Private messaging on LiveJournal

[pne]

So the recent news post says that one of their plans for 2007 is to make it possible for you to connect with others through private messaging (about time, huh?).

I'm confused by the "about time, huh?" parenthetical remark. I remember when some feature was suggested (I think it was a kind of screened comment that's visible to the person you commented to and not just to the owner of the journal), which was nixed by brad by saying it'd be used to hold private conversations, and that this was not what LiveJournal was for -- emails were better for that.

"about time" sounds as if people wanted to implement private messaging for ages but never got around to it, or lacked the technical skills, or whatever, whereas I thought I remembered that the there was active opposition from TPTB.

I suppose it comes with brad no longer being the only TPTB at LiveJournal/SixApart. Times change.

Comments

[karen2205]

Yes, that was what I thought when I saw that comment in the news post. I'm not utterly against a private messaging system on LiveJournal, providing there's a way to turn it off and get people to email me instead.

[crschmidt.livejournal.com]

The general opinion among the masses at LJ seems to have always been "omg private messaging is so cool, why don't we have it". The fact that it was an active position doesn't mean it was any less desired by the public, and News posts are targetted towards the readers...

But primarily, I think you're right that it's just a change in who is "The Powers That Be".

[isabeau.livejournal.com]

My interpretation of the parenthetical was "Yes, we know you've been asking for this for a damn long time" -- something that the userbase, those reading the post, wanted, not something that LJ wanted.

[opal1159.livejournal.com]

I thought about that too.

[brad.livejournal.com]

I was always against it, but my views have changed. Too many people hide their emails lately because email still sucks and they associate email with spam. So communicating via email isn't really an option much of the time.

And every other website is doing private messaging, but doing it in a totally closed way (come see our ads!). I want to do combine private messaging with open standards so you can pick up your private messages with POP3, for instance (along with the rest of your "notification inbox"). Or have us relay the email to you.

[elgrande.livejournal.com]

"I remember when some feature was suggested (I think it was a kind of screened comment that's visible to the person you commented to and not just to the owner of the journal), which was nixed by brad by saying it'd be used to hold private conversations, and that this was not what LiveJournal was for -- emails were better for that."

This sentence confused me because I wasn't able to find the object of the verb "to remember". It took me a moment to figure out that the object is probably the "when"-clause.

[tungol.livejournal.com]

I suppose it comes with brad no longer being the only TPTB at LiveJournal/SixApart.
Hmm... How does one make a singular form of The Powers that Be? Or, how is the singular form of TPTB expanded?

[pne.livejournal.com]

It took me a moment to figure out that the object is probably the "when"-clause.

Essentially, yes.

Perhaps it's shorthand for "I remember the time/occasion/situation when ..." or something like that.

[pne.livejournal.com]

Hmm... How does one make a singular form of The Powers that Be?

Good question. What form is "be" in that phrase, anyway? Subjunctive? An older form of indicative?

At any rate, it's using grammar that I'm not familiar with, so I don't really have any idea how to modify the phrase.