lollardfish | Livejournal curmudgeon.

But can I try and sell you Twitter?

Oooo. Now that's a good idea.

B

It is somewhat surprising that LJ doesn't let users decide which filters they're on. You'd think that the "publisher" could set the filters, and the "subscriber" could set which ones they wish to be on. The "publisher" could then approve or not as needed.

LJ could be better designed, I suppose.

(My initial response to this was that I wanted to add a twitter and commercial filter and add you, just so I could remove you and reply with "OK, done". After a few seconds reflection, I decided that it would be too much work.)

yes LJ is build on this BML - a varietn of HTML - it's very wierd stuff. I had some friends running aversion for awhile, as it's open-source -but it was such a pain they changed formats. I think they make it difficult on purpose to avoid immitators using the open-source status to clone LJ.

the thing about filters set by users: like you stated: if there's not segmentation inthe "posters" blog -then LJ is going to play dumb & treat all the content as equal. They dont' want to have to comb/crawl millions of users for particular data types, as they would make mistakes.

but I think LJ does block certain kinds of programs, javascript :things that can interact w/the viewers computer-they just block that on code/script level prohibitting it's use outright (whether for good or bad intent).

I don't think most people would like others to know what filters they have. I'd like to hear more opinions on this.

K.

(And we hijack the thread for our own nefarious purposes.)

It seems to me that the vast majority of people who use LJ enough to have filters also have their interests defined. This indicates, to me, a general comfort level with the information disclosure inherent with sharing the existence of the filters.

I can, however, see a problem where user A defines filters for users B and C. Along comes user D, which is a friend but not one as close as B and C. However, D doesn't know that A considers D to be a lesser quality of friend, and therefore applies to the filter. In this instance, D would know that A did not approve the filter view request... which could cause discomfort. However, it is unlikely that D would know that B and C were approved, so I don't think it would be socially damaging.

However, I suspect that the code for such filtering would be cleaner than the current model and considerably more flexible. This should result in a more enjoyable LJ experience for everyone, so I'd personally be willing the accept the possibility for social-stress-via-exclusion, if it allowed me to more fully customize the information to which I am subjected.

I am well aware that I may be in the minority (I often am).

Hijack away!

right - there are potential for social awkwardness.
on myspace there's like a 'block user' from seeing your page - which blocks specific people, but I don't know that people use that - they might? I see much more often "friends only" filters, plus then people either defriend you &/or friends lock their entire page creating like you said "layers for friends" but with LJ one can use the filters for topics - which makes sense as a blogging system w/a friends page that reads like a newspaper - is the newspaper segmented by "sports" "entertainment" "news" etc? nope - users can create their own groups but that puts the effort on the writer : plus, it means it has to be a locked post,right? I don't know of any way to filter public posts? (like my family reads my public posts for info/pics - if I filtered them, my interested family couldn't see because they lack LJ accounts- right?)

Oh- and I've known people who just create whole new LJ accounts so they can segment writing types - but still have public searchable posts.

My two cents coming up! I don't want people to be able to opt in to a filter by, let's say, browsing the filters you have set up. I do like the option of opting out of a filter though.

The thing is I'm pretty sure you just tell someone "Hey I want out." But that requires telling people specifically "Get me off this list please." There is no way to do it with out telling them outright currently.

If I wanted people to know what they were being excluded from I would post openly and address it to a list.

It requires tell people specifically you want out, and then said people actually going in and adjusting their filter. I don't consume LJ in volume enough that I can't scroll past things I don't care about, but I do find it very helpful people switch icons for different types of content.

You have every right to tell people to take you off filters. But I think having a way for people to view a list of filters and sign up goes against the entire idea. If I wanted people to know I would have put them on the list. The method currently in use with secrecy saves face.:)

Agreed. Of course it goes the other way too - setting up groups to view other journals at your convenience (in my case one journal is particularly photo-heavy, so I have it on a separate group just so I can view it at my own convenience).

This doesn't help our host of course, since I'm sure the journals in question are a mix of stuff he wants to see and stuff he could do without.

Right. And I'm fairly stubborn about not setting up a reading list. I'll just defriend and damn the social awkwardness!

I've never got any ads/spam through live journal, is that what you are talking about?

Or I have a "Plus Account" account that displays ads on my blog in return for some extra features is that what you mean? I also use the Adblocker extension with my Foxfire browser so I don't actually see any of the ads myself.

No. I'm discussing people posting long posts routinely involving their commercial enterprises. These are friends selling things I am not going to buy at events to which I am not invited and which I could not attend even if I wanted to. I'd just rather not see the posts.

Hm. Sounds like cut tags could be the simplest for the folks that desire to do something like this. At least thats my off the top of my head thought.

If they're posting and trying to make a sale, basic marketing would preclude the use of a cut tag. It's irritating, but it has been proven numerous times that irritating practices make people buy.

Yeah, you're right. Maybe that's my politeness getting in the way of marketing... :)

And that, right there, is a big reason why I'm good at making companies run well, but would be utterly useless at actually running my own.

Yes. Cut tags would be fine. My LJ-curmudgeon-ness used to bug people about that. :)

Did I tell you we're selling Amyway products? ;-)

Hey, *I* would buy... just as long as no one tries to get me to sell. That's always the rub with Amway. I want the products, but I don't wanna sell it!! ;-)

Amway's a family joke. My wife used to be a stock broker and has nasty things to say about some multi-level marketing schemes. ;-)

Right. I knew you weren't serious and I figured it was a joke... just had to toss in my own WAH about MLM.

I might periodically talk about my artsy stuff, that I might someday actually try again to sell (I used to be moderately successful, but it takes time, money and good health to do so regularly) and that might involve me giving a link to my Etsy site. I don't always filter things like that, but I'd probably cut tag stuff... is that the kind of thing you're talking about? Or much more overt stuff than that?

Nope. :) And cut-tags always remove any problems from my end. I'm just a curmudgeon. If you were talking about the process of artistic creation, I'd be keen to read it.

Probably 99 percent would be "this is the type of material I used, here was my vision, and here's what I ended up with, does anyone have any comments, etc. and so on" sorts of things, and maybe a link to Etsy if I put it up for sale. That part would be low-key. Most likely I'll just link to my crafty/artsy blog and not hash stuff out in LJ.

I hate to turn anyone off in my LJ, and I usually do employ a lot of opt-in (and a few opt-out) filters)... and liberal cut tags. If you ever catch me not cut-tagging enough, feel free to bug me about it.

Sure! I think discussing the creative process is a good thing.

I've never understood how to do cut-tags until I looked it up recently so I've tried to use links to graphics unless it's a smaller pic.

I've always been annoyed with people on Myspace and similar places who post "comments" or greetings that include huge graphics that screw up the layout of the page.

Sorry, did you want the veg-o-matic or not?

Yeesh.

If you can picture it, imagine me as Daffy Duck whooping as I run away. That's me. In the duck suit. Whooping. Yup.

Livejournal curmudgeon.

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