I thought we were talking about how we read LJ.

You mentioned Blogger, so I thought we were talking about that too. Never mind.

You say you friendslock to avoid Google. Do you distrust them following the HTML directives? Or is Google shorthand for "any search engine, some of whom don't play nice?"

I'm a big old whore for feedback and kind of act like I'm a columnist on lj...I can think of maybe five posts this year I even locked(I did stop short of calling it Crip and The City.) That said, I have a comparatively tiny friendslist and if you're on it, you're a Buffista or in H:LOTS or L&O fandom...I've never really thought about the other readers.

How do you follow blogs?

I am not a Betsy, but I use LJ more and more extensively as an aggregator -- maybe half my friends list is RSS feeds of non-LJ stuff. If I have to keep going back to separate URLs, I'm pretty much guaranteed to never go back. This is partly an ADD thing and partly an "if I cared enough..." thing.

I look at individual LJs exactly once. If I want to read them, they go on the friends list. The only way I ever see people's painstakingly customized designs is if they use a style that also styles their comments pages.

Yes, I do equate readership with friending -- not because I imagine it's the only way to use the software, but because that's exactly the way I use it. Therefore, I'm surprised when people feel strongly otherwise. But it's a "huh" surprised, not a "burn her!" surprised.

No, I mean specifically that I friendslock to avoid the information being generally available. Friendslock is a (perhaps not very reliable) way for me to keep my diary out of general hands. I was under the impression that search engines couldn't (not didn't choose to, but couldn't) get to friendslocked posts.

who are the people I actually know.

And because LJ names are frequently vastly different from RL names or usernames in other communities, if someone friends me because we know each other, it would be nice of them to let me know, so I have sufficient information to choose to reciprocate or not. I've unintentionally blocked at least 2 RL friends from reading my personal posts because they never bothered to tell me their LJ names.

I don't read anything without an RSS feed because I'm lazy that way -- all of my blog-reading is done on LJ or Bloglines.

This is how I feel about friending other people's LJs. There's people here I might want to friend, but I haven't because I wouldn't want to get "too close."

And yet, I never feel the other way around. When I see someone has added me (and I've given precious little reason for anyone to do so, for a few months) I'm flattered.

I almost never lock anything any more, though. At the beginning, I locked everything. Now, I either say it, or don't. The few exceptions have been times that I've asked a question that I didn't want to ask the world (like, "Um, did I handle this okay") or something similar.

Speaking of LJ, does someone (Cindy?) really have a LJ-->buffista list out there? Because I could really use something like that.

I was under the impression that search engines couldn't (not didn't choose to, but couldn't) get to friendslocked posts.

They can't, but you can avoid compliant search engines without friendslocking, which is why I asked.

I use LJ more and more extensively as an aggregator

I aggregate in two places, LJ and Bloglines -- with some overlap. And then there are still blogs I visit by hand, because both aggregators mangle the presentation, and I like going round and visiting. In fact, sometimes I visit LJs that I've friended so I can see it in their format, not in my format, and not squished next to everyone else's. Aggregating kills browsing for me, and takes away some of the individual feeling.

I emailed Aimee a list based on her own FLs. I think when she had Em, she lost track of who was who. I am behind now, though. If I can find the email I sent to Aimee, I'll send it to you, but I bet there aren't any surprises on there.

The problem with LJ's setup is that friending both adds that person to your reading list, and allows them access to your locked entries. And to me, those two actions don't always go together. There are people whose blogs I find interesting who I don't think need to know about my personal life. (The solution is to add them to my Bloglines roll instead of my LJ friendslist, but it's not ideal.)