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Feb. 19th, 2008
So I'm up to my sixth "friend" on fanlib for no discernible reason. As can be intuited by my bafflement over this, I didn't acquire these people my asking them first. Three are in the fandom/reviewed my writing, so that's at least understandable. One seems to have friended me after comments on the forum, or at least that's my perhaps futile attempt to link cause and effect. One is the essay-writer, which is actually understandable since people trying to make friends after I'm mean is happens in a certain proportion of cases. So for the first five, I can make a certain guess as to the chain of events. Now I've just got a sixth after going on a short review-bender (my eyes bleed. Kids, don't write porn until you're only enough to capitalize the word "i", for the love of god). My initial impulse was that this was someone similarly bothered by the tendency to hoard capital letters expressing solidarity, but they're someone who writes summaries in all caps and doesn't bother spellchecking. So now I'm just confused.
It doesn't help that I'm not even clear on what friending means. I mean, yes, the livejournal version stretches the conventional description a bit, but it's a direct communicative medium and the way friending works on a practical level is relatively clear. Here, communication is done indirectly, through the medium of fic. Friending someone means that I see their recent comments. Why? I guess if I friended someone with extremely good taste I might benefit from this somehow. And since it also updates when arguing over a review, there's definite utility in tipping me off to start dogpiling. But both those things require heavy discrimination of "friends" accepted - friending those of less discriminating taste, or people I'm not inclined to dogpile for/who are not inclined to get into such situations that require dogpiling means I'm apt to miss out on the relevant, useful comments. It also seems utterly useless for anyone not interested in other people's potential recommendations or dogpiling in response to dissent.
Pretty much the only thing it does do is fill up the bottom of your page with a bunch of mini floating graphics representing your friend collection. While I appreciate the potential aesthetics of this, I'm still a bit confused as to the point of it all.
Edit: And I just got another for making a random comment on someone's thread at the forum. WTF people?
It doesn't help that I'm not even clear on what friending means. I mean, yes, the livejournal version stretches the conventional description a bit, but it's a direct communicative medium and the way friending works on a practical level is relatively clear. Here, communication is done indirectly, through the medium of fic. Friending someone means that I see their recent comments. Why? I guess if I friended someone with extremely good taste I might benefit from this somehow. And since it also updates when arguing over a review, there's definite utility in tipping me off to start dogpiling. But both those things require heavy discrimination of "friends" accepted - friending those of less discriminating taste, or people I'm not inclined to dogpile for/who are not inclined to get into such situations that require dogpiling means I'm apt to miss out on the relevant, useful comments. It also seems utterly useless for anyone not interested in other people's potential recommendations or dogpiling in response to dissent.
Pretty much the only thing it does do is fill up the bottom of your page with a bunch of mini floating graphics representing your friend collection. While I appreciate the potential aesthetics of this, I'm still a bit confused as to the point of it all.
Edit: And I just got another for making a random comment on someone's thread at the forum. WTF people?