I'd like to file a complaint

[davemerrill]

I'm a member of the classic anime LJ community at http://classic-anime.livejournal.com/ which apparently has been taken over by somebody using it to advertise their eBay auctions. I've posted there before in the past, but my recent posts have all been caught in the moderator filter and not approved. The moderator hasn't posted on the community in years, if ever, and though I've sent him or her a message I doubt it will be received as their account hasn't been updated in five years.

I realize that as a "thing", LJ communities are not the busy hive of activity they used to be, and bitching about this is probably a waste of time. But... should I start kicking this upstairs to the LJ management, or what?

EDITED 1/30/12 - Filed a report with LJ Abuse.

EDITED 1/31/12 - The squeaky wheel gets the grease! Dear LiveJournal user davemerrill,Thank you for your report. The community in question has been transferred to you, because the previous community maintainer is no longer actively maintaining it.

Comments

[ferricide.livejournal.com]

there's probably a FAQ in the backend about hijacked/dead communities.

[davemerrill.livejournal.com]

There is a thing in the FAQ about communities and reporting them when they go off the rails, and I'll probably do that if I don't hear back from the moderator (whom I PM'd). If nothing comes of that then I will probably walk away from the whole thing, because christ I am not starting a LJ community, it's 2012 people.

[dave-iii.livejournal.com]

Just flipping over the link, it doesn't look as though anyone's posted anything in months, outside of the eBayer. I'd call that a dead community; time to remove it and look for a new one that's currently active.

Spammers are like squatters, they find an empty space and move in until it gets shut down. I've lost multiple communities, forums and mailing lists that way; usually because the mods have moved on but didn't shut down the place or pass on the keys after they left.

To answer the question, I would honestly say no, there's no point in trying to get LJ to do anything about it. Unless you can contact the mod(s) just walk away, you'll suffer fewer headaches that way.

[tochiro998.livejournal.com]

Understand, even after all this time I really am a noob as far as LJ is concerned, but if there's a posting filter in place, and you get stopped by it, and this 'seller' doesn't, I think that infers that the spammer is in control. OTOH, if there hasn't been a post approved..no, they did one on the 15th of Jan, so.

OK, person has a personal page that's about selling, and posts to this classic anime page to sell, that's all they want to do. Options I see are either report the page dead and risk "OMG WHY U DOO THAT TO ME?!" butthurt drama, or add one more straw to the load you carry and start another community.

I think you're a lot like me, you really don't want to do it but gosh, just seeing that crap, it becomes a nagging ache, and you know nobody else is going to take care of it, right?

[davemerrill.livejournal.com]

If I can't resolve this through a few emails then I am gonna just walk away from it. LJ communities are barely even worth a few emails these days.

[ferricide.livejournal.com]

one of my old bosses works at lj now, and my reaction was "youch!"