Timeline of Fandom on LiveJournal

Fandom:	Multifandom
Dates:	1999 – present
See also:	Livejournal, Fandom and the Internet
	; Click here for related articles on Fanlore.
	Contents 1 LJ ownership; 2 Wanks and other Dramatic Events; 3 Coms and fandom usage of LJ; 4 Graphical Timeline; 5 References;

One major phase of online fandom organization has centered on the site Livejournal. The site has had a huge impact on the structure of online fandom, and its changes of ownership, policy, and usability have generated lots of wank and fandom projects.

LJ ownership

March 18, 1999: created by Brad Fitzpatrick
January 5, 2005: sold to Six Apart
December 2, 2007: sold to SUP Services, and LiveJournal, Inc is founded
April 4, 2017: control of LiveJournal is transferred to SUP Media LLC ^[1]
January 20, 2022, the website's TOS was updated,^[2] Inactive accounts will be deleted within 2 years, crossposting does not work.

Wanks and other Dramatic Events

circa 2002: Fandom starts to move to LJ in larger numbers (For more discussion on the effects of this, see The Impact of Blogging on Fandom). Fans with paid accounts organize invite code giveaways.
December 2003: Invite codes no longer required.^[3]
May 2006: Nipplegate
May and August 2007: Strikethrough and Boldthrough
2009: Scans Daily suspended; moves to InsaneJournal, then Dreamwidth
January-May 2009: RaceFail '09
March, April, July 2011: The Great LJ DDOS of 2011
December 2011: Release 88 ^[4]. Before the release, SUP staffer igrick announced on his Russian-language LJ that soon it would no longer be possible to give comments a subject line and that existing subject lines in old posts would disappear. This was listed as "non-negotiable." Many fans immediately commented to explain the importance of subject lines to fannish communities such as RPers, kink memes, and anon memes.^[5]^[6]^[7]^[8] See also rollback88.
June 2012: Fandom!Secrets moves to Dreamwidth
June 2014: Subject lines for comments returned ^[9]
July 5, 2014: Fail-Fandomanon moves to Dreamwidth because Livejournal had become too unreliable.
April, 2017: LiveJournal's new Terms of Service (which changed on April 4, 2017) are so threatening that thousands more fans flee to Dreamwidth, many deleting their old LiveJournal accounts.^[10]
January, 2022: New TOS is released stating in section 6 that every account inactive for a period of 2 years would be permanently deleted from the site, direct crossposts with Dreamwidth and other journals do not work, instability and difficulty archiving parts of LJ through sites like Wayback Machine due to conflicts with the host.^{[citation needed]}

Coms and fandom usage of LJ

fkcommentfic - 17 July 2011 to present
fkficfest - 11 October 2009 to present
maryrenault - 28 September 2005 to present
maryrenaultfics - 8 June 2004 to present

Graphical Timeline

References

^ http://news.livejournal.com/151767.html, posted 4 April 2017 (Accessed 16 April 2017)
^ "User Agreement". 2022-01-20. Archived from the original on 2022-03-29.
^ LJ News post 12/12/03
^ Release 88, Paid time extension: news
^ "Soon-to-be-implemented changes in lj comments: no more subject line" thread at Fail-Fandomanon, 12 Dec 2011 (Accessed 15 Dec 2011)
^ Livejournal to do away with subject line in comments post by heeroluva, 12 Dec 2011. (Accessed 15 Dec 2011)
^ Oh, LJ post by havocthecat, 13 Dec 2011. (Accessed 15 Dec 2011)
^ Новый ЖЖ. Шаг первый — комментарии - original post by igrick from 12 Dec 2011, with an English-language addendum from a day or two later that says "A note to users of RP, Meme and other communities, where subject line is crucial for operation: for the moment we are developing only standard commenting representation, well know in LiveJournal as S1 styles, but we will keep subject lines, both in terms of form and representation, in advanced — S2 — styles, and provide an ability to keep it forever for certain communities, as well as, by request, will develop an extra functionality for such communities thru OpensSocial applications going public next year." (Accessed 15 Dec 2011)
^ Release #116: news
^ Russian-Owned LiveJournal Bans Political Talk, Adds Risk of Spying IO9, by Beth Elderkin dated 4/08/17, accessed 2017-04-16

[1] ttp://news.livejournal.com/151767.html, posted 4 April 2017 (Accessed 16 April 2017)

[2] "User Agreement". 2022-01-20. Archived from the original on 2022-03-29.

[3] LJ News post 12/12/03

[4] Release 88, Paid time extension: news

[5] "Soon-to-be-implemented changes in lj comments: no more subject line" thread at Fail-Fandomanon, 12 Dec 2011 (Accessed 15 Dec 2011)

[6] Livejournal to do away with subject line in comments post by heeroluva, 12 Dec 2011. (Accessed 15 Dec 2011)

[7] Oh, LJ post by havocthecat, 13 Dec 2011. (Accessed 15 Dec 2011)

[8] Новый ЖЖ. Шаг первый — комментарии - original post by igrick from 12 Dec 2011, with an English-language addendum from a day or two later that says "A note to users of RP, Meme and other communities, where subject line is crucial for operation: for the moment we are developing only standard commenting representation, well know in LiveJournal as S1 styles, but we will keep subject lines, both in terms of form and representation, in advanced — S2 — styles, and provide an ability to keep it forever for certain communities, as well as, by request, will develop an extra functionality for such communities thru OpensSocial applications going public next year." (Accessed 15 Dec 2011)

[9] Release #116: news

[10] Russian-Owned LiveJournal Bans Political Talk, Adds Risk of Spying IO9, by Beth Elderkin dated 4/08/17, accessed 2017-04-16

[1]

[2]

[3]

[4]

[5]

[6]

[7]

[8]

[9]

[10]

Fandom:	Multifandom
Dates:	1999 – present
See also:	Livejournal, Fandom and the Internet
Click here for related articles on Fanlore.
Contents 1 LJ ownership 2 Wanks and other Dramatic Events 3 Coms and fandom usage of LJ 4 Graphical Timeline 5 References