Friends-only entries

[pne]

A while back on IRC, someone said something along the lines of "people who post friends-only entries are self-important and pretentious".

That got me thinking... there are probably many reasons why people choose to post things friends-only. I thought I'd make a poll to find out.

I can imagine that people might not want to have everyone else know why they choose to post friends-only entries, so I'm making answers visible to "none". However, I left a question in the poll "Is it OK if I announce your answers by name?"; if you answer "Yes" or "Only if it's a friends-only post" to that, then I may give your answers in a future post. Then those who don't mind if others know their reasons can choose "Yes" and those who would prefer otherwise can choose "No"; then random people will only see the aggregate statistics but who chose what.

Update: Answers are revealed in a new post I made, together with a brief analysis.

[Poll #114808]

Comments

[timwi.livejournal.com]

The "Any other comments" box was too small. :-p

I don't think I'll ever make a friends-only or private entry (with the exception of entries meant for testing, of course). I simply never write anything embarrassing or private in my journal. There is always the risk of someone leaking information from a friends-only entry, so I rather not take the risk. That might sound a little paranoid, but then again, I am quite open with my personal information and there isn't much that I'm hiding.

The purpose of private entries completely escapes me. If I wanted to keep something private, I'd store it on my own computer, and not in a database controlled by somebody I don't know personally. Again, sorry if this sounds very paranoid - it's not like I don't trust Brad or the employees or the abuse team members, but ... you never know.

[bride.livejournal.com]

I simply never write anything embarrassing or private in my journal.

That's exactly my take on it as well. If it's really that sensitive, I wouldn't post it at all. I'm sure none of the LJ Gang really have the energy or inclination to snoop with that many users, but it doesn't change the fact that it's on someone else's servers and I don't have 100% control over who sees it and who doesn't. This is why I won't get into specifics about work or sensitive stuff about my life, security levels or not.

I make private entries when I'm using LJ as a buffer or holding space for stuff between work and home =) And sometimes as a backup (I kept a text copy of my guest list for my wedding).

A lot of my custom Friends-Only filters are one user filters. I was discussing resumé edits with people and that's not public information.

Sometimes, I really want a reverse filter, viewable to everyone except a certain user or certain users. Mostly for surprise things - "hey, this person just had a load of crap happen in her life, how about we friends get together and raise some money for her so that she can get by until the next paycheque", that kinda thing.