Journal etiquette-help me out here

[ladyapple27]

I haven't been on LJ very long, and I've met some great people. The problem is that I often check out someones profile and am surprised to find out how strongly they discourage contact. (Believe me, I have no intention of bothering them after I read something like that.) Are there really that many people on LJ who lurk around harassing people? If there are, give me a friendly warning. I need to know how to protect myself.

What I'm wondering is, if you do not possess some degree of openness, how do you meet people?

After looking around a bit,I'm assuming that a private message is the best way to inquire about friending someone.

If I have committed any journal no-nos, then let me know. As I've said, I'm new to this and don't know the ropes.

Thanks to all of the wonderful people that have friended me. I didn't know that I was going to have this much fun.

Comments

[treehugrsgirl.livejournal.com]

There are those like exes that want to know what certain people are up to and can use their blogs against them. Plus sometimes people don't want their Real Life to merge with their internet life, so they keep things private.

Private message or if you see them in a group you belong to and want to friend them, reply in message and they should respond!!

[ladyapple27.livejournal.com]

Exes using someone's blog against them-that's cold.

As I just told someone else, I'm pretty much the same in Real Life and online. I can see why some people want to separate their RL lives from their LJ ones though.

[coba1t-blue.livejournal.com]

To be honest, anyone who doesn't want strangers to read their stuff, should post it as "friends only"- like mine. Because I'm a teacher, I post very few things in the public forum. I learned my lesson the hard way when I posted a pic of me, and two female teachers I used to work with at a pool party at coach's house. We were all holding drinks, and you'd have thought, I'd gone out and shot a litter of puppies.

[ladyapple27.livejournal.com]

LOL-where can I find that pic? You know that something like that can cause the collapse of Western Civilization!

Yeah, I understand your reasons for not having a public blog. In your profession, you have to protect yourself. I'm just a farmer; nobody pays any attention to us.

You've known me for years. As Pop-Eye says "I yam what I yam." Despite my appreciation for privacy, there's not that much difference between my public and private personnas. This is me-take it or leave it. I'm not dishonest enough to pretend to be something I'm not.

[coba1t-blue.livejournal.com]

That's why I put that disclaimer on my profile. Teke more leave me, but don't try ot make me something I'm not.

[ladyapple27.livejournal.com]

Only a fool would try to make you something that you're not.

[rhodielady-47.livejournal.com]

I'm still in the dark about some aspects of Live Journal etiquette myself so I try to be as polite as possible to everyone I meet.
I have encountered several nasty trolls on LJ and once even in the Gardening community. There are two of those trolls I'm still not sure why they attacked.
There was one community I tried to become a part of that soon sent me a chilly get lost message. Turned out that their community was composed of these characters they'd created and they'd all given their characters journals. (I hope I am remembering this correctly.) Unfortunately, they didn't bother to inform anybody about all this and I blundered into the middle of it all. I never posted on that community again!
There are other communities that state up front that they are by invitation only--no others may post there.

Meeting people and making friends on LJ is still largely a trial-and-error process for me. Most of the people I now correspond with I met through the Gardening Community. Some people like my posts and some don't. Those people who respond to my posts often are the ones I often ask to friend me and me them. I have had one or two folks turn me down. But I'm enjoying being friends with the rest of them AND YOU.
Hope this helps.
:)

[ladyapple27.livejournal.com]

Yes, that helped.

I think that I may have encountered the gardening community troll that you mentioned. It wouldn't be a teacher by profession who hates a certain ethnic majority would it?
Corrosive is an understatement.

[rhodielady-47.livejournal.com]

I don't know whether either of my gardening trolls was a teacher or not---hummmm. Might be worth it to look those old comments up to see if yours and mine were one and the same.
One troll got upset because I didn't like squirrels (I think that one rocked the entire Gardening Community) and the other didn't seem to understand that I "understood" the odds on planting apple seeds and getting an okay tree but was still wanting to plant them anyway.
I didn't mean to cause trouble, but I truly never thought anyone would favor a disease-bearing rodent over their expensive garden plants OR not be willing to gamble on planting apple seeds.
:)

[ladyapple27.livejournal.com]

My neighbors would shoot the squirrels and eat them.

My troll was accusing innocent people of being rascist. She sounded like the real rascist. Never thought I'd meet one on the gardening blog!

[rhodielady-47.livejournal.com]

Nice neighbors you have! I did have a pair of red-shouldered hawks who nested behind our house last year. They did a fairly nice job of keeping the rabbits thinned out. Unfortunately it takes cars and trucks to thin out the deer!
I never would have thought I'd meet a troll in gardening either.
:{

[ladyapple27.livejournal.com]

Actually, the neighbors are quite civilized; they never kill anything that they don't intend to eat.

[rhodielady-47.livejournal.com]

They are excellent hunters to be able to catch squirrels.
;)

[emike2k3.livejournal.com]

I mainly keep my journal "Friends Only" to keep it out of the Google Cache and the eyes of my employer as I do occasionally rant about work. If I notice someone has friended me without a message first then I will read through their own LJ and decide on whether or not to return the favor. There are some who just add people so they have larger friends lists. A couple of years ago some local 15 year old girl friended me and I have never returned the favor as it kind of freaked me out.

[ladyapple27.livejournal.com]

Thank goodness for you-I never even thought of the google cache!

By the way, loved the "Highlander" trailer! Thanks so much. I really loved that show.

[eqfe.livejournal.com]

Folks use LJ for a variety of reasons, some even on the advice of their mental health professional. Others like to limit their LJ flist to just RL friends, or a very small group of people. Others hold "friending" parties to make more friends. Others have flists in the 100s I've even seen some in the 1000s. Its a personal decision.
You're no different than a lot of us. If you have a positive interaction with someone in a comm or on a friends LJ you check out the person's profile, in part to see if it make sense adding them to your flist. I think its healthy that the folks who want to limit their lj are honest about that in their profile.
Many people use friends filters to decide what to read, and who gets to read their posts. I'm fairly binary its usually either all friends or everyone for me.
When you're around a little longer, you'll experience the fcut. This is where folks will prune back their flist, usually dropping people they don't interact with. Its hysterical how emotional this gets.

[ladyapple27.livejournal.com]

It's true that it's a goods thing for people who want to limit their LJ to be honest about it, but I was surprised by how hysterical some people are about it. A simple, straight forward statement will suffice. Then again, there are some pests who just don't get it unless you beat them over the head...

I've already gotten hints about how emotional the fcuts are. I don't think that I'd take it too personally; nobody can read everything online. One reason that I'd prefer a peep at someone's journal or read replies to a post before friending someone is to avoid cuts later.

Everybody's looking for something different. For my friends list, I want quality, not quanity. Anyhow, if you have 100s on your list, how can you possibly remember anything about the individual? People matter to me as individuals.

Speaking of quality, I really enjoy knowing you. What luck!

[eqfe.livejournal.com]

Back atch. Funny I was looking at my flist the other day and trying to remember how I initially met everyone. I think it just kinda grew organically.

[speaks.livejournal.com]

I'm fairly cavalier about friending people that seem interesting to me. It doesn't really cost them much and if they don't want strangers reading their journal they can always post friends-only and not friend me back.

There used to be a really cool application where you could search LJ for people that shared your interests. It would come up with like the 20 people in LJ most like you. Unfortunately as livejournal has grown, that feature was disabled.

You can still find friends by interests if you click on the interests, but you cant find people that share multiple interests with you at the same search.

Most of my recent friendings have been friends of friends who said something that I saw as interesting.

[ladyapple27.livejournal.com]

I would've loved that search application!

Yeah, I've been friending people who say something interesting on a friend's journal. That's how I found you, and I'm glad that I did!

[scoobiedoggie.livejournal.com]

Did ya read my profile?? LOL

Not long after I joined LJ, my best friend and I had problems with people who we knew in real life (from where we grew up). Since I am no longer in Indiana where they are they decided to screw with me on here.
I had these two people who would follow me around to whatever community I joined just to harass me. It was like being stalked and it really was quite strange and aggravating. I got thrown out of a community because of the stupidity they were doing. I even tried moving to myspace and they came there too.
It was disturbing.

[ladyapple27.livejournal.com]

LOL-yes, and it didn't deter me one bit. Loved the illustration and was charmed by your sense of humor.

Actually, your statements about strnagers friending you were MUCH milder than others that I've read. No humor in these! I understand caution and the need for privacy, but some of these people sound like the unibomber or something! Scary! Guess that they had some bad experiences.

[nostalgiafreak.livejournal.com]

I'll tell you something I didn't feel alright telling you before. At first I thought your LJ was merely one of those spam profiles that often pop up on social networking websites. I almost didn't add you as I thought I had seen a new LJ low.

[ladyapple27.livejournal.com]

I really need to work on my profile. No wonder you thought it was spam-it doesn't say anything.