Several people have indicated that they feel I overreacted to Strikethrough '07 by not giving LJ enough time/opportunity to make things right before leaving. I feel compelled to make several points in response to that:

(1) Different people have different thresholds and triggers. I totally understand why the majority of fandom is taking a "wait and see" approach and giving 6A the benefit of the doubt. However, the whole situation pushes too many of my buttons for me to feel comfortable posting there any longer, and I hope people can understand that.

(2) A huge trigger for me happens to be when people say, "People always talk about ______ but they never will, and that's why things will continue as they always have." There was quite a bit of that yesterday and today, and jaded self-fulfilling prophecies happen to drive me crazy. Change has to start somewhere, sometime. I'm not deluding myself that I'm at the vanguard of The Great Migration Off LJ -- I'm not expecting any of you to follow -- but for me to be consistent with the rest of way I try to live my life, I have to have a better answer for returning to LJ (and, by extension, giving them readers/traffic/income) than working to establish my presence elsewhere. And if it eventually makes it easier for other people to wean themselves from LJ, so much the better.

(3) In some respects, this is easier for me than it would be for many of you, because I happen to know that quite a few of my readers weren't even on my friendlist or vice versa. Since I'm "out" about my participation in fandom in my real life (I don't flaunt it, but neither do I deny it), I have visitors from there as well as some who have stuck with me since the Diaryland days (waves at swooop and natalieann), and others who already maintain their own blogs or archives outside of LJ. This is part of why I tried to keep friendslocked posts to a minimum -- some of my readers have never bothered getting LJ accounts even for commenting, and others preferred to bookmark the journal rather than friending it. In short, my online community isn't confined to fen with LJ accounts, and I have to trust that the people who enjoy my writing will continue to seek it out no matter where it's hosted.

(4) That said, in moving away from LJ, I do anticipate that 90% of the people currently leaving feedback on my stories will no longer find it convenient enough to do so. I'm mourning that, but I'm also hoping that this will cure me of wibbling over how much/little feedback I get in the first place. *rueful smile*

(5) Last but not least, an analogy (originally posted as a comment to a friend's locked post):

At present, remaining on LJ would feel like continuing to patronize a restaurant where management had told several of my friends they couldn't eat there because of the way they dressed. I'd still meet people at the restaurant for coffee if they insisted, but I would hope my friends could understand why I started spending my money at another cafe, and to meet me there occasionally.

And to continue the analogy, right now it feels like management apologized because they were being yelled at in front of influential patrons (i.e., the mainstream press), not because management actually felt bad about spitting in the food. Frankly, 6A's "apology" doesn't pass my sniff test; I hate feeling that cynical and ungenerous, but I've worked with a fair number of condescending good ol' boys over the years, and 6A's behavior reminds me too much of those guys to feel okay about giving them the benefit of the doubt. (You know the phrase: "Fool me once...")

I've spent more time explaining this than I intended, but I'm hoping this helps the folks who feel hurt or upset by my decision see more of how things look from my perspective. You may still conclude that I've overreacted, of course, but I'm hoping you'll at least get that there's more context to this than just Ribbons flying off the handle and flouncing off in a huff. ;-)