My friends list

[submarine_bells]

I just performed one of my periodic friends list cleanups. And it occurred to me that it might be a good idea to tell folk upfront what my attitudes and preferences regarding my friends list are, rather than leaving them to guess

Comments

[mittelbar]

How very sensible you are.

I.e., AOL.

[mouseman]

It seems many people get to a point where they feel a need to explain their rationale for friending. I think this results from a couple of things:

1. The list is called "friends", so there is a lot of baggage around that term. So much so that their is an entire etiquette meme about it, with its own set of rules (which probably differ from person to person).

2. A single list is used for multiple purposes. These purposes include personal privacy (i.e. authorizing other people to read particular posts) and a primary mechanism of filtering.

For me, I'm happy to have the set of people I read most often be a subset of the people I'm willing to have read protected posts. This is not the case for everyone.

Given that there are limitations, and that people's exact preferences don't map onto those preferences, I don't for the most part worry too much one way or the other when I'm not friended.

[submarine_bells]

I guess it would be reasonable to infer from the fact that you replied to this post that you are still reading my LJ. (Hi there!) If so, do you have a preference re whether or not you see my friends-only posts? I'm easy either way - I unfriended you basically coz you seem to have pretty much dropped off the planet as far as staying in contact goes, and it seemed rather pointless keeping you "friended" under the circumstances. But if you do want to see my friends-only posts, that's just fine too.

[numbat]

Any questions?

Yes. Why is it so?

As for the friends list I've changed my mind about how I'm using it enough times that I no longer try and explain to myself what I'm trying to do. Nobody as yet has ever asked me why they aren't on my list but if that day ever comes I think I'll just tell them there was a black wind blowing and it couldn't be helped.

[elynne]

Meep! :)