Δαφνη Ευτυχια Αρθουρος

In light of my earlier entry, it seemed important to stay awake long enough to post at least the first two paragraphs of this one.

Mr. Nossik, who was interviewed by the Russian press resulting in the inflammatory article that I linked to a translation of aout twelve hours ago, claims to have been misrepresented: http://anton-nossik.livejournal.com/16069.html

This is an interesting development (and media sometimes do misquote); all the more so in combination with the admission from theljstaff in the latest official post ( (http://community.livejournal.com/lj_2008/3846.html, for folks who don't routinely read all the different places official announcements might be spread across) that the change to the account structure was badly handled and badly communicated ("we didn't follow our own rules, and we apologize").

There are words. Some of the right kinds of words. I'm not certain whether there are the right kinds of actions alongside those words, and I'm too sleepy right now to tease apart what is and isn't 'spin' -- it's something to look at much more closely after I've slept, and re-decide whether to participate in the "strike" or not in light of these latest messages.

Urk. You can probably tell I'm too sleepy, because this entry is starting to get too long. Whoops.

There's certainly a big trust issue here. Even if they're sincere, LJ/SUP is working from a difficult trust-deficit, partly inherited from Six Apart (LJ users, when it comes to trusting official nice-speak and promises: once uh, thrice-or-so bitten, twice shy) and partly increased by their own mistakes. We, well, at least I, don't want to be strung along by round after round of "it'll be better this time honey, I mean it, I promise I won't hit you again" when we should be gettin' out of Dodge ... but at the same time, if they are finally learning from their errors and we might be getting what we wanted (not in every detail of course, but in the broad, important strokes involving communication and respect) 'twould be a shame to spit in their faces just as they're finally shaping up. So I'll read this stuff again when I'm feeling more alert, and sort out whether it appears to me more spin-like or more meaningful, and whether it looks like it's being backed up by actions, and figure out what I feel I ought to do from there.

That trust-deficit is real though. Even if this new communication is sincere and policies are being implemented to back it up, regaining that trust i going to take more than a pretty essay or two and getting the next couple of actions right. It's going to take time -- enough time to establish a solid pattern of getting it right. That is not meant as a "punishment" for having screwed up, or punishment-via-surrogate for Six Apart's sins; it's not (for many, I hope most, of us) from a desire to be vindictive, but it is how this works. Trust, once damaged, takes longer to repair than it took to earn the first time around. We need to see a positive pattern, and we need to feel comfortable in the expectation that the new pattern will continue. I can't see short-circuiting that process as being either easy to convince my fellow users to do or a safe course of action, but at the same time I don't want to sabotage SUP's efforts if they really are going to start doing the right things.

If, on an awake re-reading, it all starts to look like meaningless spin and promises of hot air, the decision regarding what to do about it will be a lot easier, simpler. If it looks like there's real substance there, that's the harder situation to navigate: how much faith to put in a promise when I don't know yet whether it means they've learned what they did wrong or merely learned to be better liars, how much time to give them to do what they're saying, how much to let myself hope. Gosh, this rebuilding-trust thing is uncomfortable for both sides, not just the one that feels they have to work three times as hard to get any credit for getting something right. (It would be easier, simpler, to just say, "hey, they blew it already," and commit to staying angry and vindictive no matter what they get right in the future, and I expect some people will take that easier path. But since my Best Possible Outcome is a healthy LiveJournal (and healthy alternatives!) with a happy community, resolving to stay mad and undermine things to punish SUP regardless of whether they finally start making steps toward what I really wanted, would be counterproductive. Simple, but, well, 'simple', if'n you catch my drift. (Bit also very human.) It's just that giving chance after chance after chance as long as they say "I'm sorry" in the morning, doesn't move things in the right direction either. If this is just spin, we still need to get their attention.

Is the "strike" still justified even if we think the latest message is sincere after we've picked it apart and examined its entrails? I can see an argument for that position. But before I commit to that, I need to examine my own motives carefully to make sure I'm not just rationalizing the Easy Path Of Self-Sustaining Anger. After I examine the official announcement and Mr. Nossik's defense to try to divine whether either of those is what it presents itself as or not.

Which is, I suppose, a pretty long-winded way of saying, "Oh, they wrote something at last. I gotta read that and think about it when I'm more awake to see whether I think it changes anything or not."

(I'd bet that the admins of other sites are noticing, if not actively following, how the LJ-6A-SUP drama is playing out, noting lessons to be learned or reinforced from it and maybe playing Monday-morning-quarterback. I don't know whether most users of other sites, except the ones who, like me, came here and here and here from LiveJournal, particularly care. You can take this whole thing as an abstract musing on trust that happens to be illustrated with a real-world example, or just scroll right past it. If I do manage to get that journal hosting ethics essay put together, that'll be rather less LJ-specific (though it too will use examples from LJ).)