Signs you might not be from LJ originally (some of LJ's rules, both social and not-so-social)

[azurelunatic]

• People in LJ tend to cluster into the same sorts of social groups that people face-to-face do, with the same kind of evolved social standards.

Comments

[malnpudl]

I wish this had existed back when I first got my LJ.

Bookmarked. Thanks very much.

[azurelunatic]

You're welcome. I'm glad you've found it useful.

[destina]

When you add someone as a friend, it's generally polite to inform them

Hm. I've been on LJ for going on seven years, and I've never done this unless I wanted to be added to a locked journal and the owner of the LJ required a comment for it. Most people don't, in my experience; this is a recent phenomenon. And I don't tell people when I cut them from my reading list, either, because that's just asking for drama where there is otherwise none. Aside from those two points, which I don't think are consensus etiquette, this is a fabulously useful guide for newbies. Thank you for writing it.

[percysowner]

Thanks for saying this. I rarely bother to inform people I am friending them and I just did a quick purge of my friends list without contacting people. I feel a little less guilty now.

[azurelunatic]

Yeah, this is one that really varies, especially under individual circumstances.

My rule of thumb, I guess --

If I'm going to be reading only, or reading and taking part in community-style discussions in someone's journal (reading primarily for content, interacting for content) I don't generally bother, other than a "Hi, I'm here from ____" for their feedback-tracking purposes.

If I don't know them from anywhere, but stumbled upon them and want to get to know them on a personal level, and interact as friends, I tend to introduce myself, because I see it as a little weird to just show up and start interacting as a personal friend without at least a "Hi, we share interests and you looked nifty!" to start things off. I've been a little creeped out more than once when someone to whom I was not introduced in any fashion started acting with too much familiarity toward me

[rydra_wong]

If I don't know them from anywhere, but stumbled upon them and want to get to know them on a personal level, and interact as friends, I tend to introduce myself, because I see it as a little weird to just show up and start interacting as a personal friend without at least a "Hi, we share interests and you looked nifty!" to start things off.

See, I tend to do this when I show up in someone's LJ for the first time (here via synecdochic's link, btw *she says, demonstrating*), if we haven't already crossed paths before. But if I've interacted with someone a bit via comments in their LJ or mine, I tend to assume there's no need to announce if I friend them, and it can feel a bit like I'm demanding mutual friending, which I'm not.

And I wouldn't normally announce when defriending -- except in the instance you cite, where it's someone with whom I have a RL friendship I'd like to maintain.

[moniqueleigh]

*applause*
I'm linking this in my user-info for the newbies that occasionally find me. If you'd rather I didn't, please let me know (& I'll remove it as soon as I'm back at the 'puter). :)

[azurelunatic]

That's perfectly fine with me. These posts are resources.

[loriel_eris]

Here via synecdochic

*gratuitous love for this post*

I think I want to print and frame this. *loves*

Intrusive text formatting is frowned on.

This section is not a suggestion. It should be one of the Ten Commandments (or something). It should possibly even be on LJ's front page and have a page all by itself that is displayed to every new user as they register. Yes, I feel that strongly...

[azurelunatic]

And just the other day, I wound up troubleshooting a problem where someone's journal entries never showed up on someone else's friends list... because they were formatted black, on a black background.

[azurelunatic]

Thank you!