Wycliffe Hall

robhu has posted about the recent kerfuffle at Wycliffe Hall, a theological college attached to the University of Oxford which trains people for the Anglican ministry. Apparently all that martial language about how such colleges are strategically important isn't just post-modern poetry to the evangelicals who are now in charge.

LiveJournal Paedogeddon

Shock news tonight, as Livejournal administrators delivered a stairwell noncebashing, leaving many fanfic journals braindead and quadraspazzed on a life-glug (script here). LJ's abuse team don't seem to have realised that such excesses are unacceptable in the modern police service. There are persistent reports that journals for survivors of rape and incest were also deleted, but I've seen no real confirmation of this.

A group of hicks from the USA appear to have provoked this, dealing out street justice in between engaging in car chases with a fat sheriff; driving a car with the doors welded shut, a Confederate flag on the blogrollroof, and a horn that plays Dixieland. Some day the mountain might get 'em, but, alas, it seems the law never will.

This is, perhaps, a timely reminder that sites like LJ are businesses (LJ may have started as a hobbyist site, but has not been one since the 6Apart takeover, at the very latest). They are not your friends. They will defend your free speech exactly as far as it profits them to do so, and they're certainly not prepared to undertake legal battles on your behalf. bubble_blunder has a realistic assessment of the likely outcomes of this latest LJ drama.

There are tools which will back-up your journals and comments, and you can configure LJ to email you your own comments on other people's journals. It seems wise to make use of these facilities if you value your journal's contents at all.

LJ are doing their usual headless-chicken imitation when faced with a crisis. They've made no public statement on this business, perhaps hoping that word of it won't spread outside the Snape/Hermione fan-fiction writers. While I've no interest in slash, and I appreciate LJ's right to avoid legal liability, their handling of their users once again sucks.

Edited to add: The CEO of 6Apart apologised. Best comment thread in the responses.