LJ- oh, teh drama!11!!1

[matgb]

Hmm. Anyone fancy a giggle?

It all started with a post to suggestions. I read it in a state of confusion, going "why don't you just hide 'friends of' if it's causing you a problem?" So I read the comments thread and found everyone else commenting had the same reaction or similar. Then, someone made a comment about the person in questions "friending rules". That comment is now screened, as is my response, I suspect the original poster didn't like the statement of the obvious it entailed.

Go read the link, but on the grounds the idiotindividual in question may change it, I repeat the main points for your entertainment pleasure. Actually, some people may find this sort of mocking cruel. OK, I'm a cruel mean bastard (yeah, right).

Hear ye, hear ye!

Listen now to the

1. I add you first. Not vice versa.

2. If you do add me before I add you, I reserve the right to explore your journal and see whether you're worth adding.

3. If I don't see anything that makes me suspicious, you're in. Congratulations.

4. If there is material that is offensive to me, or to anyone on my Flist, I will request that you defriend me. Please do so immediately.

5. If, however, you have no entries in your journal for me to read, you have no business owning an account in the first place. You will not be added.

6. A note to Christians and Republicans: I don't get along with you. In order to avoid conflict, please do not under any circumstances add me.

7. Since I am an intelligent woman, and all of my friends are equally intelligent, I prefer that only the intelligent add me. People with IQs that dip into the negative strata are not welcome.

8. I reserve the right to defriend at will, with or without warning. Usually with.

9. If you say or do anything that I consider repulsive while on my Flist, or you do or say something that one of my friends would find offensive, you will be informed that your behavior is unacceptible. You will also be removed from my Flist immediately. If the offense is bad enough, you will even be banned.

10. My journal is Friends-only for a reason. Friendships are based on trust. Please show discretion and courtesy toward my entries. I will gladly do likewise.

11. If you should ever decide that you must defriend me, please do not leave a comment explaining your reasons. I'm not that interested, and it will only lead to conflict.

12. If you have a problem with my entries (which would make you either a fundamentalist Christian or a conservative Republican), don't feed me your little hissy fit. You're not as special as you think you are.

13. If you're younger than sixteen, please behave yourself. I'm not your babysitter.

14. This journal is rated R.

Thank you for your time.

I guess I don't get the entirely 'friends only' approach to LJ. It sort of makes sense if you only ever post personal stuff, but is everything always so deeply personal?

And if you have posted something entirely friends only, where are you going to get new lj-friends from? Surely if it's someone you don't actually know, you're going to want to read a bit before you 'add' them? If it's one post alone? Unless it's someone I know or a recommendation, I just go away again.

But that list of 'requirements'? Including 'don't add me first', despite posting entirely friends only? What we have there is an example of "I don't read the FAQ or indeed think for myself". Now, probably because of this silly list, someone is setting up spammy joke acconts and friending her with them. So, to respond to this, she's suggested LJ change its structure as a "security risk". Newsflash! Someone lj-friending you doesn't affect you in any way.

Since I am an intelligent woman, and all of my friends are equally intelligent, I prefer that only the intelligent add me.

Right. We hold these things to be self evident. Merely stating this in this way invalidates the claim, n'est ce pas?

Ah well. People. Not always clever.

For those out there reading this that are entirely friends only, is there a reason why? If you write a film review, or a quick link/discuss on a news story, why f-lock it? I favour the mixture approach myself, it makes more sense to me.

Comments

[itchyfidget.livejournal.com]

LJ friending drama - OMG.

Anyway. I'm mostly friends-only, and this is principally because I don't wish to be identified by any of my students. I do post the odd meaningless thing for the world to see (and occasionally it's even political), but most of the time I like to keep my stuff where my students won't find it and put two and two together. I've *never* posted about work without f-locking it, but sometimes there are other things I write about that could potentially identify me, and I want to be very careful to keep that information private.

Arguably, it wouldn't be the end of the world if a student read my LJ and realised who I was, but I believe quite strongly in keeping students at arm's length, which includes not mentioning much about my private life and not getting into politics with them (I'm just not sure it's appropriate ... they've come to learn about other things and I have a duty to make that happen and not abuse my position).

That last paragraph is probably a whole post in the making. One day :)

[matgb]

I guess my perspective on lectureres and politics is a little different; my degree was politics, the idea that they didn't have opinions was simply daft.

I'm beginning to understand the different reasons now, this whole discussion (with 40+ comments, that's a lot for me) has brought out a lot of ideas that I hadn't even considered, which was, after all, the point.

I guess, at some point, that I'll need to be a bit more discrete about my private life, etc. Some day. Until then, I'll be mostly public I think. Mostly.