LJ Feedback Regarding Proposed Release 88

I may be making the permanent paid move of this account to DW shortly. (I've bought time for other accounts here before, but for reasons listed below, have retained LJ as the main space for this account.  Do you think if enough of us show up with cash, Denise will be able to upgrade the servers and maybe finally fix the span/cut tag bug I've sent eleventy-billion bug reports on?  I still don't want to lose my comments over there or have to change all of my internal links manually, but it's looking pretty grim.)  Anyone who needs a DW invite code, I have a few.  Anyone else who just doesn't feel like going through the pain in the tuckus of moving their internal links, I suggest you start sending individual feedback or just make your feelings known on the latest LJ news post.

To whom it may concern,

I am a paying user. All of my stuff is here.  I don't want to move it to a new service-- it would be an incredible headache.  I am going to try very hard to be civil and courteous and use capslock only when necessary.

If the proposed Comment System changes go into effect, I DON'T HAVE ANY CHOICE.  I WILL HAVE TO STOP USING THIS SITE.  IT WILL NO LONGER PROVIDE THE SERVICES I NEED.  THIS IS A STATEMENT OF FACT.

But that's actually kind of secondary to my main issue.  Here's the thing:

I'm a native English speaker
Puedo leer en español. 
Ich kann Deutsch lesen.
أنا أتكلم وأقرأ باللغة العربية
אני קוראת גם עברית

That's five languages and three alphabets which I can read and understand.  Among the languages I can't read? Russian. I can't read the Greek or Cyrillic alphabets - so I can't even make intelligent guesses about word meanings.

I understand that Livejournal is currently a Russian enterprise, but its original founder and much of its userbase remain English-speakers -- and many of them are ONLY English speakers.

So why is it that the details of a proposed major site overhaul were released exclusively to the general public in Russian and Russian only?  (igrick.livejournal.com/528687.html)

( Morag continues to rant and provide helpful links for quite some time... )

About Functionality - More LJ Release 88 Fun!

This is a comment I just put up on igrick's updated post, but it has wider applications, so I'm dumping it here too. 

A note to users of RP, Meme and other communities, where subject line is crucial for operation: for the moment we are developing only standard commenting representation, well know in LiveJournal as S1 styles, but we will keep subject lines, both in terms of form and representation, in advanced — S2 — styles, and provide an ability to keep it forever for certain communities, as well as, by request, will develop an extra functionality for such communities thru OpensSocial applications going public next year.

No. Nyet. Nein. La. Lo. Bu. Non. I've run out of languages in which to tell you that "this is a bad idea." Your lovely, elegant, bandwidth-gobbling new design retains the vertical space-hogging Icon dividers between comments, so you're not conserving space for body text. All you're doing by eliminating subject lines is removing functionality. If subject headings REALLY bother you, make the option to turn them OFF, not on.

In fact-- ATTENTION ALL WEB DESIGNERS:

Rule One (1): When it comes to privacy options, users want to default "opt out". This is because users like to control who has access to their personal information. Not abiding by this rule will get you investigated by the FTC and you may be forced to pay millions of dollars in fines, like Facebook! (igrick: please remember this rule whenever you decide to implement whatever "OpenSocial applications" are. They sound like a terrible idea already.)

Rule Two (2): When it comes to functionality options, especially pre-existing functions, users want to default "opt in". This is because users hate change. Not abiding by this rule is why no one uses delicious.com anymore, and why NetFlix is about to go under!

Oh--and Rule Three (3): every time you add a functionless animation or a needless transparency to your site/program design, you kill a baby panda (and further alienate users who have bandwidth limits or aging hardware).

/don't be a panda killer