LJ Idol Presents:

Frist? Perks of being eliminated..;)...it's a community. It's a community where bonds form in the midst of voting each other out! :) ...So true and that is something I love about Idol..when I entered as a newbie I was welcomed with open arms..and it was an amazing feeling to belong to a place & added bonus was I got feedbacks.

Edited Date: 2016-05-05 02:51 pm (UTC)

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I'm really glad that you've had that experience.

My hope is that everyone is made to feel welcome.

(There are always going to be people who don't get along - but I'd like to think that even in those extreme cases that Idolers can still be adults about it!)

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ellakite.livejournal.com

You now have all the perks of being dead to me: The cookies are all yours. Enjoy them.

I feel more than a little guilty about not being able to participate in the LJI community since my elimination... but I can honestly say that I haven't had the physical energy to really contribute for the past few months. (I suffer from a moderate case of Seasonal Affective Disorder, and that combined with some other mild-to-moderate health woes and personal drama has taken the wind out of my sails for the last few months.)

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Sorry to hear you're feeling low. Do you use one of the SAD lights? I truly truly believe they work wonders and are well worth the money. If you are on the computer, or sitting in one place reading, whathaveyou, and the light is on....it can make a difference.

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ellakite.livejournal.com

No, I don't have a light box. The problem is that I don't think my health insurance would pay for the thing, and the last time I checked it cost several thousand dollars to buy a "therapeutic grade" device!

I have been taking Vitamin D supplements, which help a lot... but not as much as I'd like.

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*nom-nom-nom*..thanks for the delicious cookies..:)

Sorry to know that life's being tough..hope things settle down for good soon and it's nice to see you around here, so try dropping in frequently.That should definitely cheer you up.. (actually it cheers us up for sure... selfish motives here..:P) ;) Tc.

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ellakite.livejournal.com

Thanks for the invite, but me trying to post stuff when I'm "in a mood" does *NOT* tend to cheer me up. On the contrary, it tends to make me frustrated and angry... at myself. I freely admit that's not a logical, rational reaction, but it's what happens to me.

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I stand by what I said in email: I would have been perfectly comfortable with the inclusion of Facebook in Idol if it had been made clear that Facebook was going to be a large part of the contest from the get-go. It would have given me a chance to either play under an alt or change what I had been writing so that the tie between me and what I was putting out for Idol was less personal.

I'm not opposed to Facebook. I am opposed to a community with a real name policy becoming a large part of the competition this late in the season, when I had written really personal stuff and wasn't comfortable linking this identity to Facebook.

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I'm glad you did mention it, the Real Name policy is actually something that I hadn't considered.

I still say it wasn't a "major part" of 6 month competition, an one week "name a topic" that was likely to be seen by people who either were already a part of Idol (past and present) and some of their friends. BUT when reading that, and the messages from other people that followed, I think I made the right call in calling it off.

That said - there *will most likely* be similar events in the future. Just not anywhere with a Real Name policy, and I think I'm going to go ahead and say that current contestants are illegible, just to address the "too much influence" concern. Like I said though, I'm still working this out in my head. Details when, and if, they actually happen.

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It felt pretty major, honestly—because contestants could participate, and could potentially influence the vote/get "their" pet topic picked (giving them more time to think about it/potentially giving them more time to write, though that seems to violate the spirit of the law, to me :P ).

I don't really mind the idea of participating somewhere in name space. I'd probably end up participating under an alt, and being more open with the writing bits of my life. But it needs to be something frontloaded. I think that social media could be a great part of Idol, and I love what's being done with the Twitter presence—I'd just like some warning, you know?

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I think you do a great job of balancing things, and yes-- it evolves over time.

Facebook is a serious issue for me in that you can't have alternate identities there. If I could, I would probably keep up better with a few of the people I met at LJ who migrated there. Though... I am linked to one of them, who used to write the most thoughtful posts and stories, and whose feed now looks like, "Cheese sandwich for lunch today! Awesome!" :(

So, that's the main issue there. I don't think prompting people from the Idol page to read and vote hurts-- to me, that is different from an individual's friends-list, where people may not read anything other than their friend's story. And yes, I realize we can't do anything about that. Thanks, LJ!

Because it's a competition. But it's a community. It's a community where bonds form in the midst of voting each other out! :)
You jest, but it's so true! *sobs*

Oh hey, you forgot the gratuitous Happy Cinco de Mayo! Which was not even a thing I knew about before moving to California. I still find it kind of weird, TBH.

Today, it's looking more like Cinco de Thunderstorm here, but I predict there will still be people drinking beer and sampling salsa anyway. ;)

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For me it's Happy Grayson's birthday.

(Grayson was my first cat - well, the first one I had as an adult, so he was "mine". He's long since gone, but his legend lives on!

(NOT Grayson in the icon. But also a cat who has a legend that has lived on.)

"Most famous" exploits include him being locked in the bathroom (he was unfixed and aggressive at times (when I say "my cat", I mean "my ex loved cats and convinced me that she would take care of him) while we were gone. It was a rundown old place, so when we got home - he was waiting for us *on the front step*.

He had *busted a hole through the door*, pulled open the french doors, knocked a hole in the screen and then pushed open the metal louvers on the window just to get outside...

It wasn't the first time he got out. Nor was it the last. Mostly he just got his butt kicked by a kitten and then wanted to come back home, where the food was.

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o_O

Damn. That was one dangerous beast!

Though I love the name. :)

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The first day we had him, I stayed home from work to help him adjust.

He would hide in a dark corner, lit from the back - and when you looked for him, all you would see is the pointed "bat ears".

Combine that with his almost immediate love of jumping on the rungs of the bar stool, and the name was a pretty obvious choice.

(picture also not Grayson. Although this one is still around)

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As I said above, I'm glad people mentioned the Real Name policy. I knew of it, but really didn't see the potential impact until it was brought up.

I'd like to think that I did it in a way that would limit that fear BUT just showing up like that I think it caught a lot of people by surprise. And while surprise inside the game is good, that was adjacent to the game and had the potential to go bad. So I'm glad that I pulled it.

"that is different from an individual's friends-list, where people may not read anything other than their friend's story. And yes, I realize we can't do anything about that" If I could force people to read more Idol entries, I would. :) I'd be doing them a service!

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Well..er...I am an alt on FB, LJ, twitter, google...just saying. Teo is not my real identity and I do have two FB accounts.

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My partner also had a separate "business" account that he used with clients and a personal account he used with friends (all on Facebook, obviously :) ).

Facebook ended up suspending his personal account because he used a nickname instead of his real name. They didn't want to give him access again until he verified his identity by scanning in a copy of his state-issued ID (which has his real name) and agreed to go by his real name on Facebook.

He's not the first they've done this to, either. Previously their real-name policy was that you had to use your real name, period—and they were very specific about what kind of identification they would accept. This led to a lot of First Nations and trans people being forced off Facebook (because the ID they had wasn't ID that Facebook would accept), and while they've done a bunch to remedy that (there's now specific rules regarding people who are LGBTQ, an ethnic minority, or a victim of stalking/abuse), there's still not really a good middle ground for people who have a valid reason for not using their real name.

All it takes is someone reporting you. You can get around it for a while, but piss off the wrong person and you can find yourself locked out of your account.

I struggle with what the "right" decision is re: Facebook. Ultimately, I have an account, because it's useful to me in a lot of ways, but I end up filtering a lot of what gets posted. I have a bunch of very specific filters set up so that no one can see anything I don't want them to.

The issue then, for people like me, becomes public posts. Facebook's algorithm lets people know when you have commented on or "liked" public posts (or sometimes, depending on the comments, even comments on public posts). Anything that is posted to an Idol page is public. If I participate in those posts, I am potentially outing myself to people I would rather not have know that I'm active on lj. It's not hard to guess, looking at the community, who I am, and there are people in my life who would be curious about Idol (and whom I would rather not have flipping through my journal).

I've made the decision not to directly link my lj presence to my Facebook presence. It's the same reason why I have a private-locked Twitter account. It's clear if you see all the pieces, but I try not to bring things together all in one place, and participating in things like the topic comment contest would do that.

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Ah..well FB is stricter there than here I guess..or as you are saying its matter of time. I respect your decision of staying anonymous. It gives a lot more freedom to express.
I personally think a topic suggestion wouldnt hurt much if done with little modification as suggested yesterday. ( like if the week wasn't mentioned or it was started earlier in the game)Its just a topic you can choose to ignore. ( Gary's already removed it...so now it doesnt matter)
Secondly arent people from FB voting here? Aren't people who are on FB already have a fair deal advantage over who are not? Won't they be asking their friends to vote for them? ( It comes with the territory, I would say...and yet good writing is what wins in the end..is what I want to believe.)

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I don't think topic suggestion could be too bad if it was blocked from current contestants competing, and the week wasn't listed. (Less chance of someone going, "yeah, I'm totally going to write this"—and it means everyone gets a chance to see it, think about it, and decide if they're going to write it or not :) ).

The fact that people from Facebook can vote here and that people can essentially pimp their entries to get votes is something that hasn't really sat well with me. I occasionally share polls on lj, though, so, you know...glass houses and all that.

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"glass houses and all that"

A really good Billy Joel album.

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Yes-- the sharing of your "likes" and comments on other posts is one of the other things I really don't like about Facebook.

To them, it's all an opportunity to learn more about you and better try to sell you stuff (or help vendors/products you 'liked' sell stuff to your friends). But that is not why I would want to be on a place like Facebook!

There's just way too little flexibility with regard to privacy there. Also... the content even from my friends-list isn't really what I'm looking for. It is so often banalities buried in banalities. As opposed the occasional banality buried in a more interesting post, which is more like LJ. ;)

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As opposed the occasional banality buried in a more interesting post, which is more like LJ. ;)

Hahahahaha!!! Skip the banality, but keep reading. Hee!

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Hey, it's not as if I'm not also talking about my own journal entries. ;)

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We should challenge each other and flisters to see who could pen the most banal LJ post!!!

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Real Life badfic!

Though if it's badfic, it might be funny, in which case that might shine some of the dullness off the banality. And therefore fail. :D

My son used like to randomly add "I like cheese" as a comment to virtually everything, which kind of hits the mark. It was probably a meme at some time that I wasn't even aware of. :O

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We could definitely amuse ourselves!

I like cheese - perfect! But, is that a banality or an inanity?

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I think it's both!

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