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The Matrix

Journal nizo's Journal: Random thoughts on friending people on Slashdot 38

Journal by nizo

The apparent recent sudden departure of Railgunner into the great emptyness of the 'net has reminded me of a long overdue journal entry I have been meaning to write. I don't know anything about the reasons for his departure, but it reminded me of a topic that I have thought about now and then.

When I friend people, I typically do so because they either said something funny, insightful, or interesting. I may not always agree with what they said, but if it got me thinking about a topic, I feel that is a good thing. I also feel it is important for me to re-evaluate my beliefs periodically. I am certainly left-leaning, but I can appreciate and respect a good point of view set forth by anyone, no matter what their political beliefs. In fact, I rue the day that I only surround myself with input from people who share the exact same beliefs that I do. All of this not only appeals to my typical attitude of wanting to hear all sides of an argument, but it also appeals to my general argumentative nature :-) And what fun would it be to shut myself in the closet and argue with my own echo?

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Random thoughts on friending people on Slashdot More

Random thoughts on friending people on Slashdot

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  • ;) I did plan out a rather nice joke about decrying your opinion of surrounding people who may not agree with you , but decided the irony was also served well with this disclaimer as to why i didn't .

    Great Reasons why to friend with people Its part of the reasons i do it :. If someone can hold me in a great debate , someone is genuinely nice and friendly , make me laugh , sometimes(more than not constantly ) when they befriend me (after having a look at journals and posts , usually i find people that frien

    • Re:Ah (Score:2)

      by trmj ( 579410 )
      Yeah, that's pretty much the same way I pick friends here.

      Lately, I've been debating whether to friend you or not. You seem to help people and add your opinions, and yet at other times you seem to troll a bit for the sake of rabble rousing. Still deciding.
      • I never troll as such ( Well on Tuesdays i do make a few extra jokes ). I just have rather strong opinions and can be a hot head . I never intentionally(intentionally being the most important word here) insult or rouse argument . Comes with the territory of being a stubborn hot head I imagine .

        I'm just passionate and it constantly gets me in trouble absolutely everywhere and has done since nursery . Add to that the fact I am a rather good speaker who knows how to touch nerves(not on purpose most of
      • Fidel's alright, if you don't mind parsing some incredible typos...
        • Those typos are incredible , don't you forget it boyo !
          My typos are a super powers that would Make Wolverine cower behind his mothers frock . ;) Though If anyone insults me about them I just pull the disability card and cry .. Mewahahaha I am unstoppable .
  • When I first started friending people, I would only friend those of a lower UID. AFter a short time of this I realized that not only was rather arrogant ('cause I don't exactly have a low enough number to be indicitave of anything), but just plain stupid. Since I have found that my life works better as I eliminate stupid decisions, I found it rather easy to let go;-)

    From there I friended anyone who either made me laugh or think, either by their comments, JEs, sigs, or /. handle. It is through this proc

    • I was quite disappointed that it was not talk like a vampire day .. or talk like a vampire pirate day
      "Arrr I's want's to zuck's yer blud matey "

      You can never have too much friends .. you can have too many enemies though .. I do believe my freaks list is far too large ... Probably caused by some manic episode ranting ;).. though I only have an idea why a few added me (during my quest against Fake signatures and Pyramid schemes )

      I know why all my friends added me .. As I am simply the best thing to hit the wo
  • I've actually friended people who've argued against me, just because they were able to cogently put across their point of view. they didn't necessarily change my beliefs, but I want to know I can go to them and see the rational side of counterarguments.

    On the other hand, I've also had way too many friended people in the past. (I have far too few real friends, thus my tortuous phrasing) the system's limited me several times. So I used to weed it out to where people who haven't made any comment or JE in a cer
    • Jeremiah Cornelius Is still with us i believe , though using a different guise . I can say no more as it is apparent he wanted to lose that identity .
      Though I do feel that a recent mutual friend of ours may have something to do with him. Well probably I am just reading to much into some similarities .. but have a look at your friends recent journal entries and you may see what I am getting at .

      • If he's still around, I'm glad he's a bit more... moderate in his approach, shall I say? Jeremiah seemed a bit over the top, sometimes :)

        • Indeed heh :but he was a great character was he not ?
          May not have always agreed with some of his world views , but they always gave me a good read and something to mull over
  • whatever it was - i would think it happened today. maybe in that 'ask me anything' journal. 'cause he posted it today and some other stuff. i don't know what is up with that either.

    i have all kinds of criteria for friending people, but nothing i've really thought out or formalized. mostly i look for people who are knowledgeable about something i am interested in, or the whole humor/nice type deal. Or people i see being friended by a large number of my friends.

    the one thing i do a lot th
  • I noticed that glitch in the matrix. Not that anyone has a say in what someone else does with their life. Some people have vested interests or at least emotional connections.... so a sudden "poof and they are gone" is disappointing.

    But then again, circumstances may have changed such that RG needed to disappear and take all traces or previous journals with him. Who knows. I might find myself in that sitaution due to my new career. It could be that the Dept. policy might run up against some personal opin
    • FWIW, RailGunner also disappeared from the SourceForge game project that he was running, and left the note "As of 2005-09-19 14:29, this project is no longer under active development." The project is still there, and all of the initial source looks like it is still in the CVS repository, but he is no longer a member of the project.
      • Well, I would imagine he is fine, since he had the time and go do those things. Hopefully it is just something like what was mentioned above. I can see a few good reasons to do something like that.
  • I find it interesting that I have friended various people, mostly based on the quality of their writing and the skill with which they defend their positions. Of these people, several of them are enemies of each other, evidently because of their polical views.
    • Yeah I have noticed that as well. I always wonder if people don't friend me at times because I already friended EvilDorkDude first. Oh well.
      • Yeah I have noticed that as well. I always wonder if people don't friend me at times because I already friended EvilDorkDude first. Oh well.

        Usually, I look at the Friends and Enemies thing a bit - if someone has lots of Enemies of mine and no Friends of mine (and more than one, that's not much), then I have to read ALL their recent posts to make sure they aren't just a jerk pretending not to be a jerk that day.

        But just because one has a lot of friends who are my enemies doesn't mean the same is true of them
  • How contrarian, it's more popular to surround oneself with "yes men" and hold town meetings full of carefully selected "real people" who already agree.

    No political career for you Nizo, you got the strategy backwards.

    • Heh no kidding. Actually I say too many dumb things on the spur of the moment to have a political career anyway. Plus I probably have skeletons in my closet I don't even remember putting there. I could however see myself as someone who writes speeches for someone. Now all I need is a charismatic actor-type to be my front man. Maybe Morgan Freeman would go for it. I think Sean Connory would be a good choice too but I don't know how far you could go with a non-american. Hey I think we have another journal ent
  • The first is people who tend to write well and who I find have interesting and informative posts that are not insane Bush koolaid clone drivel.

    The second is technical people - some of whom may have made me an enemy - who post good informative posts on technical matters - even if they disagree with mine.

    One needs friends who one agrees with, and ones who care enough about an issue to do the research. Some of the latter may not agree with you, but one should have a varied circle of friends, not like those mo
  • I try to friend people who have good JE's. I somethimes do people with good comments as well. Since I don't use modifiers it doesn't really matter for only comments.

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