For me, more of a DW bug than a feature

[jay]

I'm not enamored with the split subscribe-access approach on DW... to me, this form of communication feels like a conversation between myself and those on my [friends, access, subscribe]-list. Which is inherently a dialogue. If one side or the other isn't listening, or not allowed to speak, that impairs the flow of data and ideas and leads to an imbalance between the individuals.

So if someone subscribes, but doesn't grant me access to their journal, it sounds to me like "I don't trust you enough to let you know much about my life or thoughts." Conversely, someone who grants access to me to read their journal, but doesn't subscribe to mine, seems to be saying "You aren't interesting enough to me to be worth my time reading, but I don't care if you look at my journal."

Neither of these, to me, are pleasant. Tolerable, for moderate periods of time. But I may at some point ask for either mutual communication or none, so an advantage of LJ over Dreamwidth for me is that is more or less enforces that symmetry in communications as its default, making life easier and less stressful for me. Better than periodically purging unbalanced access-subscription-paired users, with the potential there for hurt feelings.

Comments

[plymouth]

I rather agree. The only time I could see doing a "subscribe" without an "allow" is if it was some famous person I didn't really know and didn't expect would care about reading my journal because they have 50 million subscribers and couldn't possibly read all of them.

[wordweaverlynn]

Another problem with it is that it's relatively easy to check one box and not both. Which I assume is why you've given me access but not subscribed to me.

[jay]

Heh. Actually, I thought I'd checked both originally... and when I bring up the "Manage Circle" page it shows me both are checked... but for whatever reason something isn't updated when I save it.

So another problem could be unintended software bug-related asymmetry?

[tried it a third time, it seems to have taken, yet you still don't show up in my Reading Circle, sigh]

[wordweaverlynn]

That's weird. Let me post something as a test.

[jay]

Thanks -- I can see it now. I don't know what was going on before...

By the way, sorry I missed your party (and actually meeting you, after six years) but Pat had inadvertently double-booked with a play-date for Kevin and his friends, so I stayed home to be the parent in charge.

[dangerpudding]

on the one hand, sure, it seems silly. on the other, there are folks I read who never read me... and folks who I'm happy to have read my writings but, for one reason or another, I don't read theirs or don't always read theirs. At least it's obvious under this system, rather than the silence of reading filters or the default view on LJ. Never useful to believe that someone is reading everything you write in any case. :)

[jay]

(nods) true, even partners/sweeties can't be assumed to read *everything* one writes. Or that I'll catch everything they post, even on my smallest reading filters.

I'm not sure that making it obvious under this system is necessarily a good thing, though? One may not really be reading [friend]'s journal very often, but what's gained by being brutally honest about it?