Poll/discussion: friends-of-friends

[elusiveat]

One of the shifts in internet culture that has occurred over the past ten to fifteen years is the degree to which people are willing to make their ideas public. This is notable on Dreamwidth, where a lot of accounts are locked down entirely, and it can be hard to make new connections (certainly harder than it used to be on Livejournal).

An idea I've heard kicked around as a possible middle ground for privacy would be to allow a privacy level that was visible to people trusted by the people you trust, or possibly separated by more degrees of separation, something you might call a "friends-of-friends" access level (though the "friends" nomenclature presents problems of its own). I believe this exact setting exists (or existed) on Facebook, but with the number and (number of different types) of people I had on *my* Facebook friends list, I regarded that option as essentially meaningless, so never used it.

The situation might be different on Dreamwidth or similar platforms.

What do you think?

Poll #21013 friends-of-friends

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: Access List, participants: 28

If Dreamwidth offered a friends-of-friends access level, would you use it?

Yes
6 (21.4%)

No
9 (32.1%)

Maybe
13 (46.4%)

Mu
0 (0.0%)

Do you think a friends-of-friends access level would be a good idea?

Yes
13 (48.1%)

No
4 (14.8%)

Maybe
9 (33.3%)

Mu
1 (3.7%)

Discuss.

Comments

Re: Pseudonymity

[jducoeur]

Actually, I don't think I've ever written about this stuff non-publicly (it's quite rare for me to lock posts), but it's scattered around. Some is in The Art of Conversation, some in my personal LJ (all of which is now here on DW), some on G+ (which I stopped using ages ago), and much (probably most) was in the now-abandoned Querki Development Journal over on LJ. But no, it's never been curated...