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I feel the need yet again to explain my reasons the The Mass Defriending.
I really, really hate the whole friends list ettiquette policy thing. I think it's ridiculously complicated in terms of a lot of things like how people get offended, how it's seen as a mark of approval (especially when BNFs are involved), the whole accusation of 'cliques' and whatnot.
Basically, I think it's all a load of crap. the people you have on your flist are the people you are interested in reading. people have you friended because they're interested in what you have to say.
so people have asked me why i friended all those people in the first place if i *don't* fill the above criteria? basically, i didn't want someone in RL to read my lj. the solution to that was to friends lock everything. but i knew there were people who were still interested in what i had to say, even if i didn't know them/weren't interested in their interests. so if they friended me (ie. they wanted to read my lj), i friended them back (so they could read my lj).
so why the change? well, back when i was mostly-public, i still had friends locked entries in which i talked about non-fandom stuff, which i was happy with. but when i was just friending people automatically back, i didn't make much of an effort to 'lock away' that personal stuff from the hundreds of people i still didn't know who were reading.
and liek, a bunch of those people might have felt that they got to know me, but essentially (and this isn't entirely related to comments) i didn't know them. and that's just... weird. i felt uncomfortable. and i felt deceptive. most people i would add automatically and filter out of my read list, i just didn't have the time or energy to get to know new people who i had no prior experience with.
so the way i pared it down so dramatically essentially removed everyone that i don't know relatively personally, and communicate with relatively regularly. that was the basis it was done on. NOT on "i like this person" and "this person is interesting". the people left are the people i Know, with a capital Kn.
like, i would feel perfectly comfortable sitting around with a group of my friends in RL and bitching about work/school/whatever, but honestly - would you feel comfortable standing up in front of 400 people whose faces you might not even recognise (whether they were there voluntarily or not) and speak about personal stuff like how you're annoyed at your boss or how you have terrible cramps or something?
anyway. i want to stop justifying myself. basically, it's gotten to the stage where the people i have remaining are people i can manage on my flist. as cruel as it may sound, i just don't have the time to get to know new people, and doubt i'll be adding anyone i don't already know to the flist in future.
I'm sick of being governed by the stupid faux-rules around flists, so i'm going to follow my own rules regarding them now. personally, i think the lj world would be a better place if more people had this kind of attitude, but i'm not going to modify my behaviour anymore to suit the dominant (ridiculous) ideas in this area. if you don't like it, that's not my problem. my prerogative is to deal with my own interests, which is what i'm doing.
i'm not going to discuss this again.
I really, really hate the whole friends list ettiquette policy thing. I think it's ridiculously complicated in terms of a lot of things like how people get offended, how it's seen as a mark of approval (especially when BNFs are involved), the whole accusation of 'cliques' and whatnot.
Basically, I think it's all a load of crap. the people you have on your flist are the people you are interested in reading. people have you friended because they're interested in what you have to say.
so people have asked me why i friended all those people in the first place if i *don't* fill the above criteria? basically, i didn't want someone in RL to read my lj. the solution to that was to friends lock everything. but i knew there were people who were still interested in what i had to say, even if i didn't know them/weren't interested in their interests. so if they friended me (ie. they wanted to read my lj), i friended them back (so they could read my lj).
so why the change? well, back when i was mostly-public, i still had friends locked entries in which i talked about non-fandom stuff, which i was happy with. but when i was just friending people automatically back, i didn't make much of an effort to 'lock away' that personal stuff from the hundreds of people i still didn't know who were reading.
and liek, a bunch of those people might have felt that they got to know me, but essentially (and this isn't entirely related to comments) i didn't know them. and that's just... weird. i felt uncomfortable. and i felt deceptive. most people i would add automatically and filter out of my read list, i just didn't have the time or energy to get to know new people who i had no prior experience with.
so the way i pared it down so dramatically essentially removed everyone that i don't know relatively personally, and communicate with relatively regularly. that was the basis it was done on. NOT on "i like this person" and "this person is interesting". the people left are the people i Know, with a capital Kn.
like, i would feel perfectly comfortable sitting around with a group of my friends in RL and bitching about work/school/whatever, but honestly - would you feel comfortable standing up in front of 400 people whose faces you might not even recognise (whether they were there voluntarily or not) and speak about personal stuff like how you're annoyed at your boss or how you have terrible cramps or something?
anyway. i want to stop justifying myself. basically, it's gotten to the stage where the people i have remaining are people i can manage on my flist. as cruel as it may sound, i just don't have the time to get to know new people, and doubt i'll be adding anyone i don't already know to the flist in future.
I'm sick of being governed by the stupid faux-rules around flists, so i'm going to follow my own rules regarding them now. personally, i think the lj world would be a better place if more people had this kind of attitude, but i'm not going to modify my behaviour anymore to suit the dominant (ridiculous) ideas in this area. if you don't like it, that's not my problem. my prerogative is to deal with my own interests, which is what i'm doing.
i'm not going to discuss this again.