Circles and circles and circles again (Or, 1:20am is no time to have thinky thoughts)

[lizbee]

How do you decide whether or not to grant access in addition to subscribing to their journal?  Is it appropriate to grant someone access without subscribing?  When subscribing to a stranger's LJ, do you grant them access, or is that a step to be taken at a later date?  How do you decide when you're ready to grant access?  Why does this series of questions sound like the sex queries in Dolly magazine?  Is granting access the new euphemism for getting your knickers off?  Why aren't I in bed?

Seriously, though, these are things I've been pondering lately, and I'm curious to hear people's thoughts.  Have at it.

Comments

[sashajwolf]

I prefer the list of people I read to be as close as possible to the list of people who read my locked posts, so I'm going to continue to subscribe and grant access at the same time, as on LJ. The only exception I'm making at the moment is where someone is on DW with OpenID and I already read their journal/blog in its original location; in that case, I'm granting access without subscribing. If my DW friends list fills up too much with cross-posts from LJ, I may also stop subscribing to that person on DW, but so far, it's manageable. (I don't object to cross-posting - I'll probably be doing it myself for the benefit of anyone who only reads me on DW - but I don't want to get swamped by posts that are turning up twice in two different places.)

[violetisblue]

I'm granting access to people I already knew fairly well on LJ, and at this point to anyone who grants it to me first because why the hell not. Just subscribing I'm doing with people whose journals I'd lurk around on LJ but was shy of adding, either because I didn't necessarily want them to see my locked entries or because I thought they'd look askance for whatever reason.

[violetisblue]

Also, cross-posting. Good, bad, annoying as hell? I feel like there's some etiquette here I don't know about, even though I don't even know if I'll cross-post.

[lizbee]

I haven't yet decided on cross-posting. I mean, I'm doing it now through Semagic, but when the site goes live, Dreamwidth's internal cross-posting will force comments to go through DW. This involves exactly the same number of clicks as leaving a comment on LJ, but I suspect people will baulk. (I would.)

But I like DW, and would like to use it as my regular journal, purely because I have more icons here.

[kerravonsen]

I got the impression that the "comments on Dreamwidth" thing was optional.

[lizbee]

Ooh, that's a bit clever! I think on the whole, though, I'm going to keep going as I've started. I just like the little "post to multiple journals" thing in Semagic, and watching it connect to LJ, Inksome and DW.

(Yes, I am a bit sad.)

[violetisblue]

I don't really see the problem with clicking through to comment here, but I have seen a lot of vocal complaints about it, yeah.

[lizbee]

I haven't seen any complaints that don't basically amount to "It's new and I don't like it" or "I am oppressed by my lack of invite code and openID is against my religious principles", but I can see how there'd be a psychological block against leaving LJ to post a comment. Irrational, but there.

[violetisblue]

Some of the complaints about Dreamwidth are so very "OMG elitist BNF cabal oppressing me" that my eyes glaze over. Seen it, seen it, seen it, seen it, seen it, seen it, seen it, taped it...

[lizbee]

I lolled at one comment saying, "At least DW is taking all the annoying BNFs away". It was in jennyo's LJ, you see. IRONY: BURNS.

[violetisblue]

Never was the phrase "good riddance" more appropriate.

[yvi]

Which is just great, seeing as getting invite codes from other users is just one method they are handed out - by April 30, all OpenID accounts with a validated e-mail will have received an invite code, or so I understood the plan.

[violetisblue]

They say everyone already registered will get a lot of invite codes to hand out on the 30th, or you can pay the three dollar fee and then keep a free account by letting it lapse, so, the guardians at the gate don't seem particularly stringent.

[azurelunatic]

I saw one, but that's very much out of the norm. I don't want to give too much detail, but in essence the person is very attached to LJ, and won't be migrating, and in fact have declined codes more than once. It would basically take LJ exploding for them to decide to leave, and a higher level of explosion than would dislodge the average person.

[musesfool]

Right now, I'm thinking I will (I am) grant(ing) access to anyone who asks (unless I already know they hate me or are a troll or whatever, but that hasn't happened yet), and I've subscribed to a few people I sort of know from LJ but never got around to adding, as well as everybody I've already got on my LJ flist. Because I rarely make locked posts or use filters, I don't really care so much about the access part - I can make smaller, tighter filters for more personal detail stuff, and for things like getting a ficathon beta or something, where I'd be filtering out the recipient or targeting only people in a specific fandom anyway.

So my give access list will generally be bigger than my subscribe list, because I don't read with filters, either, and so I like to keep the reading list manageable.

[gossymer]

This is pretty much my stance too. The lock on certain posts is usually to keep them from appearing on google searches and on the rare moment that there's an RL post, I'll filter it to close friends. I never wanted to do auto-friend backs on LJ since it would means reading through a lot of stuff I have no interest in (and I don't want to simply filter out people who might think that I'm reading them) This way I keep my reading list manageable and get to be more accessible to others :)

The only control system will be the comment/introduce yourself to be added to the access filter because I really don't want to end up with bots, trolls to.

I just wish there were a way to hide or collapse the access list in that case 'cause it will probably be multiple times larger than subscriptions D:

[such_heights]

My subscribe list will probably be bigger here than my access list for the time being (if this system got implemented on LJ, it'd be the reverse). I don't want to give access to complete strangers, and I'm subscribing to lots of new people right now. As I don't know what locked content I'll be posting here I haven't granted access in any kind of coherent fashion as yet, but I'll probably grant it in batches to anyone I know well enough (read: in passing) to feel reasonably certain they wouldn't do anything crazy.

[bethbethbeth]

I'm granting access to everybody who looks like a legitimate human. Most of my posts are public and in a little bit, filtering will work on Dreamwidth the same way it does now on LJ, so if I need to limit access on a post (like when I write about work), I can just use a filter.

Subbing? I'm subbing to pretty much the people I already know, but I'm adding a few who I've run across in fandom over the years but just never happened to friend before...but the access list is going to be bigger than the subscription list, at least for the time being.

[meril.livejournal.com]

"Is it appropriate to grant someone access without subscribing?"

Yes, especially if it's for a fic journal or for locked rants or something like that where the content is always locked but one isn't necessarily wanting to read all their readers. Consider it like the broadcast design profile here, except the broadcast is obscured behind one layer of security for whatever reason.

[lizbee]

I have to admit, I can't imagine why one would lock a fic journal. But then, I like my fic to get the maximum amount of attention.

I'm thinking more of RL friends or family, who might want to read my posts, but who only post memes in their own journal. (Obviously scrolling down is beyond my capabilities.)

[meril.livejournal.com]

I used to read in an RPF fandom where 99.95% of the fandom got freaked out when links to fics were posted outside of LJ and outside of slash fandom. So they locked everything tight. Unfortunately I don't feel like friending a bunch of people and giving them access to my stuff just to read their fics, so this grant access thing is right on for this sort of fandom activity.

(also the fics were, um, not worth friending people for, but that's another story)

[nonelvis]

I used to be a lot more casual about allowing people on my LJ flist, but within the past year or so have gotten much more careful about getting to know someone before friending them -- I bitch about all kinds of things on my LJ that I don't want available publicly, so I'd better be comfortable with you before you get to see that. (And even then, I have separate levels of filters.)

I hardly ever friend people back if they haven't bothered to comment on my journal, which in some cases (like when they're clearly just there to read my fic) seems perfectly fine. If they're someone I know I want to get to know better, I'll friend back pretty quickly. I always feel a little guilty about not friending people back, but Dreamwidth's separation of access vs. reading list should take care of that. (Once I have a full account, that is. Still waiting for an invite code to fall from the sky.)

Also, I think it's okay to grant someone access without subscribing. Subscribing doesn't prevent you from reading that person's journal; it just keeps it from showing up on your reading list. But that doesn't seem that different from just subscribing and putting the person on a different, non-default filter.

[kerravonsen]

My intent is to grant access to people here on DW who are already on my flist on LJ, and also subscribe to them, but subscribe-only to people who I've seen around from LJ because I do tend to keep personal stuff locked. It would probably depend on who actually comes over to DW from LJ, but, yes, I can see that there might be some people who I might want to grant access to but not subscribe to, but I don't think that's going to happen much. I expect my access and subscribe lists will shuffle around a bit as I see what kind of posting volume there is when things settle down here.

When subscribing to a stranger's LJ, do you grant them access, or is that a step to be taken at a later date?
For me, that would be a step taken at a later date.

How do you decide when you're ready to grant access?
When you've seen enough of them to think you're ready to let them see your private posts, when they've made sufficient comments in your public posts that you think they would be friendly in your private ones.

And what were you doing up at 1:20 am?

[lizbee]

Your thoughts pretty much accord with mine at this point. I do like that you can subscribe to someone without revealing at the same time that you've fangirled them for years and have print-outs of all their posts on your walls in a sort of shrine.

Not that I do that, but it's nice to have the option.

(And I was up at 1:20am because I finished work at midnight, got home around 12:45, and then took a while to settle down. I really paid for it yesterday, when I had to be up at eight to get ready for a party.)

[falena]

kerravonsen said everything I wanted to say, so a big fat ITA to her comment.

Btw, this falena84, in case you find the missing '84' confusing. I've wanted to ditch the digits forever and now I have. :D

[st_aurafina]

I've been giving access and subscribing willy-nilly, but almost everyone I've given access to has been someone from my flist back on LJ, and I rarely flock posts, anyway. I haven't really thought much about what I'll do when it's people I don't already know - I think kerravonsen's plan is a good one. I will probably go that way, when the time comes.

[elf]

I intend to grant access to a number of people I won't subscribe to; not wanting to read hundreds of journals, but not minding a wide set of eyeballs, is one of my big reasons for liking the read/access split.

I lock all job-related posts and a lot of fanfic. (For some values of "a lot." Over 70% of my fanfic, which is not much.) I have no problem with pretty much anyone I know online reading those; I just don't want to throw them out for the general googlable public. (I know I can restrict google searches. I do. It's not enough.)

It'll probably take me a couple of months to start seriously dealing with the access/read features; I want to re-set my filters, and maybe wait until DW figures out reading filters, before I deal with all that. Right now, I'm subscribing & accessorizing my close friends from LJ/IJ, and subscribing to a number of journals that I discovered on LJ after I made the switch to IJ.

[torachan]

I'm granting access to everyone who subscribes to me. That's what I've always wanted to do on LJ and couldn't because I don't necessarily want to read everyone who wants to read me. (Not that I make many locked posts anyway, but still, I figure if someone wants to read me, I want them to be able to read everything.)

[azurelunatic]

I am planning to subscribe to many people (mostly people who have added me first and look interesting) and grant access to people I know. On LJ, I was reluctant to add people because that gave them access, but then I didn't get to know them without adding. Vicious cycle.

(here via metafandom)

[pensnest]

I'm still see-sawing over how to do the access bit. One day I'll simply grant access to anyone I've friended on LJ who shows up; the next I'll think, no, I'll keep 'access' to a select few just in case I ever want to make a mostly-private post... I'll probably settle down with an actual decision soon, but in practice it makes very little difference as I hardly ever post flocked on LJ, and don't see that changing.

I love the fact that I can subscribe, and on DW am merrily subscribing to people who have interesting things to say, in a way that I didn't often do on LJ because of the 'friends' deal. It seems entirely reasonable to subscribe to mostly-strangers. Ain't terminology wonderful!

[senmut]

As I only rarely f-lock, I am being stingy with access to anyone I have not interacted heavily with. I'm keeping that access for when i do need to totally lose my cool, and don't want to bog down my reading list folks with it.

[emeraldsword]

I have not finished thinking about this one. So far, I've subscribed to and given access to the people I actually interact with. All the people I've friended for fics and/or meta, I've only subscribed to. It's not that I actually post anything which is locked, it's just that now there is an option it seems weird to force my private content onto someone I want to follow for their fic and don't expect to have any interest in me. If I later find that there is mutual interaction going on then I could always grant access at a later date.

[valentinite]

I haven't decided yet -- I haven't had time to really get settled in at Dreamwidth and post anything yet. But I've always used filters when necessary, and DW allows me to grant access to anyone who'd like it without making any promises I can't keep about reading. I post stuff f'locked on LJ occasionally because I don't want the entire internet to see it, but I don't especially care who exactly sees it, if that makes sense.

I'm also very much looking forward to the ability to read posts by, say, BNFs in a fandom who don't know me from Adam (and thus have no reason to grant me access) without having to feel like I'm impinging on their space. Adding them to my reading list without requesting any access granted is a nice way to do that.

I'll probably automatically grant access to anyone who subscribes to me unless there's some reason (spambots will find DW too). I might or might not subscribe to them.

[boji]

My current position is that I'm looking around to subscribe people whose LJ's I've been reading regularly - over and above subscribing to comms. My own LJ has pretty much been public, rather than f-locked (you can count the f-locked entries on one hand) but over here that may change. My dream-width blog may become a less public space than my LJ and it may end up being home to more than just meta, fic and thinky-thoughts on brit-telly.

*If* that happens, and it may, I'd like to start from a position where I was cautious about access.

But currently most of my blog is public - so viewable with a simple subscription.

PS here from someone else's reading page ;-)