Manners maketh man

[liv]

There's been a lot of drama in peripheral bits of my LJ circle recently. A lot of it is to do with conflicting ideas about how personal someone's LJ is, and I think this is interesting. (The drama itself isn't interesting, because drama tends not to be. And I'm not posting links to the drama that has prompted this thought, because that would just be further drama-mongering.)

The situations run like this: somebody posts something contentious. Other people take issue with the original contentious post. Whether or not they initially confront the OP, at some point the discussion gets carried over to people's own LJs. Drama ensues.

The way I see it, if I see a post I strongly disagree with, especially if it's a drive-by thing rather than someone I know personally, my most likely response would be to make a followup in my own LJ. However, I have seen several instances in the past few days of people taking serious offence at exactly this response.

Assuming one doesn't actually want to cause offence, what are the alternatives? I could post a response as a comment to the post or thread that has offended me, but it would be hard for that not to be read as an attack or flame. I might intend to attack the ideas rather than the person, but it's really hard to convey that, especially online, especially with a stranger, especially if the OP is sensitive about criticism of their ideas. And if I want to get some opinions from my friends about the issue, even worse. If even some of my friends happened to agree with me, it would look a lot like I was inviting a pile-on against the OP.

Yes, I'd be addressing the OP directly and making it easy for them to respond, which has some merits. But at the same time, it seems less than courteous to start a potentially vicious argument in someone else's journal. This seems even more the case if I want to argue with a comment posted by person B in person A's journal; then I'm potentially offending both A and B.

I could make a Friends Only post about the issue. As far as I'm concerned, that is tantamount to talking about someone behind their back; I would be pretty reluctant to go that route. While I might start out with the intention of criticizing their ideas, it's difficult to be confident that things won't get nasty. (And anyway, everybody has different standards of what counts as a personal attack.) It's unlikely that the OP would find out about my post, which is good in that they wouldn't be offended, but bad in that they would have absolutely no way of defending themselves. Conversely, while I hope my friends would be sensible enough not to invite drama, it's possible that someone might report my FO post to the person concerned, so this approach wouldn't even have the merit of not offending them.

I could make a public post about the issue, but obfuscate the person's identity and not include a link to the original post. This strikes me as a compromise which is liable to be the worst of all worlds. I wouldn't properly be able to follow up the discussion. I would likely be misrepresenting the person's argument by summarizing it instead of letting their post speak for itself. And they would still be unlikely to be able to find the post or defend themselves, whereas if they did happen to stumble on it, they might recognize their post and feel attacked anyway. Not mentioning their name would put me on a bad footing; it would look as if I were ashamed of my position.

I could keep my opinion to myself, on the basis that if I can't say anything nice I should shut up. Well, ok, but that means no discussion is happening. If the post in question is on a topic of general interest (rather than personal), it seems reasonable to want to discuss it. Are there any other possibilities I haven't thought of? What would you guys do in the circs? What would it depend on?

My take on this, and it's fairly tentative (791point43, you're the expert on this – any thoughts?) is that these conflicts arise from different constructions of what an LJ is. In some ways it's a place where people have personal conversations with their friends but they happen to take place in public, perhaps analogous to, say, a group of people going to a restaurant together. In this case I probably shouldn't be reading at all beyond my own friends list, let alone responding to what I see there. Nor should I be adding strangers to said friends list just because I happen to like their writing.

For some people, an LJ is more like a blog. In the general blogosphere, outside LJ, the standard etiquette is that if you have a lengthy and detailed response, or a hostile response, to a blog post, you take it to your own blog rather than starting a flame-war in the comments. You leave a trackback in the original blog to let the blogger know they're being talked about (or, for many systems, this happens automatically). But you certainly link back to the original post that prompted your thoughts. That's kind of the paradigm I'm working on as a default here, but the question is, where does that break down for LJ?

What if LJ is more like Usenet? A lot of people I come across are Usenet expats, so this is particularly relevant. (Though it must be said that my own Usenet experience is pretty limited, so I may have wrong impressions here.) It's a public forum and the point here is the discussion. If you didn't want discussion, you wouldn't be posting. Obviously a decent person tries to be as polite as possible, but you definitely respond directly to something you disagree with. In this scenario, it doesn't matter if discussion threads get long and convoluted, and it probably doesn't matter if things get heated.

Where this breaks down is partly technical; LJ is just not that well geared to long discussion threads (both in number of posts and duration of discussion). But it's also partly social. For many people, a journal feels more like a personal space than a Usenet newsgroup; attacks here are going to be taken to heart much more than attacks would be there.

The other extreme would be to treat (strangers') journal posts as opinion articles in a media forum. Just the same way I might make a post linking to an dissecting a newspaper article, I could do the same for an LJ post. I wouldn't write personally to the author of the article, because that would be an inappropriate direct attack. I probably wouldn't write to the editor of the newspaper, either, unless I felt really strongly that the original article was so terrible it should never have been published.

My other question is, does it make a difference what sort of audience a journal has? I read some LJs that seem to me to be highly public (eg misia, ginmar, ozarque, papersky). I don't know any of these people personally, and more to the point, they have a large readership (in the hundreds) of people who also don't know them personally. In effect, they're minor celebrities. Should the standards for these journals be different from journals that are mostly read by a few tens of people who have some direct relationship with the writer? If so, how to decide whether a journal fits into the 'public' or the 'personal' category?

One heartening thing, in amongst all this depressing drama: I really love ozarque's response to someone who was pursuing a discussion in a way that seemed inappropriate to her. Whether or not one agrees with her assessment is not, I think, important here. I really admire the way she's handled the situation.

Given the complexity of the stuff I've rambled on about behind the cut, it's likely that at some point people are going to end up offending eachother. And what then? I've seen too many people recently slinging nasty insults at the person who offended them, whether it's for attacking them directly or for moving the discussion to their own space. Surprisingly enough, this just amplifies the drama and makes everyone look bad.

ozarque's approach isn't perfect; it hasn't completely defused the situation. But it has made it possible for her to continue the discussion she wants to have without getting sidetracked into a flame war. And to me, it reads as being extremely respectful of someone who is taking a different approach from hers, and that's something I find particularly admirable and would hope to imitate myself if I ever have to deal with such a situation.

Today is the 41^st day, making 5 complete weeks and 6 days of the Omer.

Comments

[wychwood]

This is one of those perennial LJ problems, isn't it? I don't believe you read metafandom, but there was some interesting discussion a couple of months back - try here and here.

What I've seen done a number of times is someone posting a short comment response to a post they feel strongly about, then commenting again to say "oh, and I've posted my thoughts in my own journal here". I think this is the best of both worlds, really - you can respond at full length, without dragging the comments off-topic; it extends the discussion; it allows you to bring your friends into it without seeming partisan; etc.

I think the idea of treating a strange journal as you would traditional print media is probably not a good idea. While journals are public, of course, they don't have that level of detachment, yet. At least, not usually. LJ is always, I think, more personal than those media, and also than Usenet. Because Usenet really *is* a public space - anyone can post there, there's no concept of privacy, friendslists or the like. You can say whatever you like, anyone can read it, and anyone can respond to it. There's much more structure in LJ.

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

What I've seen done a number of times is someone posting a short comment response to a post they feel strongly about, then commenting again to say "oh, and I've posted my thoughts in my own journal here".

That's what I usually do. I make enough response in the other person's LJ to show the direction of my thoughts, then give notice that there is more in my own LJ. So far, no one has taken offense--at least not anywhere that I know about it.

[shreena.livejournal.com]

I don't quite see why posting a lengthy comment to someone's post would be considered to be taking the discussion off-topic. I mean, assuming that the comment is about the post itself. Surely the point of making posts about contentious subjects is to instigate discussion in the comments? I wouldn't be offended as such if someone did this to me, but I'd be a bit non-plussed and find it quite inconvenient to have to continue the discussion in their journal when it started in mine.

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

This is precisely the LJ problem: people having differing expectations and preferences. There's no way to satisfy and please everyone.

[shreena.livejournal.com]

But why would anyone be annoyed by a polite disagreement in a comment to their post? That's what puzzles me.

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

Questions that start "Why would anyone . . ." can't be answered in general, but only for a specific individual. Just accept that some people are indeed annoyed by such disagreement. They don't want to be disagreed with. Or they see their LJ as their diary, and diaries can't talk back. Or . . .

[liv]

Questions that start "Why would anyone . . ." can't be answered in general, but only for a specific individual.
*swoon* This is such a marvellous statement of a principle I think is really key and which is not often understood. Thank you!

[wychwood]

I wasn't meaning so much a general response. But, say, you posted something about the Make Poverty History, and knirrir and I got into an argument about the pros and cons of capitalism as a social policy in the comments... I might want to take it elsewhere, because it's not directly relevant to your post, and I would find it a little rude to pursue a full discussion of a different topic entirely on your journal. Plus, if I was arguing properly, things could get a little heated, in which case again taking it elsewhere seems polite.

[shreena.livejournal.com]

I remember, ironically enough, livredor and another friend of mine having a very long theological discussion that was very tangential to a post I'd made and I really didn't mind in the slightest. One of the main reasons I make journal entries is so that discussion happens and I don't object at all to any interesting discussion whether or not it's directly relevant to my original post. The only exception I'd make is when two people start flirting/bantering/being soppy in comments to my journal. In that sort of scenario, I think I'd expect the commenters in question to add to the bottom of a comment "Oh, Shreena, do you mind us discussing this here? If so, we'll take it to e-mail."

[shreena.livejournal.com]

Bah. Above comment not very clear. Reverse the order of the last two sentences and you'll get what I meant..

[liv]

The thing is, shreena, I think you're at one particular extreme in a range of attitudes. I'm like this too, perhaps not surprisingly considering our similar backgrounds, but I really enjoy debate. Nine tenths of the reason why I post on LJ is because I want to generate discussion. I'm also extremely difficult to offend. I positively enjoy disagreement and I find a good discussion can be a great way to meet new people.

However, I'm very much aware that most people I encounter are not like you and me in this respect! Some like disagreement, but only within certain parameters. A lot of people are quite uncomfortable with strangers; any approach by someone they don't know may be read as hostile.

The other thing is that the definition of "off-topic" seems to be one of the most vexed questions on the internet. Some of the worst flame wars I have seen end up being about whether a particular comment is on topic or not. (IMO this is usually an indication of bad moderation, whether that moderation is by an individual or collective.) For me personally, my journal is not at all formal and I'm happy for people to post whatever; the last thing I have energy for is policing comment discussions to make sure they stick to the original question I posted about. But again, it's something that many people do care about.

[shreena.livejournal.com]

I still find it very difficult to understand the mentality of someone who'd be offended by this sort of thing. But perhaps that's just because I've yet to come across anyone like this on Livejournal or, indeed, anywhere else.

Personally, the settings features on livejournal make me feel as though, if someone has posted publically when they could have locked, have allowed comments from non-friends when they could not have, haven't stated up front that the post in question is a rant or outpouring that they don't want debate about right now, etc, then they have no right whatsoever to be offended by any polite disagreement that I might make to their post. Particularly if the post is on a naturally contentious subject such as the traditional trio of politics, sex and religion. If someone did take offence, I think it would likely indicate that they were a person whose opinion would be of little consequence to me. But perhaps I'm being snobbish..

[rysmiel.livejournal.com]

I had intended to post to this thread, but you have expressed the opinion I hold well enough that I do not see having anything to add here.

[liv]

I'm not surprised to see you agreeing with shreena!

Tell me, though: is this position any different from, well, I'm just going to do my own thing and if people are silly enough to take offence, they should just grow thicker skins? And if it is different, how?

[rysmiel.livejournal.com]

It is different in that I am doing my own thing with all due care taken for civility. I am very unlikely to make a personal attack in any case, and I can see no circumstance in which I might do so on the journal of some person whom I don't know.

However, engaging with an idea is a different thing. Engaging with a stupid or actively harmful idea strikes me as a morally positive thing to do - and one of the principles I am both coming from and actively trying to promulgate is that being able to tell the difference between a personal attack on you and the rejection of an idea that you hold is important, and that a priori by definition conflating the two is... pretty childish, really. If an idea is somewhere I can read, it's fair game. That's what honest communication means.

[liv]

Engaging with a stupid or actively harmful idea strikes me as a morally positive thing to do
Thank you, my dear. I really needed to read a comment like this today. I've got myself into an unfortunate situation involving LJ comment discussions, and it's resolved now, but this kind of thing really hugely gets to me. *long hug*

being able to tell the difference between a personal attack on you and the rejection of an idea that you hold is important
As with any communication the responsibility is shared by the speaker as well as the listener, but with that caveat this is extremely reasonable.

If an idea is somewhere I can read, it's fair game. That's what honest communication means.
I like you. And if it it were my world I'd make you the Minion I/C communication.

[liv]

This is one of those perennial LJ problems, isn't it?
Oh yes, and I don't suppose I'm making any new contributions with my thoughts here. Still interesting to gather some thoughts on the issue.

there was some interesting discussion a couple of months back
Thanks for those links; you're right, that is some interesting discussion and exactly relevant to the kind of issues I'm talking about here. I was trying not to get too much into analogies from the face-to-face world, because they can be perhaps even more subjective. But talking about "what kind of face-to-face interaction is LJ most like" does throw up some interesting ideas, definitely.

posting a short comment response to a post they feel strongly about, then commenting again to say "oh, and I've posted my thoughts in my own journal here".
I really like that idea. It's treating LJs as a blog-like space, which is definitely how I view my own journal. The trouble is, people could get annoyed (like shreena on this thread) because you're taking the discussion away from them. And I've seen exactly this approach lead to drama: you're bitching about me in your space instead of mine, just because all your sheep-like friends are going to back you up! If you want to challenge me you should do it here where I feel comfortable replying! And you're insulting me to all your friends and making them think badly of me!

The other problem is the other way: if the comment discussion is flamey anyway, do I want to bring the OP into my journal to start yelling at my friends? That's another bad consequence I've seen to this approach, even though it seems sensible to me. Person X posts a trackback-type comment on person Y's journal and a criticism of person Y's post on their own journal. Then Y follows the link (which was the point of it being there in the first place!) and gets angry with any of X's friends who happen to share X's view.

I think the idea of treating a strange journal as you would traditional print media is probably not a good idea. While journals are public, of course, they don't have that level of detachment, yet
That makes sense. But in some sense treating as print media keeps the situation away from the personal; just as a journalist will probably never get to know how most people feel about their article, so on LiveJournal, I'm simply not engaging with the post author at all. But I agree, the analogy only goes so far, and with LJ there is a much higher chance that the person would accidentally stumble on the post; if I found their journal, they're quite likely to find mine.

LJ is always, I think, more personal than those media, and also than Usenet. Because Usenet really *is* a public space - anyone can post there, there's no concept of privacy, friendslists or the like
Yes, it's the personalness of LJ that I'm having a bit of a time getting a grip on. It's not only more personal than Usenet, it's more personal than almost every non-LJ blog I've read. I think you have really nailed something mentioning the openness that is inherent to the Usenet setup; the fact that FO posts are possible on LJ changes the dynamic, even if one is not using that option at a given moment.

[shreena.livejournal.com]

because you're taking the discussion away from them. And I've seen exactly this approach lead to drama: you're bitching about me in your space instead of mine, just because all your sheep-like friends are going to back you up! If you want to challenge me you should do it here where I feel comfortable replying!

Heh. That's not precisely my objection, it's more that I simply don't think that that leads to a very productive discussion. I mean, if I post something and you disagree and post to your own journal about it, do I make another post to reply to you and you another to reply to my reply etc until we both get bored? It just chops the discussion up needlessly and makes it much harder for anyone else to join in - which post do they reply to or should they make another post in their own journal? Fundamentally, I guess, my objection is that I just don't see the point. If you write a long comment on someone else's journal that you think your own friends' list might be interested in, there's nothing preventing you reposting it for the benefit of those who've not seen it but trying to pursue discussions without using the comment feature seems destined to be highly confusing.

[liv]

That's not precisely my objection,
My fault there; I knew that paragraph was going to be unclear when I wrote it, and couldn't see a way to fix it. I meant to talk about two separate cases: shreena's objection, to do with making the discussion difficult to follow, and the reaction of some people I'm not naming, who get mad for the other reasons I described.

I basically like wychwood's suggestion, but I have come upon situations where it doesn't work. I don't think your objection is one that breaks the paradigm, particularly; since I know you anyway, I'm not bothered about carrying on either tangential discussions or heated arguments in your journal (and indeed you've given an example in another comment when I did so!) If you were a stranger, and I followed wychwood's method, you would have a perfect opportunity to reply to my comment saying, actually I'm happy for you to carry on the discussion here!

It's the other response (which to me seems rather irrational, but it's not necessarily for me to judge that or blame someone else if I offend them) which causes (and indeed has caused, in some of the examples which led me to this post) problems.

I mean, if I post something and you disagree and post to your own journal about it, do I make another post to reply to you and you another to reply to my reply etc until we both get bored?
Clearly not. If I'm directly discussing with you, then the comments to your original post is the ideal place for that discussion. I can always post a link to the thread in my journal if I want more people to see it (and if you don't mind more people coming over to join in the fray). But the hypothetical case is of someone who doesn't want to discuss with me, because they find my arguments too agressive or not sufficiently on topic, or simply because they don't know me.

[redbird]

I got tangled in the realization that you don't actually know papersky, and somewhat distracted from the actual content here. On the other hand, that may have some utility as well: it's easy to assume that if I know A, B, and C, and A knows B and C, B and C must know each other.

I'm fairly sure that the answer to this is a big, hairy "it depends," where the things it depends on include individual personality, the nature of the disagreement, and how well those involved know each other and how they are connected.

[liv]

I got tangled in the realization that you don't actually know papersky
Depends on your definition of know, I think. I mean, I started reading papersky at rysmiel's suggestion, rather than because I'm a fan of her books or something. And we have vaguely interacted in comments to a couple of her posts. So she's not a total stranger.

Someone asked me at some point how I know papersky, and I said She's married to a good friend of my ex's. I got an amusingly mixed response; some people took this as a perfectly sensible comment, people who live in highly connected circles such as certain subsets of geekdom and the Jewish community, and other people thought this was the most ludicrous statement ever: you might as well say that you and she have no relationship whatsoever!

Similarly with the other three examples; I can define some connection to them, yes, but it's fairly indirect. rysmiel introduced me to misia; ginmar is an lj-friend of lj-friends; and ozarque I started reading because you posted a link to a post of hers and it grabbed my attention. Do those count as more or less connection than I have to a random stranger who happens to be in the same public place as me? Hard to judge, I think.

the things it depends on
This is definitely the bit I wanted to gather some ideas for, thank you.

individual personality, the nature of the disagreement, and how well those involved know each other and how they are connected.
Can you expand on this a bit, please? It seems very plausible that it depends on these things but I'd quite like to explore how it depends on them.

How well the people know eachother is a separate issue in a way; if I know someone well, I'll likely just ask them, either via a comment or off LJ, hey, I want to follow this up, how would you like me to do it? And I'm likely to be able to judge whether they want debate, support, or whatever.

I'm talking particularly about people I don't know that well, but whose journals I happen to read. (Perhaps the grey area between those two is also interesting, come to think of it, but anyway.) That it depends on personality is pretty much a given. I think what I'm trying to do is to gather a sample of how people feel about this issue, so that I can better guess how someone is likely to react to different approaches I might take.

The nature of the disagreement and how people are connected: can you give examples? If we have friends in common, perhaps a stranger is more likely to assume I'm benevolent, so the situation is easier than if I just happen to be reading their journal because I was browsing randomly, maybe? How might different kinds of disagreements need different handling? If I read a post where a stranger talked about addressing relationship difficulties in a way I don't approve of, I'd be very unlikely to say anything, but if it was a review of a book or film, or a political opinion, it would seem more up for grabs. Again, perhaps an awkward borderline.

[lyssiae.livejournal.com]

If someone writes something that insults me then if it's so niggling that I have to do something about it, I'll make a locked post in my LJ and don't mention names.

I don't often find myself in that kind of situation; the world is a bitchy place and there isn't much of it that won't take delight in pissing off someone like me. But when something does get to me then I accept both that I need somewhere to vent about it and that the person doing the pissing in the first place isn't going to appreciate me doing so to all and sundry.

This is slightly different to the situation that you outlined, though, where an opinion is expressed that I disagree with. In such cases whether I reply - and I will usually do so as a reply to the original post or comment - depends on whether the issue is important enough that I think a contribution from me will help the discussion at all. If there seems to be a real point that is unlikely to be brought up by someone else, I will say something; if it's more about my feathers being ruffled by someone being obnoxious, I'll go and do some knitting or something.

[liv]

Thanks for this perspective, lyssiae. I think you're someone who takes disagreement, especially on issues you feel strongly about, more to heart than many of my friends list. That is not in any way a criticism, by the way.

If someone writes something that insults me then if it's so niggling that I have to do something about it, I'll make a locked post in my LJ and don't mention names.
That's a very good idea in this sort of situation. If someone's actually insulting you, then responding to them is just going to fuel the whole thing. And if you're going to be rude about them it's admirable not to mention names. Good example.

the world is a bitchy place and there isn't much of it that won't take delight in pissing off someone like me.
*sympathetic grimace* I'm sorry that that's how you experience the world, because you're a lovely person and I wish you could be treated with the respect you deserve.

where an opinion is expressed that I disagree with. In such cases whether I reply - and I will usually do so as a reply to the original post or comment
So the direct method. There's a lot to be said for that, as long as you have a means to deal with it if it does degenerate into a flame war.

depends on whether the issue is important enough that I think a contribution from me will help the discussion at all.
I'm arrogant and tend to assume my contribution is always valuable! But this is definitely a worthwhile thing to consider. There is a definitely a question about whether my contribution is valuable to the original poster; where I'm not sure of this, that's when I'm more inclined to start a new thread in my own journal.

If there seems to be a real point that is unlikely to be brought up by someone else, I will say something
I like that as a criterion, definitely.

if it's more about my feathers being ruffled by someone being obnoxious, I'll go and do some knitting or something.
How very sensible you are! If only more people took this kind of attitude, the internet would be a happier (and woolier) place.

[lyssiae.livejournal.com]

I think you're someone who takes disagreement, especially on issues you feel strongly about, more to heart than many of my friends list.

You're quite right, I do take things personally much easier not only than other people, but also than I did when I was younger. Like many things it's not a downside so long as it's not out of control.

So the direct method. There's a lot to be said for that, as long as you have a means to deal with it if it does degenerate into a flame war.

Indeed. The thoughts I outlined in my first comment (some scrutiny about what the motivation behind my opinion actually is - me being annoyed or me actually being constructive) are what I use to hopefully prevent my contribution becoming a gateway for flames in the first place. If a fire does break out then I try to apply the first criterion even more stringently - I don't like backing away from a tussle solely because it's there, but there is definitely a point beyond which me re-stating my point yet again isn't going to help.

There is a definitely a question about whether my contribution is valuable to the original poster; where I'm not sure of this, that's when I'm more inclined to start a new thread in my own journal.

This makes a lot of sense to me and I think it overlaps somewhat with my way of approaching things. Probably this stems from some issues that previous commenters have spoken about above - whether LJ is a personal space, or a public discussion forum, or somewhere inbetween.

Each person surely has a slightly different take on their own LJ-space, and it's good to know where that person stands individually when taking part in discussions on as post of his - I see each person's post as being somehow his "property" and I'd act with due regard to his preferences when replying to it. Of course this isn't possible if you've only come across the thread by a link that appeared in a large community that you're a member of, for example.

It's difficult to generalise over a situation like this, but I'll try to anyway. In the first instance, given that what I want to say will actually do some good, I'll comment on the original post/comment and continue there. There is a point, though, where, if I need to, I'll take my further reactions to my own LJ. This is in fact what happened when you began a discussion here about Feminism a while ago; I didn't start the post in my LJ because of any high-running emotions here, but simply because I felt more comfortable doing so that way, and I understood that you wouldn't mind me "snitching" your topic, as it were.

[pw201.livejournal.com]

One of the things which annoys me about LJ when compared to other discussion systems (like Usenet) is how difficult it is to follow the thread of a discussion. So, when I see a posting I'd like to comment on, I comment as a reply to that posting. If it's not obvious how I found the journal, I might say something like "I saw you on the Cantabrigiensis friends list" so the person isn't alarmed by my suddenly appearing, as if by magic.

I can then follow the discussion by visiting that one journal entry. I've told LJ to email me when someone replies to an entry or a comment of mine, but that doesn't help with following discussions where people other than me are saying interesting things. If they ever get around to letting us tell LJ that we're interested in new comments on other people's postings, that'd fix some of the annoyance, but I still find LJ rather clumsy compared to Usenet (for instance, LJ doesn't remember which comments I've already read). I'm here for the people rather than for the greatness of the interface.

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

(for instance, LJ doesn't remember which comments I've already read)

I think there might be a partial way around this using summary mode. I'm sure I've seen someone's view where it made it clear whether there were new comments since the last time she checked, though not how many. Given that 'recent comments' exists, it should be possible for someone to implement it, anyway, shouldn't it?

mark unread comments

[liv]

There may be a way to do this, but I've never seen any suggestions that aren't both convoluted and unreliable. It's why I jumped at implementing the ability to sort comments chronologically instead of by thread, but that's a very inadequate substitute.

The recent comments thing is no good because you can only see your own recent comments. You could create a style that displayed your recent comments page in a frame or whatever, but then other people would see their recent comments instead of yours, which is really no use!

[liv]

One of the things which annoys me about LJ when compared to other discussion systems (like Usenet) is how difficult it is to follow the thread of a discussion.
I think LJ is definitely better for this than most blogs, but worse than Usenet. It's a lot to do with the fact that LJ was designed for journalling rather than discussion, so it's about trying to force a tool to do something it's not basically intended for.

If it's not obvious how I found the journal, I might say something
This is an extremely sensible idea. Saying: I think you're wrong is a lot ruder than saying: Hi, I'm Paul and I saw this post via a community friends page. By the way, I think you're wrong.

If they ever get around to letting us tell LJ that we're interested in new comments on other people's postings, that'd fix some of the annoyance,
As would tags, as would trackbacks, yeah. But they're still kludges to what's basically the wrong tool for the job.

I'm here for the people rather than for the greatness of the interface.
Absolutely, and I think that's true of an awful lot of LJers. The interface is slowly improving, but it's painfully slow.

Re: Manners maketh man

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

this is precisely why i still prefer usenet, and will probably prefer it til the end of days. LJ is nowhere as good for public discussion, to start with because its technology doesn't support ongoing in-depth discussion. most other blogs are even worse because they don't have threading, which is at least a small nod in the direction of people who actually want to keep track of different strands of the discussion. what's worse, LJ has people who think nothing of it to make totally public posts, ban anyone who disagrees with them in comments, and continue to bitch about it and increase the drema (and follow you to your own journal should you dare to post your own views on the issue there because at that point you're obviously getting your friends all het up to harass the other person). *bleagh*.

by now i basically try and stay away from anything that smells like drama. and that means that i have involved, and possibly heated discussions only with people i know really well, or where i have the strong impression that they can handle a free exchange of ideas without throwing a temper tantrum like a 3-year old.

ozarque is very polite. :)

[liv]

this is precisely why i still prefer usenet
How do you cope with spam? How do you find new interesting people to talk to? Those are honest questions, not neener neener LJ is better! I can see that Usenet has a lot of potential but I'm a very clumsy user of it and I'm sure I'm not getting the maximum potential out of the medium.

will probably prefer it til the end of days
A dangerous prediction, I think. Who knows what new system or technology might come along in the next few years? It's difficult to claim that Usenet is perfect and absolutely can't be improved in any way!

LJ is nowhere as good for public discussion
Agreed, and it's probably deeply quixotic of me to be putting effort into trying to create protocols (both social and technical) to making it more useable for this purpose.

LJ has people who think nothing of it to make totally public posts, ban anyone who disagrees with them in comments, and continue to bitch about it and increase the drema (and follow you to your own journal should you dare to post your own views on the issue there
Indeed. I believe you've seen some of the same train-wrecks I have! I suspect this is as much a feature of people as it is a feature of LJ, mind you. Some people are just drama-magnets and drama-seekers, and it's probably best just to avoid trying to interact with such people. But the point of this post is to try to generate ideas for minimizing this sort of situation while still allowing discussion.

where i have the strong impression that they can handle a free exchange of ideas without throwing a temper tantrum like a 3-year old.
So how might a person convince you that they fit into this category?

ozarque is very polite. :)
She certainly is, but I think it's more than just that. I'm finding it hard to put my finger on exactly what quality she has that is so admirable to me. Respectful? Courteous? Menshlich? Kind, even, though kind is probably too vague.

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

spam? it mostly gets cancelled these days; i just ignore what gets through (or cancel it myself in the moderated groups i maintain). new, interesting people just show up, and join the discussions in progress. all i do in that regard is add my contributions to making those discussions interesting, and maintaining a certain amount of civility without getting too mealy-mouthed. i am very selective about the groups in which i've participated over the years, and i have an excellent newsreader; all those things make a big difference.

on LJ it's harder to find interesting people, and there is a greater bias -- here i mostly meet those people (like you :) through people i already know. that could be different if i were to participate more in communities, but i tend to be a lurker who reads those only in spurts because the technology is too cumbersome. mind, i am not saying LJ sucks; it doesn't. i learn a lot more about people i already know if they write with some consistency about their personal lives and the things that concern them, without the topic limitation of usenet. said topic limitation is at once a strength of usenet for the exchange of ideas, but also a drawback for me personally. once i know a bunch of people who're smart, thoughtful, and expressive, i tend to want to talk to them about anything and everything, and then the topic restriction becomes a problem.

there was a "probably" in that statement you find dangerous. :) i am not claiming usenet is perfect (*gah*, no!), just that in more than two decades nothing better has come along for me, and from what people seem to concentrate on (more bells and whistles for prettification), few who can make things happen are interested in the same things i'm interested in. and then there is inertia -- usenet II didn't fully make it out of the primordial soup, and that wasn't a bad plan at all. usenet itself is being improved, just at a snail's pace (the IETF working groups are some of the slowest grist mills i've ever seen).

a person convinces me that they can handle a free exchange of ideas by demonstrating it in ongoing discussions. it doesn't really take all that much, but i definitely expect more from people than the average LJer, judging from my experiences on the abuse team -- 3 of the people on your list are clearly capable of it, 1 of them lost me because she wasn't. you manage it just fine IMO, as do most people on my flist. i strongly select for rationality and lack of drama. :) not lack of passion, mind. i like passion.

i haven't figured it out about ozarque -- but what matters is that she is definitely capable of directing the discussion so it stays fruitful and doesn't waste itself in flamewars, and she's very quick about it too. she's a bit too much on the polite side for my taste, which means i have to fight against a certain prejudice (i'm somewhat distrustful of southern-US politeness; it can seem phony to me).

[angeyja.livejournal.com]

on LJ it's harder to find interesting people, and there is a greater bias -- here i mostly meet those people (like you :) through people i already know.

I find this too, and also depending on readership and comfort levels and other things, it can slant responses or discussions. This could be my misreading, of course.

that could be different if i were to participate more in communities, but i tend to be a lurker who reads those only in spurts because the technology is too cumbersome

I found the lack of an ability to thread between journals awkward, and also that the communities don't seem to take off as the few posting boards I was involved in. I wasn't as heavy a user of usenet which may be in part my lateness online and in part that they are harder for me to read.

i haven't figured it out about ozarque -- but what matters is that she is definitely capable of directing the discussion so it stays fruitful and doesn't waste itself in flamewars, and she's very quick about it too. she's a bit too much on the polite side for my taste, which means i have to fight against a certain prejudice (i'm somewhat distrustful of southern-US politeness; it can seem phony to me).

I am a northerner, northern Ohio and upstate NY, who has also lived for a time in Cincy and Oklahoma, near the Texas border, Louisiana, and Reykjavik. I don't think it is just Southern. There are stylistic differences between posters and what comprises good discussion for them. There's soemthing that wants to come out abut results and different orientations also but I don't have the right words for it yet.