We're delighted that so many of you have graciously offered to join our dedicated family of beta testers. Our community care team has invited around 20 new volunteers to participate in our next beta release. We thank you, again, for helping us make LiveJournal better! Meanwhile, back on the ranch, Frank is celebrating May babies. If you were born this month, shoot us a high five in the comments below, and Frank will send you a candy necklace!
Important stuff to know:
Billing issue: We're aware that some of the orders placed in the LiveJournal shop last weekend were not properly delivered (e.g., Userpic add-ons did not get credited after purchase and vgifts were not sent). We're happy to report that we successfully resolved this issue earlier this week, and all orders should now be processed. Thank you for your patience!
Purge update: A number of you have been asking when we'll start purging suspended accounts. The quick answer is we're still working out the technical details to make sure we get it right. We'll be sure to let you know when it's time to buy those rename tokens.
We want to extend a very happy birthday to ontd_ai! Founded on May 15, 2009, ontd_ai was created as a spin-off of ohnotheydidnt, a place where American Idol fans could be "as crazy and ridiculous as possible," reports maintainer soresubject. "After making a few headlines for crazy behavior on MTV.com, we started Twitter trending revolutions on everything from talented Idol contestants that haven't been signed to disgust with homophobia, which evolved into a powerful and universal message that took on a life of its own: #dontstopbelieving. And then there was our baby: charity. What started as a simple contest to show our appreciation for Adam Lambert spiraled into a remarkable event that forever changed our standards. No longer were we trolling the dungeon. Since last summer, we raised over $125,000 for various causes. We've given students the instruments, opportunities, and material to learn powerful skills. We've helped Haiti heal after their devastating earthquake. We've put shoes on children's feet, food on families' plates, helped doctors in their fight to find a cure for cancer, and so much more. As a community, we have gone through a lot in 12 intense months, but one thing that will never change is our love of helping others. This has been an amazing year, a crazy year, and a life-changing year. Fans are terrified of us and Idols have no idea what to make of us. If our wild gif spams don't scare you off, then come help us create a second year of epic. We'll be holding a contest next week to choose a vgift, which LiveJournal will sell to raise money for a charity our members will select. We hope you'll participate and thank you for your lulz, love, and support!" We, at LiveJournal, wish all of the fabulous, feminine benches at ontd_ai a blowout birthday bash and a tremendous second year!
We've got milk and cookies for our paid users!
If you have a paid or permanent account, you can send five free afternoon snacks through Monday, May 10th at 4pm, PDT! You'll see both the free and the $0.99 cookies displayed until your friends have had their fill. Please send only one at a time. In other words, you'll need to complete check-out and start a new order for each tasty snack you send. If you're not receiving vgifts (from friends and/or Frank), you may have disabled them. To enable vgifts, visit Edit profile (under Profile), scroll down to the bottom of the page, and check your settings. Naturally, the milk also comes in rice or soy, and the sandwich cookies are organically delicious, vegan, and gluten-free! Enjoy!
For our featured photo and more fun with Frank & Meme, we'll catch you under the cut! ( Collapse ) Thanks, again, for joining us. We'll see you next week!
While we prepare for a major release, we want to take a moment to extend a warm welcome to ohnotheydidnt, who recently joined the official LiveJournal family. Long-time maintainer, brenden, will serve as ONTD's Staff Editor. In order to ensure that you never miss a beat of late night star-gazing, we'll be rebalancing our server loads to improve speed and performance, beginning this Friday night (details below). Elsewhere on LiveJournal, we'd like to extend a royal shout out to the benevolent "benches" over at ONTD_AI, who hope to raise $100,000 through Idol Gives Back! Frank is so moved by your generosity that he'd like to honor all of you superstars who donate your passion to support vital social causes. Tell us how you've made a difference, and Frank will celebrate your virtual birthday with a pair of glam shades.
Important stuff to know:
Just a reminder that we'll soon be purging accounts that have been suspended for more than six months to bring you faster, more reliable service.
We receive so many clever Writer's Block questions that are too edgy to post on our homepage that we've decided to introduce an adult-friendly version of Writer's Block: wb_unplugged. If you wish to submit questions to Unplugged, you can join and post to the community or use the existing Writer's Block suggestion box. We look forward to reading your questions and answers!
ohnotheydidnt will be spending a quiet evening in read-only mode starting tomorrow, Friday, April 9th, at 9PM, PST, which will last anywhere from 12 to 24 hours. During this time, you won't be able to post or comment, although you're welcome to catch up on back reading. Once we're done, ohnotheydidnt should do a better job of keeping up with all of your celebrity gossip needs!
The generous benches at ontd_ai are gearing up for their anniversary on LiveJournal (mark your calendars for May 15th), by ramping up their charitable giving! Having already raised tens of thousands of dollars for Haiti and Chile, they've embarked on a mission to raise $100,000 to help provide food, clothing, and shelter for needy children and families around the world in association with Idol Gives Back. They're asking all of us to support their fundraising goal by promoting their efforts on LiveJournal.
April header design contest poll!
We want to thank you for helping us select five finalists for our April Header Design contest! There were so many amazing entries that we couldn't have done it without you! We hope you'll vote for the design you want to appear at the top of LiveJournal from mid-April through mid-May. You can start submitting headers for the May contest at remixed now through the end of the month! In addition to fame and glory, the winner will receive a 25giftcertificate.Finalistswillbeawarded25 gift certificate. Finalists will be awarded 25giftcertificate.Finalistswillbeawarded10 gift certificates, while all other contributors will receive $5 gift certificates (one per user)! We can't wait to see your work!
We've got Puppy Love for our paid users!
If you have a paid or permanent account, you can send five free cuddly puppies through Monday, April 12th at 4pm, PST! You'll see both the free and the $0.99 puppies displayed until they've scampered off to your friends. Please send only one at a time. In other words, you'll need to complete check-out and start a new order for each fetching puppy. If you're not receiving vgifts (from friends and/or Frank), you may have disabled them. To enable vgifts, visit Edit profile (under Profile), scroll down to the bottom of the page, and check your settings. We wish you oodles of puppy love!
For our featured photo and more fun with Frank & Meme, we'll catch you under the cut! ( Collapse ) Thanks, again, for spending time with us. We'll see you next week!
ontd_ai turns one!
soresubject. "After making a few headlines for crazy behavior on MTV.com, we started Twitter trending revolutions on everything from talented Idol contestants that haven't been signed to disgust with homophobia, which evolved into a powerful and universal message that took on a life of its own: #dontstopbelieving. And then there was our baby: charity. What started as a simple contest to show our appreciation for Adam Lambert spiraled into a remarkable event that forever changed our standards. No longer were we trolling the dungeon. Since last summer, we raised over $125,000 for various causes. We've given students the instruments, opportunities, and material to learn powerful skills. We've helped Haiti heal after their devastating earthquake. We've put shoes on children's feet, food on families' plates, helped doctors in their fight to find a cure for cancer, and so much more. As a community, we have gone through a lot in 12 intense months, but one thing that will never change is our love of helping others. This has been an amazing year, a crazy year, and a life-changing year. Fans are terrified of us and Idols have no idea what to make of us. If our wild gif spams don't scare you off, then come help us create a second year of epic. We'll be holding a contest next week to choose a vgift, which LiveJournal will sell to raise money for a charity our members will select. We hope you'll participate and thank you for your lulz, love, and support!" We, at LiveJournal, wish all of the fabulous, feminine benches at 
theljstaff
brenden, will serve as ONTD's Staff Editor. In order to ensure that you never miss a beat of late night star-gazing, we'll be rebalancing our server loads to improve speed and performance, beginning this Friday night (details below). Elsewhere on LiveJournal, we'd like to extend a royal shout out to the benevolent "benches" over at ONTD_AI, who hope to raise $100,000 through Idol Gives Back! Frank is so moved by your generosity that he'd like to honor all of you superstars who donate your passion to support vital social causes. Tell us how you've made a difference, and Frank will celebrate your virtual birthday with a pair of glam shades.