Some people view it as a great big room where anyone can hear you, so you watch what you say and don't do anything you wouldn't mind a million people seeing. I personally view it more like a fairground with tents. You can do things inside it you might not as easily do without fabric walls for fear of embarrassment/offense/etc: get naked, badmouth everyone, have a freak show. But for all that, anyone can wander in, and you shouldn't be surprised when they do. And some view it as a neighborhood with locked houses you have to knock on to go in and get invited to.
Yep, I think you are absolutely right and we all tend to have a model in our heads but it is easy to forget other people have a different model. I know I am always blinking with surprise when someone asks if I mind them reading or if they can link to a post - I'm always thinking that I know how to manage my security settings and if I wanted to control what they did with the post in a different way I would have changed the security accordingly. (Of course some people genuinely don't have a clue about LJ features, so that is a whole other kettle of fish.)
The whole internet can choose to respond. But dude, I wasn't talking to the internets, I was talking to peasant, so the fact that the whole internet decided to find out what I was saying seems to me like the internets was just lookin' fer trouble.
I understand where you are coming from with this. LJ gives us this strange situation of having conversations that are nominally with just one person yet hundreds of other people can be reading. I guess I've just had to learn the hard way that even deep in a folded thread there will be other folk watching.
And I certainly don't subscribe to the idea that it was their 'fault' and looking for trouble if they find something they don't like - I am responsible for what I say and for allowing for who might be able to read it, so I'm not going to start pleading that they shouldn't have come looking. And I expect other people to accept the same responsibility. But I agree that if someone is being nasty in public then that doesn't have to mean they are being provocative - my point was just that it tends to come across that way because my default is to assume that other people have remembered they are in public. But maybe that's just because I am very security conscious on the net. I can't imagine responding to a thread and not knowing at the forefront of my mind what the security was.
My point was I don't understand how people find out they're being talked about
I think you are making the mistake of assuming everyone will always find out all the time, which obviously doesn't happen. There must be plenty of wanks avoided simply because the potential other side remained sweetly oblivious. So in every case where the other side does find out there will always be an element of chance. You see something on your flist that seems interesting and follow it across. You talk about it with your mates and they mention other things that might be relevant. You do a little digging around. And so on. We are all so closely interlinked in fandom that nothing is ever very far away. And of course if you suspect that what is being said is specifically about you or a friend of yours then you have a very good motive for digging harder, and even more so if it is defamatory. That's just basic human nature.
no subject
Yep, I think you are absolutely right and we all tend to have a model in our heads but it is easy to forget other people have a different model. I know I am always blinking with surprise when someone asks if I mind them reading or if they can link to a post - I'm always thinking that I know how to manage my security settings and if I wanted to control what they did with the post in a different way I would have changed the security accordingly. (Of course some people genuinely don't have a clue about LJ features, so that is a whole other kettle of fish.)
I understand where you are coming from with this. LJ gives us this strange situation of having conversations that are nominally with just one person yet hundreds of other people can be reading. I guess I've just had to learn the hard way that even deep in a folded thread there will be other folk watching.
And I certainly don't subscribe to the idea that it was their 'fault' and looking for trouble if they find something they don't like - I am responsible for what I say and for allowing for who might be able to read it, so I'm not going to start pleading that they shouldn't have come looking. And I expect other people to accept the same responsibility. But I agree that if someone is being nasty in public then that doesn't have to mean they are being provocative - my point was just that it tends to come across that way because my default is to assume that other people have remembered they are in public. But maybe that's just because I am very security conscious on the net. I can't imagine responding to a thread and not knowing at the forefront of my mind what the security was.
I think you are making the mistake of assuming everyone will always find out all the time, which obviously doesn't happen. There must be plenty of wanks avoided simply because the potential other side remained sweetly oblivious. So in every case where the other side does find out there will always be an element of chance. You see something on your flist that seems interesting and follow it across. You talk about it with your mates and they mention other things that might be relevant. You do a little digging around. And so on. We are all so closely interlinked in fandom that nothing is ever very far away. And of course if you suspect that what is being said is specifically about you or a friend of yours then you have a very good motive for digging harder, and even more so if it is defamatory. That's just basic human nature.