musings on the meta

[the_siobhan]

I've been having an onging discussion with the_axel over the last few weeks about the design of LJ and how I think it often serves to encourage really bad behaviour. Or maybe "encourage" is the wrong word. I think it creates a climate where certain kinds of bad behaviour are really easy to do and so people tend to stumble into them without maybe even realizing what they are doing.

If I understood the debate correctly (it usually happens over several beers) Axel's stance is that it's not the fault of the tool when somebody uses it badly. Whereas I think that by configuring tools in a certain way, you encourage certain kinds of use. Kind of a "if the only tool you have is a hammer, pretty soon every problem starts to look like a nail" kind of situation.

And I think LJ is a particular kind of hammer.

I've seen friends behave in ways that made me squirm with embarrassment for them, at how high-school and immature they were being. And I know they are doing it because they think they can't be seen, that invisibility makes it ok or at the very least harmless. I've seen people manipulate the facts or just flat-out lie to make themselves look like the victim and the good-guy. And I knew that they were doing it because it's really easy to get stroked and have people outraged on their behalf if they bend the facts just a little bit.

There are entire communities who exist solely as a forum for people to be assholes. And the people who post there encourage and applaud each other for their assholishness until everybody starts to think that such behaviour is normal and acceptable. And then they start tracking it out into the rest of their interactions with the world like dogshit on a sneaker. The entire childfree community is a prime example of that particular flavour of bullshit.

And it's not that I think that people don't do shitty things in person, or through other types of communication. It's the LJ seems to be ideally suited for that particular kind of nonsense, with all the filters that let me choose who reads what I write. Or I could just slag people off in public and ban them from being able to defend themselves. And it's tempting sometimes. I hate that shit, it makes me break out in rants and still sometimes it's tempting when something has happened that has pissed me off. I could do it by email but it's so much more effort that it just doesn't occur to me. On LJ it's just a point-and-click away.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not on a LJ suxOrs kick and I'm not about to delete mine. I love the fact that I can have a little rantlet like this and get discussion and feedback from all kinds of people. But I'm occasionally tempted to leave LJ for some other kind of blog format, just because I don't like how high-school it can be at times.

And calling the reading lists "friends"? Dumbest idea ever.

Comments

[inulro.livejournal.com]

There's a number of people I thought I liked till they got LJs, for the very reasons you list.

I've always had a low threshold for Drama Queens, IRL and on the net. There is no Drama in my life. I have worked long & hard for it to be that way. Dragging it into my periphery is not welcome. I'm on an even shorter fuse these days, as I work with two 40-somethings who seriously behave like they are 12, all day, every day, so anything that reeks of the playground sets me off. Coincidentally, the only people I ever say bad things about in my journal are my co-workers, because I have nowhere else to vent (Jason's heard it enough).

My "friends" list consists of a few people that I have not only never met IRL, but I have no idea who they are. I've come across them reading friends of friends' stuff (which on its own apparently makes me into the biggest arsehole in the world according to a certain subset of LJ users) who write well about interesting things. I treat it as "people who have interesting things to say"

[hirez.livejournal.com]

AO-fucken-L.