I've got one foot out the door here and at Litsy. Looks increasingly like I am going to just use my blog and Good Reads by the end of the year if this keeps up.

I'm at Litsy, too, although I prefer it here due to the ability to post longer posts. I must have missed the reblog issue and the site actually isn't going that slowly for me, so that's... weird.

My frustrations with goodreads still outweigh my frustrations with BL.

Reply to post #1861 (show post):
Some of us can't go back to GR, so if I seem like 'oh, okay, well, /that's/ going on at BL,' it may just be more of a 'well, at least we have the freedom to talk about anything we feel about books and not be banned,' here.

Exactly, Grim.

But y'know, we went through this a few weeks ago, and then the shiny toy sped up again and everything was fine and everyone forgot about the problems as if they never happened.

And some of us tried out aNobii or whatever, and there's really just nothing out there. I'm tired of being disappointed by people who have made money off my content. Y'know?

Yikes, sorry to hear that.

And I get it, but I've been banned from Goodreads - so if the community leaves, I'm sort of... stuck. Or at Litsy, Library Thing and wherever else I can find that allows me to post longer reviews that isn't as much of a pain to use as LT.

I'm trying to do more at Library Thing. It's just tough to get used to the interface. And I forget to check WP Reader like I should... I've given up on Riffle.

The speed thing the last few days has been aggravating, but I'm not going anywhere. I didn't suffer the re-blog/multi post thing either, so thankfully I missed out on that additional frustration. I was impressed that the site sped back up on Sunday, which I take to mean *somebody* over there was watching, because it was so slow at one point that it was being reported as down.

Frankly at this point I'm ok with temporarily not hearing feedback from them (temporarily) as long as they've got someone there keeping things up and running and working on a consistently speedy site.

If there was an alternative that offered what I'm getting here, I'd be there already, but there isn't so here I am remaining.

Things are still, or again, very slow for me here today, and as I was waiting for a page to load, I flipped over to another tab and started skimming through my Facebook feed. As some of you know, I follow our BL CEO, Joanna Grzelak-Piaskowska, in the desperate hope of finding out something pertinent to BookLikes. We learned back in April that she and Dawid moved to Berlin (which is when BL started having massive issues) and last month Dawid posted on FB the announcement that they've just had their second child in September.

But today she posted this, which rather puts it all into perspective. Warning: this is Facebook's translation b/c the original is in Polish, so it's a choppy read, but you'll get the gist.

A few months ago, eight weeks pregnant I was diagnosed with cancer. In Poland, where the embryo's life is so very important, not very likely would have saved my baby. Why not? And because the doctors are " crazy ", exactly: " crazy with fear ", when you have to do something which is risky for pregnancy. ... Help I got in Germany. Here is the nest HQ, abortionists, saved me and my pregnancy. This is where I met people who despite language barriers or cultural even better able to support me, show empathy and have my trust, unlike their polish counterparts. 



Now thanks to German doctors (mostly immigrants or descendants of immigrants, BTW) I'm enjoying lying next to me 3 weeks healthy baby. This is where I met doctors who had no problems with that to heal by taking risks, save a life. When I asked the operator my chemotherapy oncologist about this risk, just said: " and remember that our aim is not for you to had a baby, that's all to raise your children." talk about things with German doctors after kilkutygodniowych experiences With the polish health coverage it was balm for my soul. 



From my point of view, you have to fight not just one or the other act, but a change of civilisation. Modification of a civilisation that a pregnant woman does not lose the fundamental human rights, do not lose their right to freedom of treatment decisions. Besides, I just wanted to point out how sad is reading statements that people who defend freedom of decision are for killing babies. The more I'm sorry, because both my pregnancies were desired, wyczekane and each to pay some portion of suffering. I think I have a moral right to say, " you know nothing!

As reasons go for not being social on a social site, I think this one is an extraordinarily valid one; I know how cancer sucks up reality for its victims and everyone around them; I can't even imagine adding a pregnancy to the mix and the need to move your entire life to another country to get the treatment you need. The last thing I'd be thinking about is whether or not my website was up, down or sideways.

It would have made a world of difference to all of us had they told us, if we'd known the context of the poor attention being paid to this site, but I can't say if I'd been either Dawid or Joanna I wouldn't have blown us off too - in the scheme of what they've been facing the past few months, we are rather insignificant.

I'm thrilled that their baby was born healthy and I hope this bodes well for Joanna's health too and that she's on her way out the other side of this horrible year. Perhaps as things get better and brighter for them, we'll see things get better and brighter here too. Fingers crossed anyway.

Well that does make more sense than them just deciding to become anti-social. It sounds like they've had a year of hell. It is a shame that someone related to them didn't post a little update here though since it is on Facebook. Does anyone know if the rumors of them selling BL were ever confirmed?

Reply to post #1870 (show post):
Yes, they did post a clarification saying that BookLikes was NOT sold and they were not actively trying to sell it. That was back in May or June, I think.

Woah, I did not expect that. I am not surprised that someone would choose fighting for their life over managing website. This is terrible. But I'm not surprised she posted it yesterday, at Black Monday. I hate this stupid country.

That is terrible. :(
I hope her treatment is proving successful.

Wow, that is horrible, and I find it incredible that she had to flee her own country to get proper treatment. Good for her and Dawid and I wish them and their children the best.

Thanks for the update, MbD. I wish them all the best!