a question of LJ etiquette

[cellio]

I wonder what the correct behavior is in this situation.

Recently I was having lunch with some people (including a coworker), and I made an off-hand comment about LJ. (This was in the context of wondering what future archaeologists will conclude about us based on email, usenet, etc.) My coworker said something like, "oh, LJ... could be bad". I parsed this as "my coworker is on LJ".

This conclusion turns out to be correct. Given that, and the fact that this is someone whose journal I would find interesting (in a friendly way, not a snoopy way), do I: (a) add the coworker to my friends list, blatantly alerting said coworker to my presence and possibly causing this person to feel self-conscious; (b) read the journal explicitly when I feel like it but don't add to my friends list, possibly causing my coworker to feel stalked if this fact comes to light, or (c) forget about the whole thing?

Comments

LJ/Identity

[goljerp]

It's interesting... for one thing, although on the face of it "Goljerp" isn't really an identifier, it's been my nickname long enough that a google search would very quickly turn up my real name. (Of course, saying that, I had to check... yep, there it is, on Google's result page, no less. Not that I'm encouraging (or discouraging) you from doing that.)

I shouldn't publicly post anything that I would be upset to find my mother, my manager, my husband, my rabbi, etc reading.

I try to follow this model myself, although I guess that I do better on some areas than others. I think I've done a few "work stress" posts which I might not have made public if I knew, for example, that a cow orker or manager was reading in real time. In archives I'm not so worried because there aren't that many of them. :-) I've also taken up Tiger Lilly's custom of renaming people in my journal. I haven't yet (or have I?) started distributing misinformation about people, so, e.g. Reb Al probably would know who he was and therefore be able to deduce a lot of the other people I talk about even if I hadn't told him that I call his girlfriend "Radcliffe".

Re: LJ/Identity

[cellio]

It's interesting... for one thing, although on the face of it "Goljerp" isn't really an identifier, it's been my nickname long enough that a google search would very quickly turn up my real name.

Interestingly (perhaps), I wasn't motivated to actually try that exercise until you brought it up. I figure a user id is just a handle to someone I quite probably don't have any other name for, so knowing a "real" name doesn't improve anything. I just want to know the correct pronoun and how the person prefers to be addressed.

Re: LJ/Identity

[goljerp]

Interestingly (perhaps), I wasn't motivated to actually try that exercise until you brought it up.

D'oh! :-)

I just want to know the correct pronoun and how the person prefers to be addressed

Hm. Correct pronoun: Dr. ;-)
Oh, ok, "He/His/Him". But didn't you already know that?
prefers to be addressed: Goljerp. Well, I don't mind my real name, but since Goljerp is what I've used on-line for the last 10 years (!) I must not mind it :-)

pronouns

[cellio]

In your case, yes, I already knew. That's not true of everyone, though. :-)

Re: pronouns

[prejlog.livejournal.com]

Some of use like our privacy. :-)

Re: pronouns

[cellio]

That's fine, so long as "some of us" don't mind that I don't use PC pronouns (e.g. "hir") or ungrammatical constructs ("they"). :-)