[friends list] Trimming

[wispfox]

Feeling a need to trim my friends list (as I do periodically), partly because I'm getting into the less social time of year. Yes, I do also use filters, and I will be fiddling with those as well. But I figured that there were enough people I felt insufficient connection to their writing that I tend to skim or skip it _anyway_, so why keep it on my reading list?

Please don't take it personally, and please don't assume that me dropping you off my reading list means I'm not interested in interacting with you offline.

Most of my posts are public anyway, so me not reading you should not affect what you can read of what I post (much). I haven't even been using my writing filters lately!

Comments

[sharp-blue.livejournal.com]

What LJ clearly needs is a separation between "I don't mind if you read my secret posts" and "I want to read your articles on my Friends page".

[regyt.livejournal.com]

Well, that's what filters are for.

(I don't filter, but I'm approaching the day when I begin, I suspect.)

[brynndragon.livejournal.com]

I think she means the ability to have folks in the first category but not the second - currently LJ only allows people to either be in both or in the first but not the second (the latter being what you mentioned re: filters, unless there's something about friend's pages that I don't know).

[regyt.livejournal.com]

Well, you can filter so that you're only reading a subset of people on your friendslist on your default view, and you can filter so that only parts of your friendslist can read certain posts. That offers all options, I think.

[brynndragon.livejournal.com]

Ah! Fabulous! I knew that you could view a filter of your friend's list via some thrashing about the site, but I didn't know you could set a filter as the default. Thanks for the info.

[regyt.livejournal.com]

No prob. Consider the info my thank-you for the time you let me use your shower (cos had dragged me over to your place). ^^

[sharp-blue.livejournal.com]

Yes, you appear to be entirely right. I never knew LiveJournal had that functionality.

I think that probably the next wave of software for the Web will be in this general field of social filtering. I'd like a system that would not just make it easy to find weblogs or journals that I'd like to read if time were not an issue, but also to read down inside those sites to select for me particular articles that I would probably most like to read if time is scarce (as it always is!). The former seems to be the problem that is under widespread attack at the moment, but it's absurdly easy to find oneself deluged by a flood of very worthwhile sites. The latter problem is much harder though!

For my part, I am trying to only post things to Sharp Blue (http://www.theculture.org/rich/sharpblue) that I think might be of interest to a large fraction of my readership. This, more than anything, is why my main site is primary and the (two) LJ incarnation(s) just for other people's convenience. I keep thinking that perhaps I will allow the two versions to diverge by including more personal material on the LJ side, but then decide that I don't think my life is interesting enough to be able to do this without alienating readers (it's certainly not as interesting as the lives of most people on my Friends list!). And in any case I have other outlets for more ephemeral thoughts.

[wispfox.livejournal.com]

Yes...

But what if you really dislike filtering your reading list, because then you tend to forget to read the people who you don't read regularly?

[bridgetester.livejournal.com]

Yeah. I have a problem with that... *sigh*

[wispfox.livejournal.com]

Yes! It does.