Nicer

[liv]

Thank you all for having really civilized discussions in my controversial opinions post. I really appreciate having a readership who challenge me without getting belligerent about it.

Let me follow up with a nice warm fuzzy post. I have about 250 people subscribed to this journal, and a thoroughly excellent crowd you all are. And maybe some of you would like to meet some other similarly excellent people. So, I've invented a game.

If you would like to, please comment to this post, and I'll introduce you to everybody else by giving a reason why I think you're great. Some people I know better than others, so I can't promise all my introductions will exactly encapsulate why someone might want to get to know you. You're also welcome to comment to someone else's thread and ask for a specific introduction to that person; I know some people are more confident than others about just jumping in and introducing themselves to a stranger. I am also happy to matchmake if you would like that; ask me for a recommendation of a personal journal and / or community from my circles.

And of course, feel free to repost this game in your own journal, if you think it would be a good way to make connections between some of your people. I think this could go quite well if it spreads a few hops away from here, but also worth doing even if no-one picks it up.

Comments

[jack]

*hugs* I guess you can start with me, even though I'm incredibly shy at suggesting someone might have any reason they think I'm great, even if they publicly signed a document saying so in front of hundreds of people :)

[liv]

This is my husband, jack. He's exceptionally compassionate and very good at seeing the best in everyone he meets. He's interested in a whole range of different things and intelligent without being arrogant about it, so always good for interesting discussions of many different topics. He still keeps a mid-2000s style journal where he posts about anything that comes into his head, and is good at responding to comments.

[jjhunter]

Sounds like fun! Me please, and I'll do a round over at my journal as well. :o)

[liv]

I only recently met jjhunter; kaberett introduced us and I can totally see why they thought we would get on. jjhunter posts really thoughtful collections of links, and has a knack for saying something quietly thoughtful in potentially fraught discussions. She's a powerhouse of working behind the scenes and encouraging people to make there be a whole lot more poetry on DW than there might otherwise be.

[kaberett]

Oooh, yes please, then.

[liv]

It's hard to avoid being embarrassingly effusive about kaberett. I've known them for a number of years and I'm perpetually impressed by their sheer force of awesome. They're engaged in an amazing project to reshape reality after a vision of what could be. They build communities for people who would otherwise be on the margins. They take default assumptions apart and replace them with something truer and more moral. They're even rebuilding themselves, continually, to be the sort of person who lives their ideals.

They're a committed activist for several causes, and incredibly gentle with people who aren't as enlightened as them (definitely including me). If you read their journal you will almost certainly learn something you won't find in many other places.

[randomling]

Me, please, though I know we don't know each other all that well?

[liv]

I mainly know randomling through DW development. As well as being a volunteer coder, randomling is a writer. I always find randomling's posts and comments thoughtful and insightful, both on the level of well-written, never navel-gazing introspection, and on the level of taking an original view of society and the world. randomling has strong ethical beliefs which are always expressed gently and respectfully.

[oursin]

I'll give it a whirl!

[wild_irises]

Seeing you here just makes me want to post this in my journal so I can say what's great about you!

[jenett]

Please? Always curious what other people find intriguing.

[liv]

This is jenett whom I know through DW. She is outstandingly good at making connections. Connections between people, between questions and information, between ideas. She runs regular conversational salons in her journal. Every time I read a comment or post of jenett's I learn something or understand something better, and it's always explained in a way that the new knowledge is easy to assimilate and recall, yet never patronizing or didactic.

[tig_b]

Not sure if you know me enough, but this is a good idea.

[liv]

This is tig_b, who is the sister of a friend. She's one of the very few people who hasn't given up in despair at repeated political attacks on disabled people, she's a tireless campaigner on an issue that is really dear to my heart. She also writes poetry.

[rysmiel]

By all means, do me.

[liv]

I realize I very strongly want to introduce you to absolutely everybody, but it's hard to describe precisely why. I may have to come back to this.

[ursula]

I'll play, if you're up to it?

[liv]

I don't know ursula very well but I would like to. She's a mathematician and a reader and an amateur historian and she's interested in and knowledgeable about a bunch of different things.

Might as well...

[vatine]

I think the subject of this comment captures my thoughts about the whole thing.

Re: Might as well...

[liv]

I met vatine in one of those DW meet new people drives, I think. vatine writes lots of lucid book reviews of the kinds of books I like. vatine isn't plugged in to many of my circles, and often has a different perspective from the majority of people I have conversations with here.

[pretty_panther]

This is a fabulous idea! I do love meeting new people but am so shy so yes, me please :D

[liv]

This is pretty_panther whom I know through DW. As you might guess from her username, she makes really pretty stuff. I'm such a fan of her fanmixes! She also writes really thoughtfully about issues that are important to her, including around chronic illness.

Sure

[(Anonymous)]

Especially since you're one of the friends I think I could do this for/about in return (rather than the vague flailings of "s/he's cool" or even the occasional "I don't remember where we met" where a link or two in the chain has fallen out of view.

Re: Sure

[redbird]

That was me, apparently I'd been randomly logged out since the last time I used this computer.

[forestofglory]

I would like to participate. (Also thanks for hosting interesting debates.)

[liv]

forestofglory is an excellent person whom I met through jack. One thing that always strikes me about forestofglory is how much she works on using her talents to make the world a better place. That might be making tasty food to feed her friends, and she's also pursuing a complex academic path which will put her in a good position to make a real difference. She's especially good at seeing the interlocking complexity of societies and ecosystems rather than focusing on the individual details. forestofglory is also utterly unselfconscious at doing things just because they're fun, which is another way she makes the world a better place.

[ptc24]

Oh, erm, yes, go on.

[liv]

ptc24 is, in spite of being highly educated, also an auto-didact. He's always reading complex texts about all kinds of subjects, philosophy, economics, you name it, quite often primary texts, and engaging with them really deeply and thoughtfully. He never takes a position because it's fashionable or current with his friends, but only after seriously weighing up the arguments on all sides.

[boxofdelights]

Me?

[liv]

I friended boxofdelights years ago because I often saw her commenting on my friends' posts, and for the slightly strange reason that her beautiful face in her icon (yes, this one) kept catching my attention. And I'm glad I did because she posts about her day-to-day life, including being a parent of teenagers / young adults in a way that makes it interesting for someone who doesn't know her personally. Also, she reads podfic and poems and her voice is as beautiful as her face.

[ceb]

*hands up*

Also, everyone: this is liv. *waves introductorily* She thinks she doesn't make anything, but in fact she makes communities and events and explanations and all manner of cool organisey things.

[liv]

Oh, gosh, I am so very touched that you describe me like that. Thank you. I make communities. I like that very much!

So, ceb. I have an itty-bitty crush on ceb, cos she's ever so brilliant in several different ways. She's great to talk to, and she has excellent taste in music, and she makes cool shiny things, and she gets all sparkly when she's being enthusiastic about stuff. Also sometimes I post about something where I feel like a bit of an alien compared to most people around and ceb pipes up and says that she feels like that too. Also ceb is immensely kind and is often to be found quietly behind the scenes doing something to help someone out who needs it.

[wildeabandon]

Yes please :)

[liv]

I always look up to wildeabandon because he appreciates the finer things in life, and is always open and generous about sharing pleasures with friends. I don't know him extremely well but he's excellent company, whether online or in person.

[ephemera]

Me? Although I entirely understand if you'd rather not - I think I read much more than I comment to you, and you can't reasonably be expected to have been reading my mind while I was ;)

[liv]

I have a wistful thought that I wish I knew ephemera enough better to be able to do a really good introduction. ephemera is one of my favourite readers, in spite of being quite quiet, because every time I do see that username on a comment I know it's going to be something incisive and thought-provoking.

[draigwen]

Why not?

[liv]

A long long time ago, draigwen was my "manatee" (apparently the proper word for this is telemach, I learned recently) in LJ Support. Which was really a bonus because it turned out that we get on really well way beyond being able to work together on tech support or development. draigwen recently had a baby whom I haven't met yet, but I'm hoping to one day, especially because she's really thoughtful about what it means to raise a kid in a sexist world.

[sunflowerinrain]

Yes please :)

I really must get back into blogging; perhaps this will kick me. Facebook encourages laziness, and I still haven't written up the notes from Israel 18 months ago!

[liv]

sunflowerinrain is super, she's had all kinds of experiences and learned from them all (even the difficult ones) to become a person who's really interesting to know. I'd be very much in favour if she did blog more because she's bound to have all kinds of insights. She lives in France and runs music events and she's Bahá'í and she's the sort of person I want to drag by the sleeve and introduce to everybody in the virtual room.

[zhelana]

Me! :)

[liv]

zhelana always participates in memes that make connections between people; that's how I know her, in fact. She strikes me as particularly multi-faceted. If you learn one thing about zhelana, you can't predict much else about her. Meeting people like zhelana is one of the great things about DW; in several respects she's from a completely different background from me, and we'd never have met without the internet.

[ursamajor]

I'd love to be introduced! :)

[liv]

This is ursamajor; we go waaaay back from the old LJ Support days. ursamajor has a real talent for talking about her day-to-day life and making it interesting. She takes great photos of food and cities and things.

[forthwritten]

Me, if you feel you know me well enough?

[liv]

A fictional character like forthwritten would probably be implausible. forthwritten has a PhD in a really cool area of feminist history and linguistics, and is an amazing trans* activist and educator and a performer and a teacher. In addition to being incredibly multi-talented, forthwritten is a tiny Asian who hails from a matriarchal culture.

[purplecthulhu]

Ah - tried to do this on LJ but then realised most of the action is over here on DW. Doh!

[liv]

purplecthulhu is an astrophysicist who does the kind of science that looks exceptionally glamorous to the rest of us! Also very deeply involved in science fiction, writing, fandom and particularly fandom-as-community. He's erudite and has a wide range of interests and is always fun and interesting to talk to.

[mathcathy]

This really is a lovely post!

[liv]

Isn't it? I'm so glad I decided to do it, it's been really heartening to say nice things about all the people I like. Would you like me to introduce you, as well?