beandelphiki

Overheard in my Film class today:

"...and if Obama doesn't win? There's gonna be minorities marching in the streets down there!"

(Pause. People nearby nod.)

"...Hopefully with weaponry."


We were all so nervous in Film that our instructor asked one of the students with a wireless laptop to keep checking the election results in between our class discussions and the viewing of Hitchcock's Psycho. (Which, by the way, I've seen before. But it's much better the second time around, not being preoccupied with trying to get into the pants of the girl I first saw it with. But never mind.)

As the chain pulled Marion Crane's car from the swamp, the kid checking the results reported that it looked like a win for Obama, but I had to come here to the library and check it myself.

And my friends list is reporting that the weaponry WON'T be needed.

It's been declared a win for Obama.


God fucking damn. HE DID IT!

If you're not happy? Fine. Mourn in your own journal. Personally, I'm pretty pleased with America today. For pretty much the first time in eight years, it doesn't seem like a place the world should give up on if it only could.

And just so you guys know, the rest of the world is going to be pretty happy, too.

Oh, yes. And I passed all my midterms. Aced Film, in fact. *winks*

Good night, all!

Dear friendslist,

You may have taken note over the past several days of something called the Advisory Board Elections - it appears on the home page, under "Livejournal News." Here is some info on what the board is supposed to be. The election for English-speaking users (in theory, this is actually an election for anyone who doesn't speak Russian, but the REALITY is that these are, I believe, all primarily English-speaking candidates) is currently being held here. Each voter is required to select a first, second and third choice candidate; the selection is made through instant-runoff voting.

If you're like me, you were going out of your way to COMPLETELY IGNORE this. Fact is, Livejournal has already demonstrated that it has no interest in listening to its users, so what good what another "Advisory Board," member do? Surely it's just another tired effort to give lj users the lip service they want.

However, it's recently come to my attention (via t_eyla) that jameth is running for this board position. Not only is he running, but he currently holds:

• 21.4% of the first-choice votes
  
• 14.5% of the second-choice votes
  
• 13.2% of the third-choice votes

He doesn't have the highest number of first-choice votes...but given the IRV process being used, he could win given the number of second- and third-choice votes for him.

Now, I don't know what good this Advisory Board will really do. What I DO know is that having jameth on it would be as much of a disaster as the position could allow.

He was one of the first users I learned to avoid on Livejournal, waaay back in 2002, due to the fact that he apparently exists for the mere purpose of trolling and starting drama. I cannot recall the last time I saw a comment from him which was not offensive and rude in some way, shape or form. His community membership reads like a list of hot trolling spots.

If the Advisory Board can do ANY good, jameth will not be the one doing it.


So, who to vote for instead?

At the moment legomymalfoy has 35.7% of the first-choice votes, and is the most logical choice for EITHER your first or second choice option, as she has the best chance of winning against jameth. (I doubt third choice will matter at this point.)

From her campaign platform post:

When speaking about value, I feel that the irresistible value of LiveJournal is in its community. We are what makes LJ valuable. The users who post about their day, about their kids, about their last BDSM encounter, about sex and food and everything under the sun. Without its users, LJ is nothing but an empty husk. To continue being valuable, LJ needs to work on retaining existing users by keeping the aspects of the site that are most valuable to them, while at the same time attracting new users by making new features available and taking advantage of new ways of thinking.

Other reasons to vote for legomymalfoy, besides her chances of winning:

• She is socially leftist. This is good for the diversity of lj's userbase.
  
• She appears genuinely respectful of that diversity. (I'm thinking in particular of how people have been feeling lately that lj is less and less queer-friendly.)
  
• She appears to appreciate the limitations of an "advisory," position while still taking it seriously.
  
• She is a member of fandom, and can represent that section of lj in an advisory position, assuming lj will listen to her.
  
• Given all of the above, I trust she will listen to ideas which are not her own if they are good ones. (I say this because other candidates have excellent ideas as well, which I would like to see whoever wins take into consideration.)

As for second- and third-choice candidates, the other two users who are doing most strongly are rm (very Old Guard El Jay, fannish, conscious of feminist interests, interested in lj-related disability issues) and vichan (also fannish, the creator of fandom_counts, claims experience working in committees and management positions.). Their campaign posts are here and here, respectively.

If you'd like to examine the other campaign posts, they all can be found here from the info page of lj_election_en.

You still have until tomorrow to vote (that's May 29th, 9:00 p.m. PDT, specifically), and it only take 5 seconds or so.

CLICK HERE to go cast your ballot.


Comments on this post will be DISABLED because jameth's supporters are apparently busy trolling posts which cast him in a negative light. I am not embarrassed by anything I've said here (and people are welcome to message me or email me at beandelphiki @ livejournal.com), but I will NOT have anyone harassed in my journal for any involvement I may have coaxed them into.