Okay... couple of experiments that actually went well...

I logged out and then checked my flist. LJ apparently sets a cookie (at least for the session) when you first click on an age confirmation and then it doesn't bother you again, although you still see cuts in the flist.

I can live with that. It means people who aren't on LJ can still read material for adults with only a minor hassle (and its on the same level as most adult sites.) I'm not as pleased with the "flag" thing for other people, but I understand why LJ has to do it. Increasingly the laws penalize them (and harshly) for what users do. This appears to stick material which is just adult-themed into a different category than stuff which is blatantly illegal.

Now if they add in a "abuse of the flag will result in all of your flags being disregarded" clause...

Now I just have to decide whether or not to put in my real birth year. I'm way over 18, but if I've got the full date there... well... hmmm.

ETA: oh, and I finally did get an email for this journal... about four hours later, and with all the html disabled but the first link, which is odd, but it did come.

Okay... couple of experiments that actually went well...

I logged out and then checked my flist. LJ apparently sets a cookie (at least for the session) when you first click on an age confirmation and then it doesn't bother you again, although you still see cuts in the flist.

I can live with that. It means people who aren't on LJ can still read material for adults with only a minor hassle (and its on the same level as most adult sites.) I'm not as pleased with the "flag" thing for other people, but I understand why LJ has to do it. Increasingly the laws penalize them (and harshly) for what users do. This appears to stick material which is just adult-themed into a different category than stuff which is blatantly illegal.

Now if they add in a "abuse of the flag will result in all of your flags being disregarded" clause...

Now I just have to decide whether or not to put in my real birth year. I'm way over 18, but if I've got the full date there... well... hmmm.

ETA: oh, and I finally did get an email for this journal... about four hours later, and with all the html disabled but the first link, which is odd, but it did come.

Still thinking, but beginning to feel a bit better...

http://caras-galadhon.livejournal.com/348782.html has some good points about the whole flag/content marking system. #3 had escaped me, but I like it I do. Should cut down on the basic trolls. And you appear to need to be an LJ user to set flags flying from that too.

( So on the whole I'm cautiously optimistic. )

But reading through all of the things I'm seeing, I think what I'm getting is a sense of relief. Like any compromise, this is imperfect -- no one is entirely happy, but we're all unhappy for different reasons. There are kinks that will probably be addressed. But on the whole, this is a win for the users.

You see, it could be a lot worse. LJ/SixApart could have decided that adult content was just too much hassle to deal with on their servers and banned it entirely.

I'm just as happy that they didn't.

Still thinking, but beginning to feel a bit better...

http://caras-galadhon.livejournal.com/348782.html has some good points about the whole flag/content marking system. #3 had escaped me, but I like it I do. Should cut down on the basic trolls. And you appear to need to be an LJ user to set flags flying from that too.

( So on the whole I'm cautiously optimistic. )

But reading through all of the things I'm seeing, I think what I'm getting is a sense of relief. Like any compromise, this is imperfect -- no one is entirely happy, but we're all unhappy for different reasons. There are kinks that will probably be addressed. But on the whole, this is a win for the users.

You see, it could be a lot worse. LJ/SixApart could have decided that adult content was just too much hassle to deal with on their servers and banned it entirely.

I'm just as happy that they didn't.