Mat Bowles

The big irony of the whole thing, is that what initially caused the problem was an insensitive form reply. If the initial reply had said something along the lines of "we know that it sucks that we have, but can you please make this non-default because Americans are puritans/American law is scary/whatever" then there probably wouldn't have been a great big fuss. The boob_nazis people might not have been happy about it, but I can't see such a big fuss being raised over it either. But what they do in response is to crapflood the hell out of LJA, ensuring that many hours of manpower are spent on dealing with the crapflood, so there's less time to write considered replies specific to each case, and even more necessity to rely on potentially-insensitive form replies. Oh, good times.

The big problem that I see LJA/6A being in now is this: if they do conceed the point and change their mind, then they're sending out the message that the heavy-handed tactics of boob_nazis work, which will encourage other people to direct vitriol and hate and spam at them until they capitulate again. Which is never a good idea.

Also, the people complaining about this who are comparing themselves with Gandhi and with Rosa Parks? Really not helping me think they're anything but self-important entitlement-whores. (And yes, I have seen people make both comparisons.)

I think that LJA made the first mistake. I disagree with the policy, and I don't think things were handled terribly well even within the policy. But since then, it's just been one great big mess on all sides. But IMO, mostly from the side of the boob nazis.