The Cross-Posting Asshattery

[court1429.livejournal.com]

I imagine your flists are exploding just like mine is over this completely ill-considered "improvement" of allowing not only cross-posting of an entry but also of comments.

BOTTOM LINE IN THIS COMM IS DO NOT CROSS-POST ANY ENTRY OR COMMENT TO FACEBOOK OR TWITTER. IF WE FIND OUT THAT POSTS OR COMMENTS HAVE BEEN SENT OUTSIDE THIS COMM, THE USER WILL BE BANNED. NO EXCEPTIONS.

There may be no real expectation of privacy on the internet, but let's make it as private as we can among ourselves.

If you're not up to speed on this, see this LJ News post here. I'd encourage everyone to check their privacy settings and make sure the LJ & FB or Twitter connects are disabled on your accounts.

A couple of people on another comm I'm on did a test x-post on Twitter and the post and the comments showed up; not the whole post, because Twitter's limited to only 140 characters, but there was a link included. Since the post was flocked, only the comments showed up.

Bad enough that happened, but my concern was that for those of us who keep fandom and RL social media completely separate, that if you're logged in to LJ, FB, and Twitter all on the same browser, then the comments that someone else x-posted that might show up in your FB or Twitter activity would show with your LJ user name, and I think that's how it would work based on this FAQ.

So, I'm going to ask all of you, even if you'd like to be able to cross-post your LJ entries to your Facebook or Twitter, to do a huge favor for those us who absolutely DO NOT want any cross-pollination of posts or comments, and do your cross-posting the old-fashioned way: copy and paste; don't enable the auto cross-posting feature that LJ's just rolled out. We will all be very grateful for your consideration!

Also, if you're using Firefox as your browser, there's a fix. Sort of. Red and I both installed it and it quit working for her. But it's worth a try. Although it only makes the posting boxes invisible. Read an excellent post here.

If you want to try the fix if you use Firefox or Flock, install DisConnect for Greasemonkey

Note: You have to have greasemonkey installed in order for this to work.

Greasemonkey is a Firefox extension that allows you to customize the way webpages look and function. You can download Greasemonkey Here.

Also, there's a pretty good likelihood that this comm will be flocked going forward. I don't think this will have a negative impact on too many people and we'll apologize in advance for those who have just been watching without being members, but security is most important, and we'll hope those watchers will become members.

Comments

[pfodge.livejournal.com]

Hey Court, I installed the fix and it worked for me. At least I can't see the boxes on my comment page, I don't know about any one else.

This is MAJOR EPIC FAIL on LJ's part. They need to come up with a disable feature and soon.

I'm going to go watch some season 1 QAF now. Lol...Its been a stressful day on LJ.

[murgy31.livejournal.com]

How do I disable it if I use IE... I just haven't been checking the boxes, but I don't want to do something accidentally.

[audrey2419.livejournal.com]

Why in the world would they DO this! I disabled the pingback thing. Is there anything else I need to do?

[court1429.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it works to hide the boxes from you, the specific user, on that specific computer, if you're using Firefox. Otherwise, the boxes are back and it doesn't prevent anyone else from cross posting. Basically, it helps us not to cross-post inadvertently, but doesn't do anything else.

[murgy31.livejournal.com]

What does pingback mean? if I disable it, does that mean I cant open any links from anyone?

[court1429.livejournal.com]

I don't know about IE, Murgy. Honestly, I'd suggest switching to Firefox. I used IE for about 10 years and after I downloaded FF a couple of years ago and spent a few days getting used to a new browser, I wouldn't go back for anything. And you can import all your IE bookmarks and everything into your Firefox bookmarks. FF is wayyyyy better than IE.

[pfodge.livejournal.com]

You can read about ping backs HERE (http://www.livejournal.com/support/faqbrowse.bml?faqid=293) It is so you can keep track of links to your public entries.

[court1429.livejournal.com]

Yes. IN the first link above, the News posts links to Account SEttings. Click that and make sure the LJ connect to FB or Twitter is not enabled.

My LJ is flocked so I won't cross-post, but comments could be. This is totally fucked.

[court1429.livejournal.com]

No, it means that if you made an unlocked post and I linked to it from my FB or Tumblr or personal blog, you'd get a notification (a ping) that I'd linked your post in my post. It's mostly just a counting mechanism, I think.

And really useful for people who blog or are newswriters, etc., but not so much for those of use who post fics. So disable the pingbacks and then go to the Account Settings and make sure the LJ Connects to FB and Twitter are also disabled. If your LJ is flocked, they're disabled unless you enable, I think.

[kinwad.livejournal.com]

This sucks...and not in a positive, life-affirming way, might I add!

[rinmonsterer.livejournal.com]

I have no idea what this is about, but I'm secretly hoping this will make people think "Oh screw twitter! Fuck Facebook! Why am I even using them, again? *deletes twitter account*"

:D

[livingbeauty91.livejournal.com]

Firefox is definitely better than IE...

I believe this almost solely because I can choose pretty themes for my browser. XD

... but it's also just better.

Also, social networking is lame... not that I don`t have facebook, of course.

That`s all.

[audrey2419.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the advice. I think LJ has really dropped the ball on this. I hope they come up with some way for people to completely opt out of that. I mean, if you accidentally click a box...well it could be bad depending on what you were posting or commenting on.

Anyway, thanks again. I really love the getithere community and have found many wonderful fics thanks to everyone.

Audrey

[kiddoditto.livejournal.com]

"I'd encourage everyone to check their privacy settings and make sure the LJ & FB or Twitter connects are disabled on your accounts."

where do i have to check/look that this is disabled?
i don't have twitter or facebook, does this mean i'm safe and nothing can happen?