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Journal rdewald's Journal: On Friending 21

Journal by rdewald

We communicate here along a fairly new paradigm. Language frames context, it can't help but. Calling a database relationship a "friend" is meaningful more because of the name than the function.

Friend is a term I understand in a context of real life relationships, not query structures. Not all of my friends from slashdot have accounts with which I am logically associated as "friends."

Why? Because I don't want their journals included in the output of the friends journals script. They are still my friends because I know the fuller person who knows the password for the account. I just don't make the association in the slashdot database between our user accounts.

Do I bother to tell people this? I have alluded to it in JE's, but I have not issued explicit declarations to those I have de-friended. Friendship is a mutual decision, anyway, it's not like I can declare it's existence/demise alone. My friends know who they are.

Similarly, I have a number of people friended who I do not consider friends at all. I have them friended because I want their journals included in the output of my friends journals script. Period.

I read the JE's of people not in my friend's list, quite a few, actually, I just have them bookmarked in my broswer. These are journals I just want to read when I am curious, it has nothing to do with my feelings, if any, about the people who write them. It has to do with what I want the various scripts on slashdot to do for me based on my database entries.

I actually read the journals of the people I *don't* have friended more faithfully, I just do it on my schedule. The journal list that is generated by the script which lists my friends' latest JE's really often gets a more cursory read. Sometime I just get a line or two read before I close the browser tab and apple-click the next one. Conversely, the journals of the accounts I read who aren't on my friends list usually get a complete read.

So who are my friends?

Now, that said, there is a human community that overlaps all this somewhat, a metaphenomenon of the database relationships and script output. I have met a number of these real human beings and now I have a real human relationship with them.

A smaller number of real human beings have been involved with email/telephone exchanges of sufficient quality to create a real human relationship even before meeting in real life. This is a relatively new phenomenon, too, but it's as old as the world-wide telephone network, that is, a number of decades before Tim Berners-Lee.

Some people I have met have asked me to keep the existence of our real life meeting a secret from the slashdot community. I have honored their requests and will continue to do so.

Some other people have not availed themselves of offers/opportunities to meet me in real life, a decision/omission which I suspect relies on judgements made in some measure based on slashdot interaction.

More plainly, it all cuts both ways. Welcome to humanity.

Journal entries which accuse another account-holder of imposing something on this community by virtue of the presence/absence of some text in said journal are deeply revealing. I doubt the writers intend such disclosure, but that's human, too.

You know what would be a wonderful thing? A community of journal entry authors who would refrain from saying anything that's not true, kind, and important for others to hear.

Imagine there's no Flaming.
It's easy if you try....

This discussion was created by rdewald (229443) for no Foes, but now has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

On Friending More

On Friending

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  • Imagine there's no Flaming.
    It's easy if you try....

    Nice John Lennon allusion. I love it.

    I think that what you are coming around to is that online communities are not really that different from real life communities. Honesty in script/text form is really no different than honesty in meatspace. Those people that have reasons to lie in virtual space frequently lie in meatspace and that eventually comes across into all relationships whether "virtual" or more intimate, yes?

    • Yes.

      The *stuff* of relationships is not contained in the means of communication, it is not of that realm at all. The quality and experience of relating is expressed in what is metaphorically referred to as the heart, but which is actually a timeless/formless entity/space, both a particle and a wave, which is influenced by the act of observing it.

      Sound familiar?
    • Honesty in script/text form is really no different than honesty in meatspace.

      Well, except that it seems that many people (myself included, I'm not pointing fingers) tend to be more likely to say things here that we would think twice or more about saying to someone's face. Further, even things that some WOULD say to someone else's face lose a lot of nuance and direct interaction/feedback that could mitigate their facial hurtfulness if done in person--i.e. if someone in person starts reacting as if I'm sayi

      • Well, the thing about the Internet is that it is difficult to remain truly anonymous, even from Oak Park Illinois. So, it is always a good policy to never say, even in text what one would not say to someone's face. :-)

        • The point was not so much the anonymity so much as the general lack of feedback and the sense of distance. :-) As far as it goes, if you're taunting someone you think might actually look you up and come after you, then you're fairly foolish :-)
          • The point was not so much the anonymity so much as the general lack of feedback and the sense of distance. :-)

            Agreed.

            As far as it goes, if you're taunting someone you think might actually look you up and come after you, then you're fairly foolish :-)

            This is actually the scary thing. You never actually know who it is that might be looking you up for something you say. I had an irritating experience a couple of months ago where somebody on Slashdot was attempting to be cute and called my wife at home, reall
        • (BTW amazon notwithstanding, I'd only really be impressed if you came up with a full address or phone number :-))
          • Ummmm. Is that a challenge :-) and would you like me to post said information in a reply here on Slashdot? If you would like me to email you my reply, you can contact me through my links and I'll send said information to you. I am a scientist at heart and I do loooove a challenge.

            • It would probably be pretty trivial to link my nick to my name at which point all is easy. Just being a goof. Should you decide to do it anyway, that's cool, but don't post please :-). If you get that far, you probably will have some idea how to email me anyway.
              • It would probably be pretty trivial to link my nick to my name at which point all is easy.

                Actually, yes. The problem with most of us technically savvy folks that have been on the net for a while is that the newsgroups that we all frequented at one time are a permanent and searchable record that reveals who we are if there is any shred of contiguous information.

                Should you decide to do it anyway, that's cool, but don't post please :-).

                I'll honor that request, absolutely. It really only took about five minu
      • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • I write HUNDREDS of JEs for you to read and you never read them?

    Well isn't that just the way? :)
  • what if something is true, important for others to hear -- but in the short-term, seems fairly unkind, even if the intention of kindness is truly what's behind it?

    ....Bethanie....
    • I struggle with this issue, as many do. I tend to err on the side of silence.

      But, when I feel that a greater suffering to another person may be prevented by saying something, I am mindful to say whatever it is I have to say at the right time, in the right place, and in the right way. That is, I choose the moment with mindful attention to privacy, I proceed at an unhurried pace, and I make sure that the communication is accompanied by some overt and sincere expression of empathy and compassion.

      I am careful

      • I am careful *not* to say things just because doing so would make *me* feel better. I can handle my feelings without risking hurting another's.

        I can't help but think that in some capacity that you were speaking to me with this entry, and perhaps even that line in your reply to bethanie. Or perhaps I flatter myself.

        The truth has to be told, whether it hurts someone or not. Nothing can be gained by rolling over and playing dead.

        • Because I think it might be helpful, I will honestly tell you that neither you nor Bethanie was on my mind when I wrote either the JE or made the specific assertion to which you refer. To be boringly open, I work with a DB at work that refers to an association that we can make between records as adding to a "caseload," which is inaccurate and causing problems among users. I noted in my runimnation about it that the problem wasn't with the *function* but with the *name,* like "friending" in slashdot.

          "The t

    • Re:But (Score:2)

      by turg ( 19864 ) *
      Depends on the relationship you have with the reader(s) I guess. In real life, there are many times when you should say such things -- with people who you only interact with on slashdot, I'm not sure how often it would be useful.

      I also generally avoid pissing people off on slashdot. In real life I love being a gadfly and digging in to controversial topics. On slashdot I haven't found such discussions to be very productive. (I'm not a wuss, but I play one on slashdot? :-)

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