One more reason to dislike LJ...

[calime]

I heart the effort people are making in providing information about fandom-friendly candidates for the Advisory Board elections. But. I CANNOT PUT THAT INFORMATION INTO ANY USE. BECAUSE THE FREAKING LJ AUTOMATICALLY PUTS ME INTO THE *CYRILLIC SEGMENT*, which has SEPARATE VOTING, with candidates I know nothing of.
I AM NOT RUSSIAN. Not by nationality nor by country nor by culture. I deeply resent being FORCEDLY included in *Cyrillic segment* and frankly, it makes me also deeply uncomfortable that a Russian-money-owned company automatically slaps Russian-language service etc onto the user accounts that originate from countries that were formerly OCCUPIED by USSR, countries, towards which Russia still keeps having territorial ambitions. THAT is the last and strongest reason to keep away from LJ for me.
*xposted to LJ because it concerns LJ*

Comments

[oleshko.livejournal.com]

onto the user accounts that originate from countries that were formerly OCCUPIED by USSR, countries, towards which Russia still keeps having territorial ambitions.
You're not the only one, who has a bone to pick with that SUP (lj owner). But such measures are made not for the above mentioned reasons. There's a large percent of russian speaking bloggers in LJ (and it's much bigger than the estonian part, since LJ itself is quite popular in Russia). And believe me, I understand how you feel. In a way, you just became russian: you used to live in your local environment, and bam, everything goes to estonian, you hear only "learn the language, occupant", and some just literally hate you for who you are.
ps> found your blogpost at all-ee bot-community, which tries to list all .ee posts on a huge friends page :).

[calime]

I agree that SUP 'russifying' the customer service for Eastern European countries is not likely to be a part of any 'territorial ambitions', it is however, a reflection of an overall attitude that partly derives from the history and aforementioned ambitions.
I speak and understand Russian, and I converse in Russian with my clients who need it. I have Russian friends (who, btw, also speak some degree of English and Estonian etc). I do think that, for example here, in Estonia, we need to accept that we have a considerable Russian community here, though I also feel that people of ANY nationality who wish to live in ANY country more or less permanently/long time, should make an effort to learn the language of that country. If I moved into Germany or Russia or UK, I'd assume I'm expected to learn the local language and customs. I agree that there is and probably, sadly, always will be people who are xenophobic and 'just literally hate you for you are' - that goes not only for, lets say, russophobes, but there will be and are homophobes, woman haters, man haters, racists...
The gist of my irritation towards SUP 'russifying' my cluster of LJ is however rooted less in the fact that it 'went to russian', and more in the fact that I signed up here using English, to participate in English-speaking fandoms/culture room (I am not asking for Estonian, if I wanted to blog in Estonian, I'd sign up in an Estonian-language blog service, if I wanted Russian, I'd go for Russian etc). I would be similarly pissed if I was suddenly switched into, lets say, 'German segment'.

[oleshko.livejournal.com]

I have no idea where did I go wrong. But your answer is 80% about the situation around the russian problem :D.
Turning back to SUP... I also agree, that SUP's "what-seems-the-best-for-us" politic sucks ass.. no way am I going back (http://img375.imageshack.us/img375/89/45359945dg7.jpg) to russian translation... it's just like driving a right-wheeled car for me :)

[calime]

Yup, SUP basically seems to think 'customer service' = 'give them what WE (SUP) think they have to want, no way can they want something else'. And yes, that is the gist of the suckage :)