okay, i could live without the pony

Via email from Yahoo:

Dear Delicious User,
Yahoo! is excited to announce that Delicious has been acquired by the founders of YouTube, Chad Hurley and Steve Chen. As creators of the largest online video platform, Hurley and Chen have firsthand expertise enabling millions of consumers to share their experiences with the world. Delicious will become part of their new Internet company, AVOS.

To continue using Delicious, you must agree to let Yahoo! transfer your bookmarks to AVOS. After a transition period and after your bookmarks are transferred, you will be subject to the AVOS terms of service and privacy policy.



Reasons to let Yahoo! transfer your bookmarks
• Continue uninterrupted use of Delicious.
• Keep your Delicious account and all your bookmarks.
• Enjoy the same look and feel of Delicious today plus future product innovations.

What happens if you do not transfer your bookmarks
• Delicious in its current form will be available until approximately July 2011.
• After that, you will no longer be able to use your existing Delicious account and will not have
access to your existing bookmarks or account information.

About AVOS
AVOS is a new Internet company founded by Chad Hurley and Steve Chen who, in 2005, founded YouTube, the world's largest online video platform. Before YouTube, Hurley and Chen were early employees at PayPal, a leading online payment service that is now part of eBay. Delicious will become a part of AVOS, based in San Mateo, California.


Learn more about moving your bookmarks.
Thank you for using Delicious. Yahoo! has appreciated having you with us, and we are pleased to be able to transfer Delicious to an incredible new owner -- you're in good hands.
The Yahoo! Delicious Team

---

...right.

Sure, this may be premature, or maybe the person who wrote this is incompetent with public relations (by that I mean, I started reading this thrilled to know we wouldn't lose delicious entirely and came out of it rather hostile), but we build our own archives and websites; maybe we should consider building our own place for bookmarks.

Also, I want a pony. Either/or.

Moving On

In other news, the first trailer for X-Men First Class did not inspire me. Oh, I was going to watch it, because hello, Eric and Xavier and also, McAvoy is hot like burning, but more like the same way you read [insert classic novel here] or watch [insert pop-culture required media here]; for the former, so I could say I did it and survive it; for the latter, because I'm media fen and it's like a compulsion.

But now I'm committed. And now it is not the fannish equivalent of a historical documentary on current canon; now it's going to hurt, and fine, I knew about Xavier and Erik, that I was ready for, whatever, but I wasn't ready for Mystique and Beast.

Comments

Sigh

[thejeopardymaze]

I'll transfer my accounts, but eventually delete them afterwards, I'm rather fond of Diigo and will probably use it permanently after I transfer all the bookmarks to Diigo that I still find useful-despite my irritation with how they implemented the bookmarklet function.


...maybe we should consider building our own place for bookmarks.

I plan on using either pbworks or wikidot for a personal project of mine that will contain tons of links (but not all the links out there I'm using Diigo for), but your mileage may vary.

[hermitsoul]

This part of the TOS worries me:

You agree not to do any of the following:

1. Post, upload, publish, submit or transmit any Content that: (i) infringes, misappropriates or violates a third party’s patent, copyright, trademark, trade secret, moral rights or other intellectual property rights, or rights of publicity or privacy; (ii) violates, or encourages any conduct that would violate, any applicable law or regulation or would give rise to civil liability; (iii) is fraudulent, false, misleading or deceptive; (iv) is defamatory, obscene, pornographic, vulgar or offensive; (v) promotes discrimination, bigotry, racism, hatred, harassment or harm against any individual or group; (vi) is violent or threatening or promotes violence or actions that are threatening to any other person; or (vii) promotes illegal or harmful activities or substances.

Vulgar? Seriously? And who decides what's infringing or pornographic?

[lebannen]

Tht sounds fairly standard to me, I mean:

You agree to not use the Yahoo! Services to:
1.
upload, post, email, transmit or otherwise make available any Content that is unlawful, harmful, threatening, abusive, harassing, tortious, defamatory, vulgar, obscene, libelous, invasive of another's privacy, hateful, or racially, ethnically or otherwise objectionable; [Yahoo! ToS]

[synecdochic]

That's the same ToS provisions that everybody (and I do mean everybody) uses. (Seriously, look at the ToS of any other site you use.) When we were writing DW'S ToS I specifically had to argue with our lawyer to not include the standard laundry list, and it's caused some problems with some of our providers since.

Honestly, every abuse desk I've ever seen or talked to, anywhere -- and I've talked to a lot of them, since I was a resource for a lot of Web 2.0 properties that were just starting up -- ignores every single one of those provisions and just rolls their eyes when somebody reports something that has the kind of stuff fandom considers "adult content". What they really mean when they say "pornographic, vulgar, or offensive" is stuff that makes 4Chan and rotten.com look tame in comparison -- snuff porn, kiddie porn, gore and torture porn, etc. Yeah, there are services that draw the line elsewhere, due to marketing's mandates or the service itself specifically choosing to be child-or-family-friendly, but working abuse at any Web 2.0 property desensitizes you fast.

(Part of the thing I am enjoying most about DW is that I don't have to spend six hours a day looking at dead bodies (and reading endless internet slap fights) -- our ToS volume is like four complaints a month. By the time I left LJ, I'd been doing abuse work for five years, which is three years and six months past the industry average burnout for customer service, much less abuse. I was a little crispy.)

Anyway, seperis, personally I'm really thrilled that they aren't just moving everyone's account over to the new service. From what I can tell about the deal, they bought a) the code behind Delicious and b) the existing database of users, but not the domain name or the right to call themselves "Delicious". (It was most likely much cheaper that way.) The common argument is that the license you give a site to host/display your content goes with the database, not with the code or the domain name. The fact that they are requiring an affirmative action to port your data is actually really awesome of them.

[seperis]

First part - *winces* Customer service in abuse. I did ombudsman complaints work and that was enough.

Second part - see, I get that, and I approve, as I love delicious, so I mean, my instinctive response should have been like WHEE? No, it was like "You wanna delete my account, punk? I would like to see you try." And IDK, something.

IDK, I feel this is actually--hilariously-- a tone issue.

[synecdochic]

*g* Yeah, I can see where it would ping people wrong. To me, it just reads like standard "written by nerds who haven't hired a marketing person yet and who want to make sure they're really specific".

[seperis]

*sad for them* They should try something that doesn't sound like a combination of WE HAVE YOUR ACCOUNT. COME OUT AND JOIN THE NEW PEOPLE WIHT YOUR HANDS UP OR IT WILL BE KILLED and "Those nice youtube boys see something in you and you better be grateful, you cyberbrat."

..fine, it could be projection if you want to be all, accurate.

[synecdochic]

hee hee hee hee HEE

[apatheia_jane]

What other tone would you expect from a company that has an exclamation mark as part of its name? Actually, I felt the letter was pretty concise and useful, compared to some of the issues and resulting communications I've had with Yahoo! owned Delicious.

[neotoma]

My objection is that in the AVOS version of Delicious, other members will be able to see your screen name *and* real name. There is no mention of an option to keep yourself pseudonymous, which is why I've not yet signed on.

[ineptshieldmaid]

There's no good reason why you have to give them your real name. As far as delicious' new owners are concerned, I rejoice in the given name of Inept Shieldmaid. They asked "give us your name", i gave them that, and lo, that is now my name.

[neotoma]

I know that I *can* put in a pseudonym, but why do the new owners think it's a good idea for everyone to have their screen name and their 'real' name displayed to fellow members in the first place? It doesn't even sound like there's an option to restrict who sees your 'real' name.

[out_there]

In other news, the first trailer for X-Men First Class did not inspire me. Oh, I was going to watch it, because hello, Eric and Xavier and also, McAvoy is hot like burning

Hmmmm. That's making me frown a little. Because, well, Eric and Xavier + McAvoy should = most awesome and slashy film. I think I need to watch that preview this weekend and come up with my own opinion.

[seperis]

I'd watch McAvoy read the collected works of Cicero okay? In Latin.

[amalthia]

I'm a bit curious as to when you first noticed McAvoy??? He's also one of those actors I love to watch on screen but I discovered him in Children of Dune.

[seperis]

*bites lip* Children of Dune. I still have a Leto icon.

[amalthia]

hehe, I still think Children of Dune was easily one of the BEST mini-series the sci-fi channel had ever produced.

[angels3.livejournal.com]

Huh, cause I thought it was pretty great. I've already set both mine up to move over, I've just got to figure out if it will take what I bookmark between now and when it moves.

It seemed very informative for the site not to be up and running yet and easy to use as far as getting yourself in line to get your stuff moved and saved.

[seperis.livejournal.com]

Oh, I'm not against it; I was hoping they'd end up selling it and not scrubbing, hugely. I have like, five accounts for fandom alone. That email just pinged me completely wrong, and I honestly can't explain why.

[angels3.livejournal.com]

Probably because you know how to do the things it was talking about while I'm technologically challanged and the more you dumb it down the better chance of me understanding it. :)

[nianeyna.livejournal.com]

If there was a bookmarking service that is to delicious what dreamwidth is to lj, I would be all over that. But I think I'd probably stick with delicious as well, just like I'm on both lj and dreamwidth. Just because, you know, not everyone would move to the new digs.

THAT SAID, for now I am just crying epic whoretears of relieved joy over the fact that delicious is not shutting down and/or being bought by stumbleupon, which I had heard floated as a possibility and like, stumbleupon, I like you and all, but my delicious bookmarks are MILITANTLY ORGANIZED and I do not see you being very conducive to that.

[seperis.livejournal.com]

This too. MILITANTLY ORGANIZED.

I"m so not against it; for some reason, though, I hate that email adn I can't even articulate why.

[nianeyna.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the way it was worded does seem a bit sinister, or at least unnecessarily high-handed, if you look at it in a certain light. But then, given the way yahoo has treated delicious from day one I'm just glad they gave us the notification, which they probably only did because there's some sort of law that requires them to. They even linked AVOS's website and the new TOS - which I actually skimmed over (something I normally don't bother with lol) because of exactly that weird "off" vibe. In case you're wondering, I didn't see anything in there that merited the stentorian tones of this email. Just standard fare about how we won't sell your email address and we aren't responsible for whatever people link to.

[sian1359.livejournal.com]

What bothered me about the email is you're basically agreeing to a future TOS that isn't detailed -- at least in the email at all. And considering South Park's episode tonight ...

[norabombay.livejournal.com]

I was already going to see First Class, but that trailer nailed it.

I've got a weird relationship with the movies. From 1994-2000 I was a HARDCORE X-Men fan. Owned the comics, was all over usenet, and very very into it.

But I went cold turkey in 2000, before the first movie. So for me the movies are a lovely AU- and far better than they had any right to be.

But that first group. OH. MYSTIQUE! MYSTIQUE. My only regret is that they probably won't have Destiny in it. Not a huge deal as in movieverse, Rogue doesn't have two mommies. But still.

ETA: Icon picked not for sentiment, but because it's my only icon of the main team.

[sienamystic.livejournal.com]

I was a comics fan from about the same time period - not as hard core, but definitely going to my comic shop and buying the new titles, a bunch of back issues. When the movies came out, I enjoyed them, but mostly on a sort of superficial level? I wasn't a big enough fan to notice some of the egregious bad stuff, which is probably better for me, all told.

For First Class, I'm loving the Charles/Erik stuff, but I'm still thrown by the characters I don't know, like the pixie-winged girl, and the blips like Alec with no Scott, and the fact that Banshee and the White Queen can't have a hot snarky relationship...(I really enjoyed the early Generation X books.)

[tricksterquinn.livejournal.com]

X-MEN FIRST CLASS!!!!!!! OH FANDOM OF MY HEART, PLEASE BE ALL I COULD HOPE!!!!!!!!!!!

[pressdbtwnpages.livejournal.com]

Oh, man, First Class does look good. But, and I know it's Marvel and Fox and all of that, but, ugh, the lack of logic!continuity makes me unhappy.

[al-hazel.livejournal.com]

I think what bugged me about that email was that you had to choose between allowing the transfer and losing your bookmarks. Like it was their way or no way.

I do think it is because of bad PR though, and hopefully it'll improve.

[beyondallreason.livejournal.com]

Agree and agree on the reaction to the xmen trailers.... I can't wait (now)

[mir8lle.livejournal.com]

Emma Frost! Yay!

[eccentrikita.livejournal.com]

http://avos.com/terms/

So I'm pretty sure that the User Responsibilities section at the bottom there frowns upon both transformative works and porn. Did the original delicious TOS have those overtones?

Fanmirror time, indeed.

[cofax7]

Hmm, yeah, except that the Delicious Content they're talking about is... the bookmark. And, I guess, whatever notes and tags are associated with the bookmark. So, you know, unless one fills one's notes section with explicit samples of the porn in a bookmarked story, I'm not clear how the bookmarking of porn could be seen to violate the TOS itself.

Posting a link is not publishing. Or, it's publishing a link, not the content on the page the link goes to.

I suspect this is a by-the-numbers TOS, designed to promise nothing to the users and protect the company, even if that negates the purposes to which the users put the site.

[cyprinella]

FLAPPY HANDS OF GLEE AT THAT TRAILER!

Oh please, please don't suck.

[faithharkness.livejournal.com]

I didn't know about Havoc until I saw the trailer.

There is no squee big enough