Feeling the need to say _something_

[andrewducker]

I just got unfriended by someone who's been on my friends list since, ooh, 2001.

When I first joined LJ I added a whole bunch of people I didn't know, anyone whose journal interested me, anyone who seemed like they might be a friend, if only they lived in the same place I did.

And then, over time, as more local friends filled up my friends pages, some of these people got moved off of my commonly viewed friends pages. They never vanished entirely, and I'd check in on them occasionally, but I don't spend _all_ my time online, and there was no way I could keep up with everyone on my friends list and ever leave the flat.

But it seemed churlish to remove people who had been reading me all that time - even if they weren't actually reading me back either (and I had no real way of telling). I almost never write friends-only, but I felt that preventing perfectly decent people from reading the posts that were filtered purely to prevent work/parents from reading them was a bit churlish. And so they sit there, largely unread, largely uncommenting.

Part of me feels like having a clear out, and reducing my friends list down to people that either _are_ friends, or are actually read by me on a regular basis.

Part of me thinks that I shouldn't make that decision tonight.

Comments

[flickgc.livejournal.com]

I'm fairly sure that I can't be the only person on LJ who actively doesn't believe in using a default view for reading: if you're on my FL, I read your LJ; if you aren't, I don't. I don't really understand the idea that you keep people on your FL but don' read them (it's ok, though: half my FL regularly tells me how wrong I am on the subject).

That said, there are some people on my FL who've been there for years and years. Some of them I no longer have anything at all in common with, and I do occasionally think aout ditching them, but I never seem to get around to it....

[onceupon.livejournal.com]

I read everyone who's on my friends list. I get behind sometimes but I don't see the point in friending someone who doesn't interest me on some level! So, you aren't alone.

[lilitufire.livejournal.com]

No, I do this too. I do admit to different skimming speeds though!

[sterlingspider.livejournal.com]

I read everyone. Everyone that's a discrete person at least (if I had to keep up with all my communities... yai!)

Sure there are some people I read with a little less probing depth, but I still take the time to at least get the gist of what they are saying and will focus in if it seems like something is going on.

[marrog.livejournal.com]

I do this too - I do have a filter, but it's for a set of people I'm friends with through a specific interest and they're still on my main (ie completely unfiltered) view - it's just a way to see just their posts when I need to.

[seph-hazard.livejournal.com]

Though I do read everyone on my flist (I think - I have filters set up so that I can split up different groups and sometimes people fall through the gap, but it's not intentional) the best argument for this is probably that there is a difference between having the time/energy/whatever to read someone's journal and minding weather or not they can read yours. I can certainly imagine not being arsed to read someone because they annoy me or whatever but not minding that they can see my (entirely flocked) journal if they want to.

[andrewducker]

I've got 527 feeds, communities and people on my flist. And there's no way I can read them all without removing a chunk of those.

I think a minor pruning is in order - but even that's not going to mean I can read them all all the time. I just don't have enough hours in the day.