LJ dramallama dingdong

[darkhavens]

What a way to start the bank holiday weekend, huh?

May the 25th is a day for fans and geeks to hold their heads high. If you're a Douglas Adams fan, you might know it as Towel Day. If you're a fan of Terry Pratchett, and you were there, you might be wearing lilac. And as it's the 30th anniversary of the very first screening of Star Wars, it's also the first Universal Day of the Jedi.

What a perfect day for rumour to get fandom running around, chasing their tails and panicking.

According to this post at lj_maintenance, the trouble many people have had accessing LJ recently has been due to a DDOS (distributed denial of service) attack, now dealt with.

According to this post by a member of the LJ Abuse team, the rumours of a fandom-wide witchhunt all a bunch of hooey. (Not exactly an official source, but probably the closest we're likely to get to one.)

Before you all sigh with relief, there's this news story being linked in several places, talking about Government crackdowns on public networking sites like LJ, MySpace and FaceBook. But as it's dated July 2006 and talking about a crackdown to garner votes in the November elections, I think we're pretty safe. For now.

And just in case you haven't all heard it all before, life_wo_fanlib has links to plenty of posts about the asshattery that is Fanlib and how they could totally screw up our happy place.

I made sure to grab my name there so nobody else can. I'd advise others to do the same. Posting fic there, however, is not something I'd advise.

Comments

[entrenous88.livejournal.com]

<3

I don't know, the name-grabbing thing, in terms of FanLib. I sort of want to stay away from there, but I see a point to what you're saying...hmmmmm...

[darkhavens.livejournal.com]

I tend to name-grab anyway, but with FanLib I had visions of badfic being posted in my name, and in the names of others. It's probably just paranoia, but that doesn't mean it couldn't happen. *g*

[girlmacbeth.livejournal.com]

I wonder if only writers names could be nabbed or if anyone of us is vulnerable

[darkhavens.livejournal.com]

anybody can claim any name that isn't already taken, but if you don't write, then it's unlikely that someone will see something posted under 'girlmacbeth' there and think it's you.

[vinniebatman.livejournal.com]

Wow. You're smart.
Thanks for the info.
::Hug::

[darkhavens.livejournal.com]

*hugs*

This is more about paranoia than smarts, but I share because I love. *g*

[vinniebatman.livejournal.com]

Hey, there's nothing wrong with a little paranoia.
As long as there aren't any tinfoil hats involved, it's all cool.
Besides, I've alway been partial to this quote:
"Even paranoids have real enemies." -Delmore Schwartz
You just expand it, cuz you know that even if you don't have an enemy, one of us might.

[margarks.livejournal.com]

This fanlib thing is confusing me. I tried to go to the comm but it's got too many posts and I couldn't really find one that explained the whole thing.

why do you have to grab your name? What happens if you don't? And what is the kerfuffle on fanlib having to do with LJ?

Uhm, if it's too complicated to explain, don't worry about it.

Thanks.

[darkhavens.livejournal.com]

This post (http://icarusancalion.livejournal.com/626928.html) is the best summary I've seen of the FanLib situation.

You don't have to do anything, but, as I've said before, I'm paranoid. I had images of disgruntled fandom martyrs going off and grabbing up the names of people who had offended their delicate sensibilities, simply to cause trouble and/or post hideous fic under those names.

I've grabbed up my name at Vox, Bebo, DeviantArt, GJ and a few others. Unfortunately I didn't get to MySpace in time. *g*