About LJ etiquette

Over the past few months, there have been a few times when folks on my friends list asked other folks on their friends list to do/not do this-or-that. Often it involves the proper use of the cut tag.

Now, I think we all know the value of the cut tag for photos and quizzes (those pics take forever to load) and memes and long entries of all sorts (because, hey, they take up a lot of space). And spoilers--that's just polite. After all, most of us here are in one fandom or another, and would like to enjoy things as they come. The war is a special case, I think; Cassie made a good case for why cut tags on war-related entries is a good thing to do.

BUT.

I'm concerned about the "please cut your entries about things I don't care about" request. Hey, we all have varied interests. But the scroll bar is also your friend. Skim, people. Kissaki and Rhysenn have been talking about almost nothing but LOTR for months. I couldn't care less about LOTR. So, I skim. I read the first sentence and then scoll on by. It really doesn't take very long.

Also, I think that if someone is saying something that you don't want to read, it is likely more effective to TELL THEM DIRECTLY than to make vague posts to your entire friends list about it. It is always true that the people you were actually scolding are clueless enough not to know you mean them (after all, they were clueless enough to do whatever it was in the first place) and the people you didn't mean get freaked out and wonder if you are mad at THEM. It just causes confusion.

And before you say that I am guilty of this--I mean this entry to be an advisory to everyone, but it is a direct response to something Alex said. Which I replied to in HIS LJ, and which I am not going to go into here.

Basically, I do reserve the right to talk about things I am involved in, especially if I make it short. Which I will do in my next entry.

Thanks.