LJ FAIL: No more basic accounts

[ibneko]

http://news.livejournal.com/106731.html?thread=68484587

Bad step #1: not announcing it in news and trying to hide it.
Bad step #2: Having a retarded (non-)reason for doing so.

Community is important, so moving from livejournal is going to be hard, especially since I have a permanent account, and can enjoy the benefits of such. Not sure how a move can be made... I would like to be able to clone my journal, with all of the comments, to another site.

I'm thinking along the lines of a script that'll pagescrape livejournal + posting entries with the proper privacy settings, then posting comments anonymously, with a link back to the original comment + link to username of poster. That way, content will be preserved, although actual data will be partially mangled.

[Edit]
It's also worthwhile to read brad's post on this: http://brad.livejournal.com/2368071.html

Comments

[shanrina.livejournal.com]

Oy. And urgh.

[evrdream33.livejournal.com]

Wait ... just because they got rid of the basic accounts, you're moving from LJ? O.o

Initially I thought that meant anyone who wanted to become an LJ user would have to pay, but they're just saying that "free" accounts have to be ad supported now right? That's not the ideal situation, but I sortof understand it from a business point of view.

[notebk24.livejournal.com]

Yeah, what I'm understanding about this is that they're only limiting new users. Why are you moving off LJ?

"Basic Account is an option available to accounts which were created before March 12, 2008. No account created after this date can be turned into a Basic Account."

http://www.livejournal.com/support/faqbrowse.bml?faqid=38&view=full