on all the wrong issues, has turned downright bitchy, and lacks many of the safeguards needed to make it fair. It's obvious that it's a race between the people who can spam the most communities rather than people that can argue a good case.

I also think that LJ has dropped the biggest drama bomb EVAR in showing the number of votes for each candidate before the end, which has created no end of trouble.

I knew I'd never win, but even if I do come last, I'm glad that I raised some issues and got more votes than people on my friends list, so thanks to everyone who supported me, and I'm glad I managed to keep out of the more idiotic end of things. Remind me to keep out of anything potentially drama-ridden in future - the people who wield the most power and influence on LJ are terrifyingly stupid and let things get way out of hand.

legomymalfoy is now comfortably ahead of jameth, suggesting that the Fandom Hive Mind has now successfully hijacked the agenda. Not good, as I think the whole thing has now degenerated into the peer group pressure-driven popularity contest I thought we might avoid.

I don't think either of the top two would be good for the role. My opinion of jameth had elevated for a while, mainly because if you ignore the more stupid behaviour of some of his supporters, he comes across better than I'd first given him credit for. His defenders defend him with real passion. However...Encyclopedia Dramatica is officially endorsing jameth and encouraging people to vote for him "for the lulz". Whether he will act in a lulzy manner remains to be seen, but I think this is developing expectations from people and encouraging voting from people who want the election to be nothing but a drama-generating machine. I know ED is not to be taken seriously and I find parts of it hilarious myself, but it's enough to make me worry about what an ED-endorsed candidate might be like.

ED have urged people to use all three votes for jameth, which demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of how run-off elections work. Your second and third choice votes will only count if your first/second choices are eliminated, so it's all bit of a waste. Vote for three different people, or your second and third choices will be wasted. I think this misunderstanding is quite widespread. It remains to be seen how many second and third choices will end up not counting as a result - will it be enough to affect the outcome?

In an interesting turn of events, legomymalfoy has overtaken jameth in the lead position for first choice votes.

Vote here.

Well, I'm in a resounding last place at the moment. No particular issue with that, really - I never expected to stand much of a chance - but this election is taking a depressing turn as far as I'm concerned.

OK, I know a lot of people think the LJ Advisory Board is a waste of time, but why make that a self-fulfilling prophecy? Thus far, the likely winner has said absolutely nothing about what he'd actually do. OK, so people think the endless tasteless images everywhere are funny, but if you ever had a problem with LJ and wanted someone to represent you, would you want it to be someone who is likely to laugh in your face and tell you to fuck off? Because, as far as I can tell, that's what's likely to happen. Do you want to be represented by someone who thinks anyone on LJ is fair game for abuse and humiliation?

I know I'm not going to win, and that's fine, but I at least want to be represented by someone who cares about what they're doing. If the Advisory Board ends up being a failure, please don't let it be by deliberate obstruction. Elect someone who might stand a chance of actually making it work, so if it does fail, it won't be through lack of trying.

If jameth wins, I hope he has the decency to either do the job properly, or decline to take up the position. And I challenge him to delete all the dozens of crude, tasteless and NSFW images he and his supporters have posted everywhere, and tell us what he's going to actually do.

You can change your mind even if you've voted already. Just saying.

Here's some of my thoughts and policies, just as the Advisory Board Election is about to start...

• I'm striving to represent everyone here. I'm not taking on the views of a minority, or of a particular subset of LJ users. I want to listen to everyone's concerns, and if I'm elected, you can contact me anytime to raise issues and debate them sensibly with me.
• I won't jump to conclusions. Some people have decided to adopt a paranoid view of everything LJ does - assuming there's some sort of conspiracy to ruin the site or piss off a certain part of the userbase. I'm not going to assume this. I won't be an unconditional cheerleader for LJ, and neither will I assume they're evil until proven otherwise. I want to build a constructive relationship with the company and the Advisory Board, so that I will be respected and listened to when I choose to raise issues.
• I'm looking forwards, and not backwards. What's done is done. Let the past stay where it belongs. Let's not keep harping back to Strikethrough or Nipplegate. Let's look at how LJ can move forward to resolve concerns as they arise, and become a leading platform for quality user-generated content.
• The company needs the users, and the users need the company. There doesn't have to be eternal conflict - for the site to prosper, the relationship between company and userbase needs to be a healthy and prosperous one. I'll push for the user's voice to be respected, but I will also seek to understand the needs of the company, as we all need each other. It's about clearly-defined rights and responsibilities on both sides, and I'll work hard to see that these are indeed clearly defined.
• I won't hold the company to ransom. Positive, lasting change comes through working constructively within the proper framework. There may be times for protest, but you won't get any silly, pointless calls for "strikes" or "boycotts" from me - they haven't got anyone anywhere. I'll negotiate and push for things to happen in a constructive manner.
• Change does not have to be bad - and I'll work hard to make sure that when it happens, it's good.
• I have no axe to grind. I'm not standing on a single issue. I'm not standing as the official candidate of a group with an agenda. I'm not standing as a victim of LJ's policies. I'm standing as a regular user who loves the thing, and wants to see it prosper for everyone involved.
• I'm not afraid to think for myself. I don't go with the flow, and I don't bow to peer group pressure. I'll listen to the opinions and facts, come to my conclusions, and happily explain and debate those with anyone.

Vote Primitive! You know it makes sense. :)

...here.

Voting runs from 22nd to 29th. Feel free to ask any questions here, and see my other election related posts by clicking on the tag for this entry.

More election stuff...this time, it's a set of questions the existing Advisory Board has asked of those standing for election. So here's my thoughts...

1) What do you think is the value of LJ?

I think LJ has a number of significant strengths and features that make it one of the best blogging/journalling sites out there, and vastly superior to many other products.

It's easy to set up and use, but uniquely has management tools that allow you to control exactly what it looks like, and who sees what. I know of no other blogging sites that allow you to easily define public, friends-only or filtered entries, so you can write what you want, confident that only those you've picked can read what you've written. On top of this, a simple but much-loved feature for me is threaded commenting. Many other sites dump comments in a list, making conversations much harder to follow.

Adult content flagging - dare I say it - also gives users more power to control their journals and more freedom to write what they want.

LJ goes beyond blogging into social networking, and unlike Blogger, Wordpress etc., it's extremely easy to find an audience of like-minded people for your writing, and I've genuinely made friends across the world with LJ. It has one hell of a lot going for it, and I know that the time and energy I've put into my blog has been massively worthwhile. LJ is a much-loved and appreciated place, and therein lies its value - and it's why people get so concerned about change.

2) What changes would you like to see LJ make in the next year?

I think LJ doesn't need to change anything fundamental. I don't subscribe to the view that things were better in the past - change happens all the time, and if LJ sat still, there would be lots of useful features missing. I regularly post videos and photos to my LJ now, and this is now very easy.

The one thing that needs to change is the quality of LJ's communication with users. Many of the controversies and arguments could be avoided if LJ was better able to explain why it does what it does. I think a lot of users feel that LJ is hiding things from us. Personally this is not a view I hold, but communication has been a little poor at times, and many issues could have been effectively resolved with clearer explanations for things.

I also think that, following arguments over censorship, strikethrough etc., LJ needs to clarify a number of issues relating to the rights and responsibilities of users. It's important to define clearly just what and what isn't acceptable content, explain the rights that users have and clarify the extent of their free speech on LJ. However, LJ has to act within the law, and users have to take responsibility for what they write. It needs to be made clear just how rights and responsibilities on both sides should sit together. LJ needs to take sensible and considered action when something goes wrong, and this can only be done when the terms of the relationship between author and host are made absolutely clear.

3) Why do you want to be the elected representative?

• Because I can do this. I have skills and experience that would make me excellent for the job.
• Because it promises to be great fun and very rewarding.
• Because I have no personal axe to grind, and would be happy to discuss anyone's concerns at any time. I'm not out there for the minority; I'm here for everyone, and that's good for LJ as a whole.
• Because I care about LJ, and I don't want this great opportunity squandered by someone unsuitable doing the job. I'm passionate about this.

4) What do you think are the community's greatest concerns?

People want freedom to get on with writing and interacting, and they want to do this with minimal interference. There's a trust issue out there in some quarters, with people feeling like the site is not in the best of hands, and that negative changes have come about. This is why I think better communication is so important.

A lot of people are cynical about these elections, and wonder if the advisory board will do much good. I think it could be really effective if the right people are elected, and a number of people are concerned about what might happen if an incompetent or deliberately difficult candidate is elected.

Some people feel LJ is censoring them, and clarification is desperately needed on why certain content is problematic and what both users and LJ can do to maximise freedom whilst acting responsibly.

The nomination process for the LJ Advisory Board elections closes today, so very soon we'll have a complete list of the candidates who will be up for election from 22nd to 29th May. I've already had my confirmation e-mail from marta, so I shall be one of those candidates.

It looks like plenty of people have got the 100 comments they need, including some who threw their hats into the ring quite late. Once you've got those comments, you need to sign a declaration that you can do what's required, and return it to LJ. I've done this, so I'm through. The requirements aren't particularly onerous, but I wonder if they've put anyone off? Especially the joke candidates, of which there seem to be several.

A lot of people are cynical about the LJ Advisory Board, and I think the joke candidates, some of whom are threatening to be deliberately obstructive if elected, might do pretty well. Anyway, besides all of that, and without any mudslinging, here's some thoughts on things I think you should be considering when making your vote.

• Don't vote for someone making promises they can't keep. A lot of candidates are making bold promises about things they're going to deliver, and make LJ all fine and dandy again, but this is completely beyond the board's remit. It's all well and good if we were standing for CEO, but we're not - the board has a specific task which is to consider, debate, advise, discuss, communicate and represent - and that does not mean going in, all guns blazing, making demands that almost certainly won't be met. Make sure you use your vote for someone who understands how stakeholder relationships work, and for someone who has some idea of how to negotiate and bargain effectively.
• Don't vote for someone representing only a small part of the user base. There are loads of fandom candidates standing. Some of these will be more than capable of representing non-fandom users, but a lot of them will only be out to push the fandom agenda, which is somewhat different to the agenda of an everyday blogger like me. Look out for people who understand that different parts of the user base have different needs, but ultimately we all benefit from LJ being a safe and successful place.
• Don't vote for someone with an axe to grind. There are still people out there angry about things LJ/SA/SUP has done, and these are people standing for election so that all of their personal gripes can be addressed. If it's obvious that someone only wants to deal with issues that happen to have affected them, they're not a wise choice. Elect someone with a neutral point of view, who won't push a possibly very limited personal agenda.
• Don't vote for a joke candidate. It might seem funny at the time, but that makes the cynics' constant whining a self-fulfilling prophecy. Vote for someone with the skills and attitude to do the job properly, and take it seriously. In London, we're stuck with an idiot for mayor, that people voted for "because he's funny". It won't be funny when he screws up and makes dumb decisions that spoil things for everyone else.
• Beware of "officially approved" candidates and popularity contests. It's going to be easy for certain people to whip up a lot of support, because they've become LJ celebrities and are particularly active on the site. Do you want to vote for someone simply because they've managed to spam the most communities, or because they have the time to keep up with hundreds of friends? It doesn't prove they're any better qualified for the job - it just proves they spend more time online. These are the people more likely to have personal agendas, because they feel they have more of a right to have them than "lesser" users. But however much a candidate uses LJ, the quality of their ideas matters much more than sheer quantity of activity. Also, be wary of candidates endorsed by particular communities - it's just likely that these communities have an agenda that said candidate will address, but they may not be much good for anyone else.

In saying all of this, I'm fairly obviously saying that I think you should vote for me. :) I'm not here to push my own agenda, I'm not going to boldly claim to be LJ's saviour, and I'm not a disgruntled user out for revenge. I'm just someone who honestly wants to do this job because I think I can do it, and will be fair, realistic and competent.

If you have any comments or questions on all of this, please get in touch - I'll be happy to answer them. Following soon will be a piece on my particular views on recent LJ issues.

OK, I know my chances in the LJ Advisory Board elections aren't brilliant, but I want to give this a damn good try, and I want to do it properly. There's a lot of candidates standing who either have personal agendas, or won't take the role seriously, and I want to come across as someone who can and will do the best job possible of representing everyone.

All my election-related posts are tagged and can be found here, so for anyone who wants to know what I'm about, this is somewhere you can point them. Sometime soon, probably tomorrow, I'll set out some more of my thoughts in the hope of getting some good debate going.

If you want to point people towards me as a candidate they might want to consider, please give them the link above. I'd really appreciate a banner pointing to that link, so can anyone make me one?

A lot of people have got their required quota of support by spamming communities, or by being popular in fanfic groups etc. I want to get somewhere simply on merit, so I'm not going to spam anything at all, and would like to just allow what I'm writing to speak for itself. Pimp me about like you have been doing so far, and let's see what people make of me. I'd like this just to be a viral campaign, really - I'll leave people to read things for themselves, and decide whether to spread the word or not. Besides, I'm away from home during part of the election period and will have rather limited internet access.

You've been great in helping me get this far without really having to do very much besides comment as best I can on what I think of everything. I really want to do this job, so let's tell everyone how great I would be at it. :)

Big success!

I have the required support, and I'm through to the next stage - I just got the nomination confirmation. :)

Huge thanks to everyone who has supported me. Winning the popularity contest with fandom bigwigs is probably going to be nigh-on impossible, but I'll give it a damn good try.

Just another 20 comments needed.

I now have 61 supporting comments. I need another 39 to get to the next stage. Please help me, everyone!

I am standing for election to the LJ Advisory board. I'm not sure how good my chances are, but I reckon I'd do a good job. To get elected, I need 100 supporting comments from unique users to the post I've linked to above. I have 33 thus far.

There's quite a few people who have nominated themselves - you can read all about them at lj_election_en. Fairly predictably, there's a number of people with a massively high profile in fandom standing. They've not had to say much, but have managed to get hundreds (in some cases getting close to thousands) of supporting comments. Fair enough, but this whole thing appears in danger of turning into a popularity contest, with the ultimate winner probably turning out to be the one who hates SUP the most.

Understandable, I suppose, but not a constructive attitude. What bugs me is the lack of business understanding many people have in this. LJ has made some mistakes, yes, but sometimes things have to change, for reasons entirely beyond the site's control. A few observations...

• LJ has to operate within the law. Much as we'd all like to write what we want in a public forum, there are laws designed to keep inappropriate content away from minors, and if LJ did not abide by these rules, not only would we see more negative campaigning from Warriors for Innocence etc., but we'd also see law enforcement clamping down upon and possibly closing the site. Content filtering is actually a good thing - if implemented properly.
• No single user, or group of users, can claim to be a bigger stakeholder than anyone else. This is what bugs me about a lot of fandom users - they sometimes seem to think they have special rights over and above the rights of other users. Also a lot of candidates have been posting stats about how many entries they've made and how many comments they've made. I personally don't think that's very relevant. Someone who joined yesterday may have concerns that are just as valid as an early adopter's. Whilst I've invested a lot in LJ, I don't have any more or any less rights than any other user. We all deserve to be heard - a lot of fandom candidates seem to think that non-fandom people don't count.
  
• LJ has to make money, otherwise there is no LJ. That's why sometimes things have to change. It's a bummer you can't get Basic accounts any more, and it would be good if a better compromise could be reached, but it would appear that the take up of new accounts has not slowed since the change.
• There's a need for clear, easy-to-understand Terms of Service, applied consistently. This sometimes appears not to be happening, and it needs to happen. I think LJ is making good progress in this area, but could always do better.

Anyway, those are just some thoughts. As in the London Mayoral elections, style winning over substance is not a good thing, and whoever you vote for, it's important that they will fairly represent all users, and also understand that LJ has to consider many, many more things than just the userbase, or a small part thereof. Vote wisely, people.

That does, of course, mean voting for me. :)

Having recovered from my annoyance at the London election results, I've calmed down a bit, and it's worth some more measured analysis.

Apparently Boris has got to work already - he's sacked a number of senior advisors appointed by Ken Livingstone, and has recruited Steven Norris (previous Conservative mayoral candidate) as an advisor. No major surprises there, I suppose, but it'll be interesting to see what happens to the administration and structure at City Hall, given that the job has only been done by one person before. Looks like there could be some cuts in the bureaucracy.

Boris wants to tackle anti-social behaviour as a high priority. Nothing wrong with that, but I fear that teenagers are going to bear the brunt of whatever measures he introduces, and that his priorities will be wrong. He's talking about taking free bus travel away from anti-social teens, but I suspect this will be an excuse to take free bus travel away from all teenagers, the vast majority of whom behave properly, and now won't be able to travel to the facilities they desperately need to avoid boredom - which is the biggest cause of anti-social behaviour.

Although I remain far from convinced that Boris will be much good, I suspect the Conservatives will throw a lot of resources at Boris to try and get a good image for him. The stakes are high - let's face it, it's a dry run for a Conservative General Election victory. If they screw up in London, the voters won't trust them to run the country. So...it might work out OK, although I suspect we'll see massive cuts in public services, as the Tories seem to be very fond of those.

I remain very concerned about the election of BNP member Richard Barnbrook to the GLA. He wants to have the Union Jack permanently flying over City Hall, and wants burkas banned from public buildings. What's this obsession with a piece of cloth? OK, I don't like them much - they seem a little creepy, and it's hardly much good for women's rights - but banning them? Given that virtually everyone wearing them is from an ethnic minority, that's a classic piece of racist legislation. He doesn't stand much chance of getting it done, though - all the major parties' candidates walked out when he gave a speech at the announcement of the mayoral results, and he's going to be completely ostracised. Let's face it, even for a party like UKIP, association or alliance with the BNP is complete political suicide. So...I sincerely hope he'll be a spectacularly ineffective "politician". A close eye needs to be kept on him, though.

Anyway, it's time I got into politics myself...vote for me as a member of the LJ Advisory Board! Go here to see my pitch. I don't rate my chances very high, but I'd like to do it. I need 100 supporting comments to get to stand, so go and do the thing. And get your friends to do the same.

I suspect the winner will be someone with a high profile in fandom - who will ultimately fail to represent the interests of any non-fandom people. I'll try and be nice to everyone - including LJ. It's all about communication, everyone...