lettered | Dynamics of LJ

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Dynamics of LJ

JB. I was going to say how much I loved lj's "save draft" thing for posts, but I retract because I lost half the post and apparently it wasn't saved.
O. speaking of lj, is there a way to mark posts on your friends page? I usually scan the list through to the last entry I read, taking note of the posts with fic, posts I want to read more thoroughly, and posts I want to reply to. Then sometime later when I feel like it I go back, but then I have to scroll so much and can't find/remember the things that were of particular interest. I'm a lazy bint who wants a system.
R. speaking of all that I don't know about lj, what's this "skip 20" or "skip 50" people sometimes mention as regards their friends pages?
G. speaking of "friends," that whole thing is distinctly odd. I mean, it's been said before, but I'll say it again. But even if the system wasn't called "friends", I think it would still have that weirdness attached to it. And I myself can't help feeling all weird about it. I fancy that the way I use the ole flist is objective; I use it as a reading list. But I'm starting to realize that the way I FEEL about it (and the way I feel about those of others) is still strangely emotional and sensitive, as *logical* as I've always tried to be about it.
E. speaking of that whole weirdness thing, what're y'all's thoughts about filtering the flist posts that you read? I know some people are way against it. I suppose others secretly do it. I personally feel like I would use them--not to completely knock anyone off and secretly not read them, but if I had a list I had trouble keeping up with, I'd probably have a filter for the people I'm most interested in, so if I'm really busy I can fly through very quickly. Then I'd have a filter for the others to zoom through periodically as well. Most of the time I'd just go through the whole list, but in really busy times it seems like the filter thing would be handy. It's not like I need it, though. I'm just wondering if there're angles of it I haven't considered. What do you do and how do you do it?
S. speaking of discussions about how you use your lj, I'm also wondering about locked posts. Some people are against using them. Some are against using them except for personal matters. Some seem to use them completely arbitrarily. Some, I guess, might use them for more...sinister reasons. And some feel the need to explain every time they flock. Anyway, I personally see nothing wrong with flocking something you're just not interested in discussing with everyone, either because you're feeling introverted or lazy, but again, I'm wondering if there're other things to consider? What do you do and how do you do it?

*

I feel the need to point out that this isn't in response to anything--people are always trimming or locking or skipping or what have you. Actually, it is in response to something. 3 things, actually.

1.

imnotacommittee informed me that there's such a thing as a rich text editor for when you post. I had no idea. Beats the shit out of typing out all that freakin' code, and made me wonder what other little treats lj has I'm too lazy to suss out.
2. I'm going to Austin tomorrow and will be gone for two days. I'm wondering what'll be up with the ole flist when I get back and how I'll ever manage.
3. Which really just made me wonder how everyone manages, and how all this crap works, and while everyone is always discussing it I'm interested in having stuff to discuss with everyone on my lj when I get back. Yay!

Look at the color of this text, yay!

P.S. I've discovered I hate the rich text thing. I've discovered that this post contains massive frippery and the title of the cut is misleading. It's much more difficult to edit such a thing when one is using this do-hickey. I throw up my hands I say, I throw up my...ouch, ceiling. And ew, throw up.

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In regards to R - If you are on your friends page, click on "previous" and then look at the link at the top of your page, you'll see that it says:

http://tkp.livejournal.com/friends?skip=10

Every time you click "previous" you will go back 10 more posts. So if I've been gone for a few days, instead of clicking "previous" multiple times, I'll manually manipulate the link, replacing the 10 with 50 or 100 or 170 or whatever finally gets me back to where I left off.

Oh, awesome! I see. I know that you can actually go change in your settings how many entries the friends page shows, but manipulating that every time according to how much I was going to be around seemed lame.

Also, when people used the phrase "skip 50" or what have you, I assume they meant they were skipping the entries themselves so they didn't have that much to look at whenever they got back from a trip or from being uber busy.

Thanks for clearing that up.

I use either Firefox's tabs or del.icio.us to mark the things I want to go back to.

My OCD doesn't allow me to filter (instead I defriend) as I'm paranoid about missing posts.

P.S. I've discovered I hate the rich text thing. Don't we all!? There is also a wonderful thing called semagic... here's the link. http://community.livejournal.com/ljwin32_sema/ MUCH better than rich text and it will let you know when your flist is updated as well if you want.

As for filters yes I use them... I have filters set up for when I am in a hurry but i do make sure I go through my WHOLE flist at least once every couple of days.

Have fun while you're away.

Also, when people used the phrase "skip 50" or what have you, I assume they meant they were skipping the entries themselves so they didn't have that much to look at whenever they got back from a trip or from being uber busy.

Yeah, I realized that I didn't explain that part very well, did I?

In the contexts that I have seen "skip N" it may or may not mean that the person is skipping reading the entries. The use of the word skip in this context is a lot like the use of friends in friends list. It is using a term LJ has to describe something. Just as people on your friends list may or may not be friends, "skip N" is about a count of posts, not necessarily skipping them in the pass over them sense.

I have seen people who have been gone for a weekend, return, figure out where they left off. If that's a skip 1000 some simply throw their hands up saying, "Skip 1000! I can't wade through it all. Lemme know if I missed anything major." Or they are simply remarking on who much traffic. If they had a "skip 1000," that means there were 1000 posts that occurred since the last time they checked their LJ, but they may fully intend to read it all (or at least skim it) and catch up.

I lock personal things. The net is too big for me to be comfortable otherwise. What's personal? That, I suppose, is arbitrary.

It is odd, the "friends" thing. I find that I have a variety of kinds of "relationships" with people on my flist and that's just fine with me.

There are some people where it's purely a reading list thing--they make icons, vids or fic that I read. Then there's some where it's like a colleague thing--we talk about meta or writing but I don't necessarily know much about their lives. Then there are people who I'm really friends with--who I talk on the phone with or have met in RL, who i exchange emails with, who know about the ups and downs of my life and all the non-fandom stuff. And then there are people somewhere in between.

I'll admit right here and now to using many, many filters both to read my flist and to post and I do this as a result of the variety of kinds of connections that I have on el jay. And when I look at people who have flists MUCH larger than mine I'm quite incredulous at the idea that they don't use filters.

One of the main things I filter my flist for is communities because I can't handle that much spam but I sometimes post on comms (links to fic, etc.) or want to be able to access them easily via my user page so I want to keep them friended. In fact, the only comms I usually have on the flist that I generally look at are the Herald, the Cortex (the Firefly version of the Herald), Metafandom, and Fanthropology. I have Writercon on there now and sometimes I'll have topicals like

wildphotos while that was happening or

seasonal_spuffy during the posting time.

I admit to getting very confused about the whole friending etiquette thing. When I first started my LJ I used to friend back everyone that friended me but I just can't do that any more and it does feel weird. I can't do it because I don't have time to read that many journals or my head will explode. And there is this kind of producer/reader imbalance that occurs I guess. i.e. I'm a producer of fannish content so some people friend me to read my fic but either have "lurker journals" or mostly just post memes or rambling about their first year at Uni (which is fine and perfectly acceptable way to use your LJ but...) And since I don't lock fic or fandom stuff, my not friending them back won't affect their ability to read that stuff. So yeah, I have a "short flist" filter and a "short short flist" filter for when I have NO time but I want to keep up with the people that I'm really close with, etc.

As for my posting filters, I do that because I don't want to spam people with things they don't want to see and as I said I have a variety of kinds of relationships with people on my flist. I have very short filters for when I'm say freaking the fuck out about personal stuff, and I also have other broader filters for when I'm being "real" but it's not really, really private. I also have various fandom specific filters but I don't use those much really so I don't know why I have them.

Sometimes I also generally flock entries such as all of my discussion of my grad school process because I don't want that stuff to show up in google searches. I also do that if I don't feel like having the post linked for whatever reason, and sometimes that's just because I'm tired and I don't feel like fielding assloads of comments from strangers.

Does all of this make me a bitch? Because it helps me keep sane and tailor my LJ use to a variety of purposes.

O. What I do is Firefox tabs. That does get cluttery, with a tab open for every post of interest, but if you don't mind clutter I find it a good organizational tool. I can open new tabs and let 'em sit for awhile if I don't feel like really reading or responding yet, and close 'em when I'm done, so I know what still needs to be gotten to and can close what's all been done gotten to! It's fab. I love Firefox.
E. Ooh. Well, I don't do it. But I can totally see doing it for manageability, weeding out super-active comms or whatever. I do think it's kinda crummy for people to use them so they don't have to read certain individuals that they don't have the balls to really defriend. Actually, I could kind of understand if you were someone who friendslocks and someone was like "friend me, pleeeeeease! i want into the inner sanctum!!!" and you made it very clear that you didn't really want to read them but that it was okay for them to read, but I don't really see that happening often. So yeah.

2. OMG! I'm like not gonna be running into you much for awhile, I guess. You go and come back, and then the end of this week it's my spring break and I'm gonna be gone for a whole week. Which is a lot more than 2 days, in the land of LJ. But then, last year I was in London, where they have ridiculously long spring breaks, and I was away for 2 weeks and managed just fine. I wasn't quite as involved then, though, so I think I'll be curious about what happens as well...

Pink text, yay! That's magical.

And good lord that was long. *head pillow*

Oh no! I mean, I got it! You explained it perfectly. I meant, that I thought before you cleared it up that skip meant skip in the pass over them sense. It was pretty confusing, because people would be talking about how they had to "skip 250" and then talk about how much they had to catch up on--I kept thinking, if you're skipping THAT MANY, it's shouldn't take too long to catch up! Obviously I was a little wrong in the head.

thanks for the explanation. Sometimes I'm still such a newbie.

You're welcome. I guess that means I've been around long enough to middler instead of a newbie. I know what skip-N is as well as how to do it. I find myself slipping into html in times I don't need to because I've gotten used to using in, particularly in reply posts. I have an opinion on the difference between bad fic and bad!fic. I want someone to come up with a way to differentiate the various AUs: AU post-this-episode-in-canon, All Human AU, AU I've-messed-with-canon-cuz-I-don't-like-XYZ, etc.

speaking of lj, is there a way to mark posts on your friends page?

I do a quick scroll, tabbing, as I go along, everything I might want to respond to shortly. Firefox is love. I have a bookmark folder for "pending" fic and meta that I don't want sitting on a tab but intend to get back to within a couple days/weeks.

I fancy that the way I use the ole flist is logical; I use it as a reading list. But I'm starting to realize that the way I FEEL about it (and the way I feel about those of others) is still strangely emotional and sensitive, as objective as I've always tried to be about it.

The endless debate. I think calling it a "friends list" does tend to promote a cosier, kinder atmosphere (not guaranteed, natch. hahah.). But though my flist is full of people I admire, there are well under twenty (RL included) with whom I feel any sort of substantial connection. And there are definitely people on there who, if they've noticed me at all, are thinking, "Who the hell is she?"

what're y'all's thoughts about filtering the flist posts that you read?

Complicated. Like every newbie, I think, I initially friended everybody back. I recently started filtering, because the numbers are creeping up, and I'm busy. It makes me feel vaguely dishonest, but, frex, what would I do about the several people I really value, but who spam like crazy? I don't want to chuck them.

I'm also wondering about locked posts

I've only locked a couple times, when I wanted to fume and ask for advice about a potentially identifiable boy. I don't post a lot of intimate airings of my mental state or daily life, period -- my laundry is not for the world to see -- but at the same time, I do love to tell the funny anecdotes about my family, and post pictures at everybody's expense. Comedy is for sharing. I want to teach in a few years, though, so I may at some point decide it prudent to lock the photos and remove all markers that, if you're paying attention over time, indicate where I am and why. A few months ago I asked, out of curiosity, what people knew or guessed about me. Nobody came back with a satellite photo or my SSN.

O.
Well, I finally just created a bookmarks folder for everything. Stuff to read leater, stuff to rec later, stuff to comment on later. Okay, and when rl gets too busy I never get around to revisit them and delete everything unseen, but normally the system works.

G.
Ah, the friends feature, neverending source of Angst. I don't know if it would be this emotionally laden if it was called diffently. It's a really unfortunate choice of word.

When I got my journal new, I was just happily friending and unfriending whatever crossed my path. Some journals, five times or so. Then I found out that's it apparently A Huge Thing. But now I'm more or less back to treating it like like a better bookmarks folder, and it's quite freeing.

I mean, I just don't want to read journals when I'm not interested in the content, it's not personal so why all the Angst. I have a handful of people who I talk to quite a bit, and I'd probably be upset if one of them unfriended, and I'd send a tear-filled email of, "Was it something I wrote?" But otherwise, nah.

E.
I don't like the thought of filtering myself, but I can understand if those with the over-100 flists are doing it. Also, I don't even know how to do a filter.

S.
Locked posts, no problem. What annoys me are locked journals. Okay, I totally get why people would lock their journals, but this "Comment if you want to be added"? I don't know if I want to read their journal if I can't read their journal. I did that just once. Commented, got added, journal had nothing of interest for me. Haven't done it since.

I never use the rich text thing, because then I forget how to do the codes. Hey, after a few years of posting on lj, I finally don't have to look up my a href's and img src's any more :). It's like when I had a digital watch... I swear, I almost de-learned reading the traditional one. I had to stare at it for a few seconds and wonder which finger was pointing where. So, no digital watches and rich text editors for me ;) (Oh, but I use the editor for colours, because I'm also lazy.)

I'm getting OGES.

O: I use Firefox to take note of things I want to read but don't have time for - I basically just open up posts in a new tab, and I have the extension so that when I shut down my computer(or if it crashes) it saves it. I wish there was a way to mark posts quickly (faster than memories, which would take forever and become a mess in my hands very quickly). Sometimes I'll use del.icio.us to mark pages, if they're fic and I shoud probably do that more often - I'd just have to be diligent about cleaning it up.

E: I don't filter because - well, I tried filtering and quickly found that even though I *meant* to go back and read, I didn't always have time. And that meant sometimes I missed important stuff. WHich, ok, if I don't have somebody friended, I miss the same stuff - but then they *know* I miss it and they can come in and tell me.

which brings me to:

S: I have a weird relationship with my flist, or potentially weird. I really adore some of the people on my friend-of list, but I can't friend everybody back and remain sane. And so I don't friends lock any of my posts because I don't want to cut the people out of my friend-of list out of any part they'd want to see - I don't have a problem with friends lock as a concept or in execution most of the time.

MEEP I AM GOING TO BE LATE!

Hee! For a minute there I was trying to figure out what operating system OCD was.

Seconding the person who gave you semagic -- it's invaluable, I don't know how I lived without it -- firefox, and del.ic.ious. The last two are godsends, and there are plenty of neat tricks you can do to combine both. Lemme know if you're having issues, if you use them, and if I can't help you, there are probably tons who can :)

Friending ... *sigh*. There's always debate over the term 'friending' because while I am and can be friends with plenty of my flist (pronounced similarly to 'flick', tm

crazydiamondsue) there are lots that I'm simply reading cause they're interesting or post good fic, whatever. There's no interaction, or if there is, it's limited to the point where we are being friendly, but we're certainly not friends. It's annoying.

Filters are really useful for some people, although I can't take it -- I'm horrible with things like that, I either read what's in front of me, or I don't read it at all -- but I know a whole lot of people who use them effectively. Particularly those who friendlock -- I think

yin_again does, if you want to chat with her about it. Locking really is arbitrary -- I'll lock things I don't want the whole world to know from me being grumpy and therefore inflicting it on only a few people, or stuff about my personal life that could get my introuble if lots of people knew about it. I know others who are more rigerous, too. It's a crap-shoot :)

This is not useful except in the way of letting you know there are other people in the same boat--but anyway, I don't understand a single one of the things you didn't understand, either. :-)

I filter like whoa, and make no secret of it. I have a fic filter, a people-I've-met-in-RL filter, an old-EQ-friends filter, and so on. I do try to look at the whole unfiltered megilla now and then, but there's just no way I can keep up with it all on a regular basis.

I've never locked a post. Frankly, if something is THAT personal, I'm not going to be posting it on the internet to begin with.

I don't use filters. don't know how to even set them up. But I'm am incredibly fast reader (well past a page a minute) and I'm a great skimmer. Fic posts in fandoms other than BtVS/AtS I normally skip. Posts that are long paragraphs and poorly formatted I tend to skip because it's just too hard to read.

I normally don't have too much trouble keeping up. My biggest problem is reading long fanifc and/or leaving fb. I don't always have the time.

I don't like rich text. I can't figure out the coding so I'd rather do it myself.

Have fun in Austin!

I have a filter, but it's only to weed the communities out so I don't have to wade through page after page of spam. My flist's not so big that it's unmanagable, and I hope to keep it that way.

I don't lock often, because I rarely talk about anything especially personal. When I do lock, it's usually because I've mentioned something that would give away my super-secret identity, and I don't like to have personal facts like my real name floating around in public view (although about half my flist knows who I am IRL). Like, when I linked to my mom's obituary I locked it because it included a lot of personal info. Mostly I just don't want people I know googling me and finding my LJ.

Have lots of fun in Austin!

Is this a secret message to tell me that you are into Joerge Luis Borges?

It's not secret, and yes, I adore Borges. And now I have to ski-daddle.

I friends lock anything that is personal. Basically, anything that gives away my age or location or any other details that I don't feel comfortable sharing with who-knows-who will be placed under a cut. Usually, the only unlocked posts in my journal are purely fandom ones.

Also, my LJ is not known to anyone in my RL. I know at least one of my RL friends uses the internet for fandomy reasons but I do not want anyone, even her, coming across my journal and knowing it is me. So anything that I think could give away to a person who knows me that

baffae is really me will be placed under a cut.

My f'list is of a perfectly manageable size so I don't use filters. I have no qualms about filters; though it seems a bit pointless to filter people out completely but yet keep them on your friends list. If you don't want to read them. just defriend them, IMO.

And what, may I ask, is the significance of Borges?

I see people have answered your "skip" question.

I use bookmarks to note fics or essays that I want to come back and read later.

I don't use filters, that would be too confusing. I try to keep my flist small, and instead just bookmark fics I'd like to read from people that aren't on my flist. If I see something that looks interesting on the

su_herald, or a rec from someone on my flist, then I bookmark it for later. Sometimes my bookmarks are longer than my flist!

I'll add my recommendation for Semagic to those you've already received.

Flocking -- I do use it primarily if I mention family matters that pertain to those outside my immediate family. My husband knows about my LJ, but my parents, brother, etc. do not. Also, I flock if I mention DI and the kids I work with in my LJ. I try not to mention any details about them even if I do flock. I don't know if anyone has mentioned this already, but if you want to be careful there is a toggle button you can switch on in your LJ info that is supposed to deter web crawlers and such from doing searches on your LJ. I've done that because I don't want Google and the like to find any info about me that way. I'm not sure how effective this is.

And oh boy, isn't that whole friending/defriending thing a can of worms? For the longest time I didn't even notice it because I never checked my User Info page. People could have been friending and defriending me in droves and it wouldn't have made one bit of difference to me. I could not figure out what all the hoo-ha was about. It wasn't until I made some fiddling change to my settings that I noticed the list and said, "Ohhhh! That's how you know!" I still wish it was much more low-key than it is.

Lots of food for thought here. I'm more of a newbie than you, and yes, that "Friend" terminology is wonky. I also feel intellectually that this word, "friend," is not what this thing is and there is nothing personal about it at all. And yet, there is some kind of weight to it that I did not invite.

I think I've only f-locked things I didn't want my husband to come across (rants about him that are better left anonymous, yeah? because we're dealing with whatever it is face-to-face, but sometimes you just need that shouting space) and things I didn't want on the greater-net, like my comic which has real names in it and stuff. And if I were to post original fic, it'd be f-locked. But other than copyright issues or stuff I know Mr. A might come across and be confused by, if I'm dumb enough to post something here, I deserve what I get.

As to rich text, you know, I hate it. I don't know why. I guess because of the editing difficulties or something, but I tried it once, and then went back to < > everything. Which is annoying but for some reason not as annoying to my weird, MS-DOS-trained computer brain.

Filters: I have a few filters I don't use unless I've been away for awhile. Friends, Comms, Fic, and Seattle. The priority is in that order. I don't have enough of a flist to bother with anything else. And I'm not sure I'd be able to; if you're on my flist, I'll feel bad about ignoring you, even if I don't comment about EVERYTHING you write.

Have fun in Austin!!

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Dynamics of LJ

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