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I've been watching some impressive forms of LJ drama go down over the last two days. I've more or less stayed out of it on LJ. More fundamentally than anything else, it's about two people who have strong personalities (or not having met them, it could be strong virtual personalities - but I doubt it) who are mutually opposed, and the rest of it is just people lining up along the magnetic personality lines of force.
However, I'd like to take this post in a different direction, and wonder why these dramas seem more extreme, stormier, on LJ than on, say, a mailing list or an irc channel.
There are multiple factors involved, and I'm going to mention several of them before getting metaphysical with one of them. First up, LJ has no controlling element, no list-owner or admin. Each individual can control, to some degree, who or what s/he sees, and so there's no need for an admin to be constantly on-duty. This is also true of some other virtual environments, such as LambdaMOO, but they're more immersive and less populated.
Second, that previously mentioned control is somewhat illusory - unless you think very carefully about what you're doing, you will end up seeing things you might not want to see, or showing other people things you don't want them to see.
Third, and this is the one that looks trivial, and isn't: LJ uses the word "friend" to signify someone you want to read, and someone you will normally allow to read your more private posts. That "and" there can't be emphasised enough - because if you think about it for a minute, these two categories are not always the same.
I've dealt with this by simply never posting friends-only posts - every single one of my posts is out in the open, and anyone can respond to them, anonymous or not.
Further: Words are magic. It's a tenet of most forms of paganism that will is magic, and words are just a focus, but this seems not to be the case. Words make huge differences. And the word that the LJ admins have chosen to use here is "friend" (possibly derived from the friend toggle on talker lists - or some common root). If they'd chosen to use the words "permit" and "follow" for the two functions of the friends list, people would feel very different about it. If they'd used just "list", or "track", things would be different again.
I'm not suggesting that this be changed, as such. But it makes a difference, and for those of you who do a lot of livejournalling, it's good to see that difference.
However, I'd like to take this post in a different direction, and wonder why these dramas seem more extreme, stormier, on LJ than on, say, a mailing list or an irc channel.
There are multiple factors involved, and I'm going to mention several of them before getting metaphysical with one of them. First up, LJ has no controlling element, no list-owner or admin. Each individual can control, to some degree, who or what s/he sees, and so there's no need for an admin to be constantly on-duty. This is also true of some other virtual environments, such as LambdaMOO, but they're more immersive and less populated.
Second, that previously mentioned control is somewhat illusory - unless you think very carefully about what you're doing, you will end up seeing things you might not want to see, or showing other people things you don't want them to see.
Third, and this is the one that looks trivial, and isn't: LJ uses the word "friend" to signify someone you want to read, and someone you will normally allow to read your more private posts. That "and" there can't be emphasised enough - because if you think about it for a minute, these two categories are not always the same.
I've dealt with this by simply never posting friends-only posts - every single one of my posts is out in the open, and anyone can respond to them, anonymous or not.
Further: Words are magic. It's a tenet of most forms of paganism that will is magic, and words are just a focus, but this seems not to be the case. Words make huge differences. And the word that the LJ admins have chosen to use here is "friend" (possibly derived from the friend toggle on talker lists - or some common root). If they'd chosen to use the words "permit" and "follow" for the two functions of the friends list, people would feel very different about it. If they'd used just "list", or "track", things would be different again.
I'm not suggesting that this be changed, as such. But it makes a difference, and for those of you who do a lot of livejournalling, it's good to see that difference.
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no subject
There are plently of people on my 'friends' list who, well, aren't really. They're aquaintences, people I've met in real life and who I like and am interested in, but I don't know anywhere near well enough to call 'friend'.
But 'friend' is such an emotionally loaded word. It's not just a label. I think you're right that if they'd used a less emotional word, people would react differently to it. As it is, it's kinda nerve-wracking to add someone new (who hasn't added you), which is silly really, and often an absolute drama when you remove someone.
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But I'm like you. I keep my posts open to all ... if I'm not willing for the world to know then I don't post. Which means some things in my life don't get put out there at all and other things I put out there I might not in a face to face circle of friends, because I know the feedback may be useful and I can step back from it a bit when it's in type, even if from friends who know me in the face to face world. Does that make sense? (I'm still on my first cup of coffee today and am sick. heh)
Anyway ... thanks for your post. I think it's an important point for a lot of people on LJ to understand. *smiles*
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no subject
In the long run, all of this will be understood the same way. We all know how phones work, now, most of us having grown up with them, or with at least the concept of them (We didn't have one for a long time when I was a kid). But until everyone has grown up with the 'net, with message boards and mailing lists, and instant messengers, and so on and so on, people will understand them in different ways. Even now, my understanding differs from yours, and yours from someone elses. I think.
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Another part of the problem is that a *lot* of people seem to see this as their 'diary', and write in it accordingly - they open themselves up more than they do on mailing lists, because they think that having 100 or 200 'friends' is different and more intimate than haveing 200 lurkers on a mailing list. Maybe the language thing again - calling it a 'Journal' encourages that. And then they get hurt by unexpected responses.
I have to say, I don't like LJ. I'm here because this is where most of my online friends' conversations are happening. I may give up posting entirely though. There is too much conflict for too little reason, and it is actually very hard to have a good conversation through this medium...
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I think that on LJ, people assume they can and should talk about *everything*, because it's their journal - whereas on mailing lists, people go there to talk about a specific range of subjects (even on TH), and there's an understanding that some things, especially interpersonal conflicts, are offtopic and should be dealt with off list.
In addition, maybe LJ encourages people to play to the audience more? Because they have this named group of 'friends' who they can get reactions from?
Certainly, it's still down to the people involved to choose how they use LJ. But I think for some personality types, especially the more extrovert and perhaps the more manipulative as well, it makes conflict more likely and more public.
Oh, and the other thing - people seem to have a lot of real-life friends on LJ, more so than on mailing lists I've seen. So interpersonal things from non-net life spill over, plus there's more chance to say "why do you say X happened? It wasn't X, it was Y"...
And, it may all be just the way I'm seeing it...
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I only lock to "friends-only" one kind of post, the ones about housemate trauma, because Cein & I made that agreement. He reads my journal, I read his, but we aren't on each other's "friends" list so that we can vent about the house w/o the other one getting the brunt of it. Of course, now that he's not talking to me it would be nice to be able to hack into his journal so I know what he's thinking/planning, but I'm not doing that.
From:
Louis MacNeice
Incorrigibly plural.
ABSOLUTELY! I first found that poem when I read Maureen Duffy's awesome (albeit rather dark) book about lesbian club London, The Microcosm - she used that as an epigraph, which set me off on quests for MacNeice.
Anyway, hi :)
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Sadly for me the latest drama is off-LJ but about LJ. I have a couple hundred readers on LJ (or at least ppl who sign on to read) and it seems an every growing list of freaky ppl with stalkerish behavior who are reading into interactions.
So, I spent hours last night and will spend hours today changing the security levels on most of my LJ since I started it to combat that.
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IJWTS