PLEASE READ BEFORE YOU VOTE!!!

Eligibility
Those eligible to vote in this poll are:
-Users with accounts created before March 31, 2009
-Users who are not using Cyrillic language services (there is a poll for Cyrillic users at lj_election_ru)
-Users who have accounts with validated email addresses
-One vote per user, not one vote per account


Voting
Users should select their first choice, second choice, and third choice candidates from the drop-down list. If there is no winner with a majority of the votes, we will use an Instant Runoff process. This is why you should vote for one candidate for each selection, as not selecting different candidates or selecting only a first choice may potentially reduce your voice in this election.

Determining the winner
The poll will be closed at 4:30 p.m. PDT on Friday June 26, 2009
-If a user has more than 50% of the first-choice vote, that candidate will be declared the winner
-If no user has more than 50% of the first-choice vote, we will begin using an Instant Runoff process. The user with the lowest tally for first-choice vote will be eliminated, and the second choice candidate on those ballots will be substituted as first choice. This process will continue (drop lowest candidate, reassign to next vote, tally again) until any user has more than 50% of the vote.
-If all ballots are exhausted and no candidate has more than 50% of the vote, we will return to the first round and award the election to the candidate with the most 1st choice votes.

Member Term
The new Advisory Board member will be announced on Monday June 29, 2009 and will begin their one-year term of service on July 1, 2009.



Poll #1419486 Election Poll
This poll is closed.
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: None

First choice (the user you would most like to have as your representative):

Second choice (if your first-choice candidate is eliminated, you would then choose this candidate):

Third choice (if your first and second-choice candidates are eliminated, you would then choose this candidate):

The election poll will be posted in this community at 9:00 a.m. PDT on Monday June 22, 2009 and will close at 4:30 p.m. PDT on Friday June 26, 2009.

For more information on the election poll and process, please see the profile page for this community.



Candidates who will appear on the ballot are:

webqatch
vichan
kylecassidy
jameth
daphaknee

A few weeks ago, Oprah interviewed the creators Twitter and Facebook. Here are some of the things that I remember being said:

- "We started the term friending .."
- "You can poke others who haven't been updating .."
- "We have communities that you can take part in .."
- "Privacy is important, so we created a way for you to make your journal private .."

While Oprah was shocked as each new feature was listed, I'm sitting here thinking, "Wait, isn't this Livejournal?"

And it could've been Livejournal. Livejournal was a pioneer, many social sites may not have even been around without it laying the foundation! However, somewhere along the timeline, it lost its will to compete.

Heck, I was on a site recently that asked you to share it through the following sites:



According to this long list, Livejournal is even less popular than Mister Wong! (Who is Mister Wong anyway??)

So this is my platform: I want to focus on marketing and branding LJ, I want to bring the activity back to the communities and your comments. Since I saw those interviews, I've been brainstorming ways that Livejournal could compete with giants like Facebook and Twitter, and with a chance to sit in the Advisory Committee, I'm sure I can bring some of these ideas to the table.

( My Top 6 Priorities to bringing LJ back to the top )

In short, my goal is to make Livejournal provocatively mainstream. Mainstream is popular and everyday, the common stuff -- but by provocative I mean making the mainstream exciting, interesting, stimulating, topics that raise comments and make the news. I envision Livejournal as a buzzword, where everyone here would be proud to own an account, for posts to uncommonly have 20 comments or more, where you can go up to your classmate/coworker and say, "I use Livejournal" and not hear back, "What's Livejournal?" but "Cool. I use LJ too!" This is how it was like in the early 2000s, and even though it's a whole new ballgame with Facebook, Twitter and MySpace, I know we can do it again. We just need to be progressive, proactive and provocative.

And if for whatever reason you disagree with that, I hope you'll at least support the last part of my campaign to push for 200 x 200 pixel userpics!


C'mon, which one would you rather have?? :)

Hey, I hope you like my platform, and if you wanna support it, please comment now! I apparently need 300 in a very short period of time!

P.S. Hi, I'm Kevin, aka cheesemon, I've been an active member of Livejournal since 2003 and haven't had a reason to try something else since. :)

I would like to nominate myself, theentwife, for the position of LiveJournal user representative for the Advisory Board.

I have been a blogger since 2001 and have been on LJ since 2003 and am an active user of the site and holder of several permanent accounts here. As a member of fandom and also several "alternative" communities, as a representative I would do my best to make sure those voices are heard by the company when they formulate policies. I have also served communities before, as one of the people who ran New Moon New York for almost a decade and currently as a member of the Board of Directors of the Church of the Sacred Earth.

One of the things that make LiveJournal what it is is that it is foremost a site for writers, whether what they write about is their lives, their hobbies, various memes passed around by friends or fanfiction. Social networking, the buzzword of the day in business circles, is a term that can be applied to LiveJournal, but the important thing to remember is that the community here is based on the written word -- something that makes it unique among similar sites. Policies that may work well on Facebook or MySpace will fail here, often spectacularly, because the site owners may not realize that their userbase is different -- and my job as user representative will be to ensure that they DO in fact realize this, regardless of whether they then continue to launch a failboat or not. But at least they'd know they were being idiots, because I'd tell them that, and why the proposed policy was a bad fit for the LJ userbase.

I would like to be your voice -- please leave a comment in support of me here so I can have a chance to represent you.

*** EDIT: corrected some double entries of text and reformatted into cleaner paragraphs

I invite you to take a look through my archive as well as this introductory post.

LiveJournal has been here for ten years and some of its users nearly that long. What LJ does well has never been duplicated -- it's community driven, it's content driven. It's users are content producers. LJ is unique in social networking sites in that it has become a valuable repository for people's memories -- it truly has taken the place of a paper journal and many people have forsaken their handwritten diaries for an LJ which has many additional benefits but one serious drawback -- the threat of impermanence. While many people probably wouldn't consider trying to archive their Facebook status updates, many of us look to our LiveJournal's as an official personal history -- a document that needs to be preserved for future reference and grows in value each day.

The reason that I'm running for this position is that I feel there are gaping flaws in LiveJournal's ability to be able to continue to shoulder these responsibilities.

1) LiveJournal needs a server side backup and restore feature, which includes comments. In the past year I've seen too many people's accounts deleted and replaced with advertisements -- and was shocked to discover that LiveJournal has no method to restore these. Years of people's lives lost.

2) LiveJournal also needs a global search and replace mechanism. Over the years as users move from image-host to image-host (perhaps from someplace like tripod.com to a place like Photobucket, and maybe to their own web server) their images need to stay. Currently, if you switch image hosts the user needs to manually update every entry.

In addition to those are a number of smaller things: It should be easier to look through back entries rather than having to page day by day. The spell-check should be integrated, LJ should investigate a new "read this user" feature to distinguish between actual friends whom you want to share you secrets with, and people who's journals you simply want to read.


LJ asks that I answer the following questions:

What do you think is the value of LiveJournal?

The thing that sets LiveJournal apart from other social networking sites is that it is community based and driven by content producers. It is a place for creative people to write, to produce, to share, reveal secrets, or keep them. The things that are good about LJ have not been duplicated by any other social networking site. It is a precious place which occupies a large place in my heart and I want, desperately, for it to continue.

What changes would you like to see LiveJournal make in the next year?

1) The biggest change the LiveJournal needs to make is in recognizing that its users have spent hundreds or thousands of hours creating their presence here. Recently we've seen a wave of attacks by malicious individuals or groups who delete peoples accounts and replace them with links to malware websites. In the grand scheme of things, this is probably to be expected. But it is inconceivable that LiveJournal has no way to restore deleted accounts. This boggles my mind. What it says to users is "don't trust us with your work." There needs to be a mechanism for backing up and restoring LJ accounts. LiveJournal needs to realize that they are a mechanism for people's memories.

2) Users need to be able to search and replace their old entries.

3) Reading back entries should be easier -- LJ will let you go "back X entries" for a while but eventually defaults to "previous day".

Why do you want to be the elected representative?

It is with great reluctance that I do this. I have plenty of other things I can be spending my time on, but I fear that if I don't do this, it won't get done. This is in large part for selfish reasons because I want to know that in fifty years the work that I've put into this community every day will be somewhere, that it will be readable, viewable, that it won't simply evaporate.

What do you think are the community’s greatest concerns?

Impermanence. Users want to know that LiveJournal will be here in the next ten years. LiveJournal also needs to figure out how to exist in a world with Facebook, twitter, and the other places which have come to glue the Internet community together. Growing the paid user base is important to this primary goal.

What skills, qualifications, or unique perspective do you think you would bring to this position?

I've been a member of LiveJournal since 2002, I've built up a community of friends here, people I care about and people I wouldn't have met otherwise. I understand the dynamics of groups of large people with differing opinions. As the moderator of photographers, a community with more than ten thousand members I've been able to maintain a space which is exciting, informative, welcoming and nearly drama-free under the single guiding principle "be nice". I think that goes a long way. In all this time on LJ I've never treated another user with disrespect.

Thanks.

My name is Michael Griffith, I am an Associate Professor in Literature at an Australian University and I am nominating myself as a candidate for the 2009 Advisory Board Election.  I have been using LiveJournal for around 5 years chiefly with my university literature students who have grown creatively (in word and image) as a result of their use of LiveJournal. I have found it an amazing tool to add value to what happens in the lecture and/or tutorial room. Students have been able to develop their capacity for writing stories, poems, essays even plays and for sharing important experiences in their lives. LiveJournal has provided a space for them to grow as a creative and interactive community.
I would make a good representative because I have been working with LiveJournal as a serious educational tool for the last 5 years and see it as having real flexibility for students to be able to express their own individuality. I would enjoy the challenge of improving the product.
This semester I have taken another leap forward and have actually managed to use the structure of LiveJournal to allow students to create e-portfolios of their current, ongoing creative work. I have hands-on experience with LiveJournal having helped nearly 1000 students over the past 5 years get up to speed with this great Web 2 technology. My LJ site contains links to some of my students' best work: http://michaelgriffith.livejournal.com  ;

im daphny drucilla delight david and im totally nominating myself as a CANIDATE FOR THE LIVEJOURNAL ADVISORY BOARD ELECTIONS
you should pick me because livejournal isnt entirely capslock furry fan fiction
its not all people whining about their made up mental disorders or complaining about skinny girls giving women a bad rep

THERE ARE REAL PEOPLE
WHO ARENT INSUFFERABLE

im DAPHNY and i will fight for CUSTOM WORD FILTERS and against PASTING SONG LYRICS
who wants to be represented by someone who offers their BLAND INTERNET NON PERSONALITY as a selling point
NOT ME
NOT YOU

I've maintained several journals and communities on LJ, as a member of fandom, as a programmer and designer, and as a communications medium. It is more than that. It can be a professional tool, because of the simple layout that is changeable with a little work... It is quite simple to make a multimedia page for only $20 a year. I keep a paid account - This was my main but I have now changed to the other. So I see it as a living tool, full of real people who are quite into it, for whatever those reasons are. Censorship isn't good, so it's not up to LJ to figure out why people are into it, as long as they're not breaking the law. I have the experience, and have been around for all the changes, watched LJ grow, watched people walk out when LJ failed to meet their expectations, and am able to help project the future of LJ. One of the things that LJ has added recently that not many sites do, unless you're paying hundreds of dollars a year for a site that will get you blacklisted in search engines, is the adult category for journals, and the themes over 14 years of age. This is a major thing for fandom, and for general users who don't want to be censored, and yet it keeps LJ safe for legal purposes, and our children safe. Sure, we all know kids lie online, but at least it's an attempt, right? As far as changes, I'd just like to be involved in discussion, see what is brought up, put in the input of the everyday user, and even the users like me, who use it more than just a little. The communities here are fantastic - I've even replaced my eBay usage with a Japanese one here, and the potential for use is unlimited. I'd like to help enforce the adult marking - it is such a privelege to even have that ability, so I don't want it taken away due to people who aren't using it and still posting adult content. This is a bigge for me, since I am a single parent. So, please nominate me, because I am an icon maker, a programmer, a crazy hyper girl (though over 30) who owns her own company and is therefore always online, and who never sleeps, because sleep is overrated. AND CLICK THE PICTURES TO SEE ME IN ACTION! PLEASE?

Edit: I forgot to add that I have volunteered with the Nashville Union Mission, Habitat For Humanity, traveled to Mexico twice to build houses, am involved in international communities, won several student leadership awards in college, along with a couple of art awards, so I have been very active in many ways, not just online, and can offer a truly unique perspective. My son is homeschooled, and learning Japanese as one of his classes, along with the culture. So I'm a well-rounded person who has traveled all over the United States and other parts of the world, and will not play favorites. I know most people hear 'fangirl' and that's an immediate cringe, but I poke fun at myself in fandom, and list it only because it does speak to my qualifications - I sell art in the mangaka and doujinshika styles, as well as help my son learn things such as oekkake and kirigami.

( Contact Information (Direct and E-Mail) As Well As Other Stuff, Sorry For The ReFormatting )

( Pictures and More! Get to know the person you're supporting! )

I am nominating myself as a candidate for the Advisory Board elections.

"I'd make a good representative because. . ." I'm interested in the job, first of all. There are a lot of people, no doubt, who are interested in holding the position or see it as a potential entitlement. Hopefully who we elect is somebody who wants the work, who will hold full responsibility and accountability for their influence on the board, and who will have no regrets for their advisements. This would have to be somebody who is absolutely sure that they are going to have a positive influence on LiveJournal and 'will do no harm'. That's fine; I would even say that it's easy. I'd like to offer out front that I'll be self-guided by simple Taoist principles: I will simply apply a balanced perspective and foresight; where I see LiveJournal going, I'll advise to get there. Everything LiveJournal needs is made foremost obvious by the users, and following that, by the staff and administration of its company. I'm willing to study LiveJournal for what it is, to find anything interesting, anything of note, and then to apply thought to solving any problems that might arise, from simply problems like "how to make more money", to more complex issues such as "how to intermediate between the users". Where the business stands, I'm only interested in seeing clearly what the business needs, and as for the user's desires, I'm only interested in seeing how they're served in a way that's most healthy for the immortalisation of the service.

LiveJournal is quite simply the most aptly-staffed, gratious, and best-served social networking and blogging site anywhere in the world's wide web; yet a minority of bloggers and networkers are aware of this. I'd like to see LiveJournal become not only notorious, but singular on the web as THE place to go for broadcasting and receiving ideas. I want to make sure that this happens, to the best of my abilities, and the only way to do that is to become as directly involved as possible in the body of governing its paths, all because I enjoy it THAT much and would be proud to see it come to fullest fruition. The community needs to know foremost that the decisions they are making -- to post or not to post -- are going to have some relevance in the foreseeable future; they need to know LiveJournal is going to be there for them. I can only offer --: as founding maintainer of the earlyadopters community (where those of us who have been here from the Time Before go to be found); as mistaken ex-maintainer of taoism (where I had to find myself, too, undesirable at the last); as successful maintainer of a few other successful communities and a slew of unsuccessful ones; and as a shameless human willing to set aside personal biases for the sake of a group potential and as a growing experience; -- that I will be ready to catalyse the best solution for the continuously astounding LiveJournal experience.

-- Gabriel Arthur Petrie ("eyenot" since 1992)

EDIT 6/25 0930 EDT: I have conceded the election. Please redirect your votes accordingly. If you care about who I think would do the best job(s), click here.

Last year, I decided too late. I waited until I had less than twenty-four hours to garner the 100 (now 300) comments necessary, and unsurprisingly, I did not get enough support. I'm trying harder this year.

This election is not a popularity contest, though many parts of LJ get used as such.

It's not a see what I can do, though many parts of LJ are used as such.

It's an election to a board of user-level representatives who will do their best to give input to the PtB at LiveJournal/SUP that will best serve the multitudes of users who call LiveJournal home.

( Why me? )

( Contacting me )

( Reporting on my actions )

( Adults vs. Teens )

( LJ as a Creative Outlet )

( On Zombies and Sock Puppets - ammended )

 

In short, I think I can help. Please help me to help you.

 

( EDIT summary )

I hereby use this entry to inform the LJ world that I am nominating myself for user representatives to the Advisory Board. I am a fair person who feels everything should be handled fairly for all parties involved. While I freely admit this might not be possible, I do feel a compromise which benefits everyone can be reached. I have been told that I'm a very good listener and I am willing to put that to test if elected. This is a big responsibility, but I'm more than ready to prove my worth to the LJ users.

I believe LJ's value to be a website where anyone on the internet can post about their daily lives, meeting new friends no matter how far the distance, where users can share and develop ideas into great communities, and learn how to have respect and to care for each other. I like to think that everyone who's a LJ user has gained more than one new friend here. Whether it be from similar interests in TV shows, musicians, movies, or whatever, we've each discovered at least one new friend from LJ. LJ is a place where a person can connect with many different people while learning new things about themselves.

( More below this cut )

Hello, my name is palmer_kun and I'd like your support as I run for the LJ Advisory Board.

I am a very ordinary, albeit geeky, person. I feel this is my greatest strength, and the most important thing I would bring to the advisory board. I am not deeply involved or otherwise beholden to any particular subculture or special interest, such as religion, fandom, politics, RP or the like. I just sit back and take everything evenly.

While I am not involved in special interests, I am friendly and accepting of them, and believe that without all groups, LJ would be pretty much worthless. I am opposed to heavy handed management and censorship, which have irreparably damaged LJ in the past. While I fully support the Dreamwidth Project and it's goals, it makes me sad that it ever had to exist, as the need for it is a symptom of what is becoming wrong with LJ. Despite these problems, I still stand behind LJ and want the best for our online home.

This post is constantly growing. As I am asked and answer significant questions, I shall add those Q&A below to my "Statements of Policy and Position" section. Please be sure to check back.

( My Campaign Pledge )

( Statements of Policy and Position )

I wish to nominate myself, Stefanie (morningapproach )  as a potential candidate for the LJ Advisory Board English-speaking User Representative. I am an honest and trustworthy individual who is dedicated to the successful community that comprises the LJ population. I think that we deserve a representative who is unbiased, dedicated, and has demonstrated themselves to be a caring citizen of the realm of LJ.  I know that I am going to be up for tough competition if I am nominated, but I am confident that I will be able to at least represent my own opinions about LJ and how I feel changes should be made on behalf of the users.

I am ready to be accountable to the entire population of LJ, regardless of fandom, political alignments, religious beliefs, sexual orientation, or spoken language. I pledge that if I am nominated and subsequently elected I will make all efforts to communicate with all non-cyrillic speaking users, regardless of language, and to bring the issues that they have to the attention of the committee.

I hope that you will consider nominating me for the position. I think that LJ is one of the true lasting and thriving online communities on the internet, and a service that provides knowledge, information, and closes the gap between cultures and countries. I wish to do everything that I can to ensure that the quality of service that we have come to expect over the past 10 years will continue and that we will continue to thrive.

For more information about the details of my platform, please see this post in my LJ.  Thanks so much for your time and consideration.

I am nominating myself as a candidate for the Livejournal Advisory Board. I would like livejournal to be an open community where people are free to create whatever they desire. Where tools help them to find and interact with likeminded, interesting people. Where people can discover, discuss and debate the issues of the day. A place people can have control over their content and where troublemakers can be warned, isolated and ultimately removed. I would like it to be easy to use. I want users to feel they are part of the site and have a real say in the future.

I love Livejournal and have been on here since 2001. I met my fiancée on this site. I use my journal as a place to express private thoughts, to write stories, interact with friends, meet new people and discuss the world.

( Some issues that interest me are; )

 

My name is Laura. On LiveJournal, I am partly_bouncy. I am nominating myself as a candidate for the Advisory Board elections.

I would like to serve because I believe that if you support something and see value in a project where you can be helpful, you should get involved and try to make it better. If you don't think something has value or can be improved upon, you leave and try to do it better elsewhere. This is a philosophy that has been central to my on-line involvement in the past decade. I believed in FanFiction.Net and volunteered there in 2000. I later had problems with FanFiction.Net and created my own fan fiction archive. I didn't think LiveJournal was a good platform for interactive writing of the history of fandom so I created FanHistory.Com. I thought that FanLib was doing interesting work but could handle some things better. Rather than rail at the fringes, I tried to help them improve. I've helped out other fan fiction archives like FanWorks.Org because I believed they were doing good work and I could help them become better.

I want to now serve LiveJournal's users for similar reasons: I believe in the service, love the service, use the service and I believe I could help improve their relationship with their user base by helping mediate in disputes.

( I feel I would make a good representative for several reasons. )

I, vichan, am putting my name forth as a potential candidate for the 2009 LiveJournal Advisory Board. I have been a member of LiveJournal since 2003. I am running for the position because I completely understand and accept that LJ has a very diverse collection of members who all use LJ for a variety of purposes. I'm very patient and laid back, but I know when and where to stand my ground. I believe in open and honest communication from both myself and the LJ staff. I have previous experience sitting on planning committees and boards, and I am currently serving my 3rd year as a member of a planning committee for the OMD Summer Institute Young Adult program.

If elected, I will listen to concerns and questions from all users who choose to communicate with me. I will also make an effort to reach out to other nominees for the position to hear their prime concerns since they cared enough about LJ to run in the first place. I also ran last year, witnessed hell breaking loose, and I still care enough to run again. I will be upfront and let everyone know that I am a part of fandom, but you should not consider me (or any other nominee) as a "fandom candidate." The election is about more than just fandom; it's also about poets, musicians, sports fans, students suffering through school, people who are only here for the lulz, people struggling with an illness, people who post nothing but photos of their hamsters, and so much more.

We're all here, and LiveJournal wouldn't exist without all of us.

Longer, more detailed "platform" can be found here. Questions and comments should be directed there.

More support for the nomination is welcome; just make sure you vote, too!

My name is Felicia (rosicrucian) and I'm nominating myself as a candidate for the LiveJournal Advisory Board.

This is my second year running for the LJAB position and my position on what I want to bring this community has virtually been left unchanged since giving my statement of the last year. I want to focus and making this site accessable and intuitive for as many users as I possibly can while fostering friendly relations with groups that have felt betrayed by LiveJournal in recent times. I also want to make a visible effort to communicate with the userbase in the way that the previously elected representative failed to do, which coincides with the latter part of the previous statement. Ontop of officially speaking with the userbase, I will also make sure to keep a public entry on my LiveJournal in order to answer any and all questions asked of me.

As for myself, I've been using LiveJournal for about nine years now. My background here is steeped in fandom and the users who enjoy it, but I also have enough experience with other areas of LiveJournal to feel like I'm a well-rounded user. I'm also extremely passionate and devoted to any cause that earns my support, as evidence by my background of charity work both online and offline. I'm also a natural skeptic and critically anaylze anything before I make any sort of judgements, and I oftentimes discuss the nature of things with my friends of various backgrounds (lawyers to scientists to philosophers) to get different opinions. I am highly trusted at my job, and I want to earn the same trust from the users here.

If you have any questions you'd like to ask about me, feel free to head over to this entry and do so! I look forward to hearing from you.

I wish to nominate myself for election to the LJ Advisory Board.

I have been a member of LJ since 2000 and have been active on the Internet in various user fora and on newsgroups since 1989.  Prior to that, I was actively involved in the University of Alaska's computer network user mentoring groups and clubs. 

I have a diverse background, including technical editing, paralegal work, project management, terms as an officer in various non-profit groups, and work as an event coordinator.  I care about a responsive social community on LiveJournal, and support the growth of social media as a wonderful way to bring people from different parts of the globe who share common interests together.  I believe that communication, not just entertainment, is the heart of social media; what promotes free, thoughtful and respectful communication is good.

Thank you for your attention to this post.  Please consider me as a candidate you will support for the LJ Advisory Board.

I am nominating myself for the 2009 Advisory Board.

I would be a good candidate because I am a nice person, I care about people and their opinion, I am highly knowledgeable about all kinds of technical and legal issues, and I'm an average geeky guy who would actually represent most of the people on LJ. I have no team of zombie followers because I don't need one.

Livejournal is a wonderfully vibrant set of communities and a great way for people to meet, organize, interact, and learn from each other. The platform and policies that operate LJ should always strive to enhance and improve these features primarily. All policies that interfere with the free flow of social interaction should be minimized.