[discussion question] filters

[wisdomeagle]

Anon is on, IP is off (by default, in fact). Comments are not screened.

What strategies do people use when putting together trusted/close filters (or second journals, etc.)? I know whenever I've created one, and I've created a few over the past six years, usually to discuss a particular moment or crisis, I've flailed around issues like:
+How long I've known people.
+What context I met them in.
+How much of their lives I'm privy to (especially wrt, am I on their trust filter, if they have one?)
+How much their experience is likely to resonate with mine, wrt, whatever it is I'd like to discuss.

(e.g., hypothetically, if I were putting together a filter about life-with-girl, it'd probably skew more towards the people I know are in long-term relationships or are heavily invested in glbt identity; if I put together a Lent filter it would look very different and contain my practicing Christian folks.)


I know that I'm on some of y'all's trust filters and assume that I'm not on others, and I know that being on a trusted filter often makes me feel closer to the poster -- I think I'm also more likely to read filtered posts in depth, because I feel honored to be allowed to read them.

So, discuss!

How do you decide who goes in your trusted filter(s)? How do you decide to add new people? What kinds of things do you filter? Have you generally had a good experience with filter? Have people breached filter?

Do you use opt-in filters in addition to/instead of what I'm calling trust filters? If you use both, what's the difference in content, in tone? Do you feel a level of safety in an opt-in filter that you don't feel in the unfiltered flock?

Do you have any thoughts about being on filters?

[for the paranoid and/or the curious, I've been thinking about these questions for awhile, in response to a wide array of phenomena I've observed. So it's not inspired by anything seen in the past fortnight, and it's not about you.]

ETA: some more questions: if you use "real life" as a criteria (either a filter only for real life people or a filter excluding real life people), how do you decide where that line is? Do people cross it?

What's your reaction to the discovery (by whatever means) that you're not on a filter?

In your experience, do some segments of the LJ population tend to use filters more than others? (Does it correlate to age? gender? purpose on LJ? profession?)

Comments

[piperrhiannon.livejournal.com]

I don't filter, except for the occasional friends-only post. I do have one filter that's specifically for one person, that I've only used once for a particular circumstance. Beyond that, my journal is pretty mundane, and I figure if someone's not interested in a topic, they just won't read the entry.

[sangerin.livejournal.com]

I have a pile of different filters. (You're on all but a couple of fandom-specific ones, btw, and you might actually be on one of those because it's a writing/editing/publishing filter - that I haven't posted to in a long time. Anyway.)

I suppose I select people for filters on interaction, gut reaction... I've got a couple of opt-in filters, but the rest (not kidding about the pile) are purely my own decision. It's about trust, and how much I feel I know the person, whether I feel that they will be sympathetic/interested... there's also the RL angle, and how much I let some RL people know. Also, in the case of one LJ and RL friend, the closeted angle.

As far as I know, no one has ever breached my filters. But I will say that I feel more hurt when someone who is on a "tight" filter defriends me without notice (which has happened twice in recent months). Mostly because these are people that I felt I have had enough affinity with, built up a sufficient level of trust that I wouldn't defriend them without notice (except that I have, as a result of them taking me off: in one case totally, in the other, just taking them off what are essentially tight "trust" filters).

I should be more careful about some of my "trust" filters than I am. But in the case that I'm thinking of, I really do trust the person (whom I know in a vague sense in RL, not just in LJland, although that's where we met).

I think my filters are relatively well marked, but I also tend to try not to refer to "tight" filters (or comments/discussions on those filters) on "less tight" filters. Although that's also a function of who is in on the tight filters and who isn't, and some RL issues.

And I"m worried that I'm now just babbling.

[secondsilk.livejournal.com]

I don't have any regular filters.

I friend lock some things that I don't want real-life friends to know - people who knew me before I got into fandom and who would then know things that my other close RL friends wouldn't. (I can be some what pecuniary about things like this.)

For things that are usually friendslocked, personal problem type musing and self-searching will be filtered to mutual friends, partly so it's restricted to people who will see it, and so as not to impose on people I've friended to read who haven't friended me back, if they come by to check me out.

I will include people on a filter if I feel its something they should know about me, given what else the know about me and what I know about them. If it is something I feel they will understand. If I want their input/experience. I have a filter for people I've met up with through House fandom and another for the HP-con organisers.

It's harder than I'd like it to be, so I tend to avoid them. (Now I'm thinking about how I think through it now.) Sometimes something will happen and I will want support/input, so I'll create a filter for it.

[jamie-dakin.livejournal.com]

Well, I'm not sure if this is relevant but I only have an 'Israeli' filter for some local/political issues as well as military related stuff while I was still in the service (and the occasional posts in Hebrew).

I agree with what you said about feeling privileged to read filtered posts, though I've never been very conscious of what demographic the filterer (surely that should be a word) has decided I belong to.

I've actually always very much enjoyed the fact that you tend to cover various subjects in every post - and despite, or rather maybe because of the fact that I'm single and non-Christian - the girlfriend/Lent subjects are all the more fascinating to me.

[cheshire23.livejournal.com]

I have a handful of filters, many of which are not seeing active use right now.

I have a large friendslist that is a mix of people I've known IRL for years and people that I know from H_E or other communities.

I have two different women-only filters (one is everyone on my flist that I know to be female, the other is more of a selected-based-on-instinct). I also have a general-purpose subfilter that evolved over time, consisting of people that I know aren't likely to dump a lot of negativity on me when I'm trying to work something out. (About 90% of my househunting posts were on that filter, mostly to avoid a few specific people that couldn't seem to say anything nice but that I knew IRL for a long time and didn't want to un-friend.) I used to have a locals-only filter, but then I moved, and now I'm not sure how to define "locals".

I also have an H_E filter and an SCA filter but seldom use them.

tl;dr

[that_mireille]

Disclaimer: I am a very, very private person in many ways. Even on the Internet. That's what's healthy and happy-making for me. So filtering my posts only to people I feel like telling about whatever it is? Second nature.

I have posting filters. Some of them are no big deal--I have a beta-reader filter so that my whole flist doesn't see the beta-reading requests and get sick of them (but also so that I don't have to turn down people I don't want beta-reading my work, for whatever reason (usually because while I like them, their beta-reading skills are not, in any way, mad). If someone breached filter on that, I wouldn't care. It's not a filter for my protection, but for my flist's reading.

I have three trusted filters: two general ones--a filter for talking about RL (primarily school/career-related) issues, and an even more general one--and one very, very tight one. (I also have a filter that is just for my girlfriend--but it's because we used to co-write together in locked LJ posts (we use members-only posts in our fic community now), not because she's my girlfriend.)

I filter my RL posts to people I trust to not connect too many of my RL details to my fannish identity anywhere in public. I recognize that some good Googling would connect the two in a heartbeat, but I'm hoping to not make it ridiculously easy, you know? It's a fairly big group, and most of the people on my flist who aren't on it are people I don't know all that well yet. (Because of the nature of my school/career plans, I have eliminated a few people who tend to be rude about that, as well.)

The other big general filter I have is for more fannish stuff. Again, the only people on my friends list who aren't on the filter are people I don't know well yet and therefore can't yet be sure they won't be wanky and obnoxious. I don't use this filter much, but sometimes when I rant, it goes to this filter.

And then I have one tiny filter (there are only a handful of people on it) who are people I trust absolutely. Stuff that I would honestly consider deeply personal and (mostly) private goes there. Most of the people on it, I've been close to for years--not just known and liked them, but already felt *close* to them for several years.

I don't use opt-in filters with the exception of things like the beta filter. I don't have TMI/sex filters, and the other thing I see those used for a lot is for triggery stuff. Most of my triggery posts go only to that tiny, super-trusted filter, anyway, and even there I cut-tag them with warnings.

I know that being on a trusted filter often makes me feel closer to the poster -- I think I'm also more likely to read filtered posts in depth, because I feel honored to be allowed to read them.

Sometimes--often--it does for me. Sometimes not--there've been several people who've put me on their trust filters and it just makes me uncomfortable. These are people I don't know well, only interact with via fic feedback (usually mutual, not just one-way feedback), and don't feel like I've made any real connection with them. I'm not comfortable knowing that kind of deeply personal information about someone I don't yet know on a superficial level, and sometimes I wonder what would make someone choose to share such highly personal stuff with someone whose conversations with her were nearly all, "Nice story," "Thanks."

What's your reaction to the discovery (by whatever means) that you're not on a filter?

I... don't care? I mean, if I'm on a trust filter for someone I consider a real friend, and then suddenly I'm not on it, I wonder what I did wrong, but in general, I'm okay with that.

[such_heights]

I use filters, mostly to avoid repetition between journals and to filter my RL friends out of certain things when I'm being especially introspective.

With the real life friends thing, that has occasionally got tricky, as one of my RL friends has quite a lot of mutual friends with me, and so in some ways I'd like to include him on posts but can't because it'd be odd to just share info with him that I don't with any other of my friends back home.

[raisintorte.livejournal.com]

I use friends only as my default for RL and pictures, and I include everyone I have friended on that. I'm kinda lazy, and I tend not to friend people back if I don't think I can mention my RL to them.

When I post about my job on more than a "job is driving me nuts/making me happy" or things that are super personal, I have a filter that includes people who know exactly who I am in RL and exactly what I do. But I think I've used it twice? I tend to just use the flock.

I have two fannish filters, as I have different sides of fandom on my flist and I know some like things that others don't. I don't use them much.

I have very different relationships with everyone on my flist - if say my best friend had a filter and I wasn't on it - depending on the context - I would probably wonder what was going on. With 90% of my flist though, I figure if they create a filter about an aspect of their life, it's their choice who to share it with. If they either don't know me well enough or don't think it's something I would be interested in, then I'm not going to get upset.

Good luck!

(ETA to make first paragraph coherent)

[zulu]

I have a SOOPER SEKRIT FANNISH FILTER that I use when I want to complain about other people being idiots, or when I'm worried that I have been/am about to be an idiot and I need advice. These are people I've known for a while and whose fannish sympathies are closest to my own. I've never had a problem with people breaking flock.

I use general flock if I'm talking about RL, especially people who aren't on livejournal at all--classmates, job stuff, and so on.

I also have a rolling flock policy. As the years pass, my earliest entries go private, and my less-early-but-still-a-while-ago entries go friendslocked. All fic and meta posts stay public, and it leaves me with about a year and a half's worth of public posts, but it keeps my embarrassing moments to me after some time. Obviously this doesn't stop googling for things that weren't private to begin with, but I don't know, it makes me feel better.

I used to have a beta flock, so that I could post unfinished things to only a few people at a time, but now I prefer googledocs for that.

[inlovewithnight.livejournal.com]

My biggest criteria for making a filter is if I have a perception that the people I put on it won't be judgemental, dismissive, or rude about the topic I plan to post under that filter. Knowing them in real life or their closeness to the topic are much less relevant than my impression that they will treat the posts respectfully.

[yhlee.livejournal.com]

I have a "trusted" filter mainly because of my illness (the bipolar thing). Even though it's public knowledge that I'm bipolar, I'm not comfortable sharing all my bipolar musings, therapist session notes, etc. with the world at large. I also feel...hmm, what's the word...shy? about it. Almost scared to bore people with things like to-do lists and so on. And in the worse parts of the cycle, I can be both very verbose (frequent posts, although I do cut-tag) and not very coherent.

Mostly the people on my filter are there by virtue of having been there for years, now. I do add people from time to time as seems appropriate, with a note that they can always opt-out with no hard feelings. (One person has done so, and it was for a reason not related to me.)

I don't mind being/not-being on others' trusted filters. I mean, I keep a (relatively) small f'list, and if I'm reading someone, I care about what's going on with them...on the other hand, I trust their judgement as to whom they feel it's helpful to share personal things with, y'know? If I'm one of those people, I am honored, and I'll do my best to be a good listener and be supportive, is all.

[lunabee34.livejournal.com]

I do not read or post with filters other than friends lock and I never have. Part of the reason is that I don't ever post things on my lj that I would feel uncomfortable with the people I've friended knowing. I don't do nearly as much personal posting as most of the people on my flist. The times that I've had something important to say that couldn't be said posted to the world at large, I've used email. The other reason I don't use filters to read or post (especially to read) is that it feels like a big ole hassle. My definition of lj friend is "person whose posts I usually do not want to miss." If I friend a person it's because I want to read his or journal and I do so, even when I don't comment. I've been on lj for three years now and my friend's list is still under sixty (and a lot of those 60 post very infrequently). I don't think I know anyone who's been on lj this long and still has such a small flist. LOL

It never bothers me when people don't choose to put me on a filter; in fact, I probably don't even know about it if I'm not and that's okay with me. In real life, I don't expect a casual acquaintance to tell me about her affair or her abusive dad or her struggle with religious belief and it doesn't bother me or surprise me when a casual internet acquaintance doesn't want to either.

I am on several people's trust filters and like you say, it does make me feel honored to know this person trusts me and my opinion. I do pay a little more attention to those posts than unfiltered personal posts.

[poisontaster]

I don't think I really have any special criteria for filters. I don't filter a lot, though. I have my second journal antarasheart for personal journaling and I only have one filter on there for my 'inner circle' of friends, the people who I feel like I could tell ANYTHING. And everything else is posted pretty publically.

And I have a couple filters on this LJ, but they're mostly related to birthdays and I don't use them much at all. Mainly I think about the purpose of the filter, ie. the people I can tell anything, and then I go down the list and figure out who I think those people are.

MOAR THOUGHTS: It does feel good to pass muster and make it onto someone's trust filter though, yes. Though I have to admit I don't think it would bother me any--with most people--if I wasn't on their filter. If it was the people I thought were my closest friend, it would probably bother me, but a lot of my flist is just...folk.

[malnpudl.livejournal.com]

I very rarely filter posts. I'm lucky that I have no reason to separate my RL and fannish identities, as neither I nor anyone close to me could be harmed by someone connecting them.

I have one opt-in filter for people who said they wanted to see my nude pics (from back when I looked good that way *g*). And there's a "guest list" filter for people I'm comfortable inviting to visit my home. Other than that, it's mostly open posting, aside from f-locked media sharing.

I do appreciate being on someone's trust filter. I'm honored to be included. But I'm not offended if I find I've been excluded. People have their own comfort levels and make their own choices. This is supposed to be a safe and happy place, and whatever supports that is okay.

As for subject-matter filters... if I like someone and feel close to her, I'm usually interested in pretty much everything about her life, and would be pleased to be able to read posts about even those interests and aspects of life that we don't share. Again, if it feels comfortable to the person posting, which is always the determining factor.

Occasionally I wish I had the opportunity to opt out of certain fannish content -- if anyone ever wants to filter me out of their bandom posts, for instance, I'm totally cool with that. But that's about it.

Not sure that helps you much, but there you go.

[squirrelyjones.livejournal.com]

I filter based on "it is my journal and my life... do *I* want this person to see this entry?"

If you're doing the opt-in thing, I want in on it all, even if it seems to be something I'd have little to no interest in. I love reading about people's lives, even if/especially if they are different from my own. (This is assuming, of course, that it's a filter you want me to be able to see.)

What an interesting question

[thelastgoodname.livejournal.com]

I (extremely rarely: about a dozen posts over three years, most of which were nothing more than identifying information about my grad school or dissertation complaints, to a filter that included people who were also in grad school at the time or had recently been in grad school) use a filter based on "real life knowledge" of a sort. That is, there are two filters: one is confined to the above noted sort of people -- at the time about five people, all of whom I have home addresses or phone numbers or some sort of identifying information about, and all of whom were, as I said, either in grad school at the time or recently had been in grad school (maybe ten posts, all during the last panicked days of my dissertation); the other is confined to "people I don't mind knowing my real name or home address, should they possess superior Google-fu" (maybe three posts. If that).

"Real life" is confined to people that I wouldn't mind meeting, or people I have met. People I would be comfortable introducing to my grandparents, people who I would trust to watch my dog, that sort of thing. (Not that I ever would ask a random person to meet my grandparents or watch my dog, but should the opportunity arise, I trust you'd make a good impression or at least make sure my grandmother had plenty of food and water, and maybe a dog treat now and again.)

But the more compelling point, for me, is that I just don't post that sort of thing on my journal. I'm much more likely to express personal thoughts in a comment on someone else's journal (like the contents of this comment: I would never put this sort of information on my journal, for reasons that I am actually fairly unclear about).

I like being trusted, of course, but it turns out I hate opt-in filters from other people (I don't use them myself, for exactly this reason -- although I am actually interested if anyone would ever choose to opt-in were I to make the offer) -- because that's not a trust issue. When I say I like being trusted, it's because you (the generic you) feel that I am someone you can tell personal sorts of things, that you trust me to keep your secrets and be supportive and all that. Opt-in filters are awkward to me, because I shouldn't be making the decision about who you trust.

Not being on a filter can feel strange if I would have trusted someone else with secrets and then discovered they didn't return the sentiment. But mostly I figure it's not really about me; there are a lot of reasons to add or not add someone to a filter.

(In other completely unrelated news, I have in the past few weeks spent $35 on stationary and $30 on a pen, in preparation for my campaign to write more -- or rather, actual -- letters this year. Thus far, I have written no letters.)

[alixtii.livejournal.com]

I have lots (well, no, not really, but some--aside from the journal-only view the only one I ever really use is what I commonly call my "extreme filter") of reading filters but only one real writing filter, called the "Real" Life Filter (yes, with the scarequotes) which consists of everyone I went to high school or college or (in the case of ladyphoenixmage) elementary school with, as well as some fans I trust implicitly and don't mind if they know my legal name/professional identity. (This actually needs to be updated as, for reasons I'll not discuss here, I've had reason to tell a few more fans my legal name.) While any mention of grad school beyond the fact that, you know, I'm a student gets flocked (this includes discussions of what happened in class, details of my commute, etc.), anything I think could connect the identities in a fairly direct matter gets filtered--but these are actually quite rare (and usually identified when I post that way). Where I went to undergrad, and vague comments about what I did there, are totally public knowledge.