Mr. Cranky

[furtech]

Having nothing more interesting to post about, I'm going to list my Top Three Things I Hate About LJ:

Number One: Calling it a "Friends List". I hate that. Why can't they call it a "Contact List" or something less personal? I thought the joke of calling it a "Stalking List" was funnier and more accurate. Calling it a "Friend" list turns the casual adding and deleting of people into a traumatic/guilt-ridden event. Some of the people on my lists are actual friends: people I actively know and trust and associate with (ie, -friends-). Some are people I find interesting and enjoy reading their interesting posts (potential friends maybe). Some are just good writers or creatively fascinating. I've stopped adding people just because they add me: I'm not interested in a popularity contest or counting coup. And I've deleted people because I have discovered little in common with them or for reason's #2 or #3. Deleting you doesn't mean I don't like you any more than adding you means I love you.

Number Two: Animated icons. I find some of them very clever and amusing...for the first ten seconds. Most are just pointless (just because you CAN do something doesn't mean you SHOULD). I often leave a LJ window open on my screen and animated icons (especially those with garish, extreme animation) are about as enjoyable as having a fly preen itself there. I wish there was a way to freeze the screen so they just stop.

Numbah Three! Oblique posts. Hate 'em. "I'm working on a totally kewl, super-great costume but it's SEKRIT!" or "Something VERY SIGNIFICANT will happen today...but I can't talk about it" (and then they never explain later) or "!!!!!111!!! OMFG!!! !!!" and the like. Hate'em hate'em hate'em. I also hate "We're having a party (tee-hee) and [in-joke, in-joke, in-joke]!!! Hehehe!" where only people they are currently IM'ing or ICQ'ing have ANY idea what's going on. What's the point?!? You can do anything you want to in your journal...but I don't have to see it on my scroll! Dink!

A somewhat minor quibble (relative to the above) involves not knowing when to cut. If a post is going to take up the better part of a screen page or more, *please* cut it! And give the cut tag a title that hints at what the content is! Here's a helpful hint: instead of just using "lj-cut" use this instead: "lj-cut text="Cut off here". Thanks!

Comments

Why I added you

[toraneko.livejournal.com]

I've seen your work and admired it for years and you are friends with a lot of my friends. I don't expect you to add me but I enjoy reading your journal.

I hate the "friends list" thing too. Some people actually think we are friends just because they read my journal. Crazy.

Re: Why I added you

[furtech.livejournal.com]

Now I remember who you are! Heya!

PS

[furtech.livejournal.com]

...*baps* you for the animated icon!

Hiyas right back !

[toraneko.livejournal.com]

I really liked your rant on SA. That's what caught my attention. Well,and the pic of the dog of war. *L*

Re: Hiyas right back !

[tcreynolds]

What what what's all this about a rant on SA? That furtech made? I missed that!

Re: Hiyas right back !

[martes.livejournal.com]

I think it was the one about Doodles posting shit about costumers and furries on SA.

[okojosan.livejournal.com]

Mr. Cranky! :D

I don't really care about the friends' list, though I think the LJ people are working on callng it something different, and dividing it up so that you can read people's journals without letting them see your friends-locked posts. Supposedly it will be changed at some point in the future.

As for animated icons- I hate animated user icons, but small animated mood icons don't bother me. If you really detest them, though, Mozilla has an option to allow animgifs to play once, then it halts them so they don't endlessly loop.

And yeah, oblique posts? Blah. I don't respond to them. I try not to post any, if I'm upset/angry I post WHY, or I don't post at all.

I try to use LJ-cuts if I'm typing more than a paragraph, but I often get the sense that people don't bother to click lj-cuts. :P I use that to my advantage, though. ;D

[furtech.livejournal.com]

I would be thrilled if LJ made those changes...though I suspect that (as useful as it could be) the one-way friends peeping will also cause hurt feelings and tears all around. Bwa!


Your icons are usually appropriate (like the happy okojo) and well-animated (smooth, not jarring) and small. Auryanne's drooling octopus-thing is also so subtle that it's inoffensive. I use Mozilla now (mostly thanks to your recommendation!)-- where is the option to have animgifs run only once?!?

FWIW, I love your posting style. They're relevent, pithy and well designed. I wuv you.

[okojosan.livejournal.com]

Edit->Preferences->Privacy&Security->Images should get you where you need to go. :D

You are a Goddess!

[furtech.livejournal.com]

Thanks! Worked! I'm buying many crickets for your death-bug!

[diadexxus.livejournal.com]

I have always hated it called "Friends List" you are right, "Contact List" or something would work.

I wish more people would learn the lj-cut text="whatever" code and USE it. :) a huge quantity of lots of pictures in a post is very annoying.

-J
PS: I set my icon to a static one just for YOU :)

[furtech.livejournal.com]

"PS: I set my icon to a static one just for YOU :)"

Luvs you!

On the gripping hand…

[typographer.livejournal.com]

Weekend before last Edd Vick was berating me because I use lj-cut text= at all. "I don't want to have to click an extra time to read what's going on!"

No matter what we do, it will be less-than-perfect for someone. *sigh*

True...

[furtech.livejournal.com]

...but think of this logically: Edd's reason is sheer laziness. if he didn't click on LJ cuts he wouldn't get any excercise at all! However-- cutting serves an additional useful purpose for those people looking at LJ through a PDA or phone or a dial-up.

At least my gripe can be backed up by more than just the number of heart-attacks caused by an extra *click*!

[beerhorse.livejournal.com]

As a perpetrator of #3, sometimes there's just stuff you're not ready to talk about, but you need to get the build up off your chest. You have no idea how much those two cryptic posts helped me to just release some of the energy and tension surrounding the issue. It's sometimes good to just get that out so you're not so focused on it. Folks who talked to be about it off LJ got the whole story, this place is just a release for me.

[furtech.livejournal.com]

I thought that's what your Sushimare journal was for? Your Beerhorse journal (AFAIK) was your art-and-light-posts journal.

I guess it's a matter of what kind of a tool we see LJ as: I see LJ as a place to meet interesting people and communicate efficiently with them, as well as a way for long-distance friends to keep up with each other's lives. The key for me is the efficient communication part. "Yay it's my bird's birthday!" may be a frivilous post, but it still imparts information and a snapshot of someone's life. "I've got a secret!" is just (to me) a tease and more alienating than interesting to me.

All that being said, good luck with all the possibilities!

[kubo.livejournal.com]

*laugh* stalking list.. that's great :D Hey I hear ya though.. I'd rather them call it something else too. Maybe something like 'reading list'.. I dunno. But anyway, I agree. I've seen way too much drama surrounding adding/deleting. Like life really needs to be taken that seriously :D

[furtech.livejournal.com]

"Stalking/Stalked-by" was the Live Journal site's April Fool's Day prank: everyone's "friend/friend-of" list was re-labeled "stalking/stalked-by". Far funnier (and more appropriate!)

[brokkentwolf.livejournal.com]

ACK! You are my bane! Take more animated icons you heathen! :)

[furtech.livejournal.com]

*baps* you with a pine-scented air freshener!

(And haha! I've turned the Mozilla setting to one cycle only! Now your icon looks like it just had a stroke or something!)

[chrissawyer.livejournal.com]

I hate it when people post some ICQ conversation they had. I have absolutely no interest in crap like that.

Adding contacts?

[mythos-amante.livejournal.com]

I think having the option of calling it a "contact list" would be great, and maybe I'll get that option when I start paying for LJ (I don't know!). I added you, Furtech, and Chris Sawyer, and a couple of other people whom I don't really know all that well yet on the basis of: friends in common, interests in common, and kinds of work and creativity in common. Plus I very much admire your work, and think that learning about your experiences can influence me positively, considering we're likely to run into similar sorts of experiences where our worlds overlap.

In a way, adding people who are friends of friends is how I keep track of other parts of these interlaced communities I'm involved in so that when a mutual friend brings you and your work up in conversation, I can be appropriately appreciative and know whom they're talking about.

So that's where I come in on this "friend's list" thing. :)

-Tessa

Re: Adding contacts?

[furtech.livejournal.com]

Welcome! Frysco's told me about you: nice mask work! People like you are what makes LJ cool.

Wow!

[mythos-amante.livejournal.com]

:. :D Cool! Thanks so much, Furtech!

What a cool welcome! Thanks!

I learned about you and your AMAZING work from Diadexxus! I can't see enough of it!

[westly.livejournal.com]

If you use IE you can press the "Stop" button...and all that animated stuff stops.

::Grins:: Or, do the thing with the thing and make it play once.

And I generally add people to my "friends" (I'm not a fan of that either, I wish we could change it like we can change everything else on the journal part) so they can read my private posts, if they are unintresting people, or we have nothing in common, I delete. Nothing personal, just conserving time/space.

[tcreynolds]

"about as enjoyable as having a fly preen itself there"

Hahahaha, I know where you got that idea! (Oops, being oblique!)

[furtech.livejournal.com]

erhg? Where -did- I get that??

I need to have you draw a Mr. Cranky user icon! (Then again, most of my user-user pics are cranky. Maybe I need a "sympathy" logo for serious situations.)