Virgin Muse

[morgan_dhu]

For years I have sworn that I would not join LiveJournal. I'm already spending way too much time online, between the couple of Usenet newsgroups I hang out in, and the handful of mailing lists I'm subscribed to. But I could only hold out for so long, when my friends keep saying fascinating things in their LJ posts and I have no way to answer them. So, here I am, oaths trailing pitifully in the dust behind me, creeping into LJ and trying to figure out just how it all works.

Well, at least now I have an actual post on my page, instead of that blank slate. Will I post again, or will I just use my new status to flit hither and yon, sprinkling comments into the conversations of others? And does anyone care?

Say tuned to the next exciting adventure of Morgan Dhu in Journaltown.

Comments

[mishaslair.livejournal.com]

Welcome, Morgan! I find that I tend to do much more reading than posting. My journal is quite boring. I do enjoy user icons, though. :-)

Welcome aboard!

[plaidder.livejournal.com]

LJ only eats up as much time as you are willing to devote to it. There's a lot of LJ culture that I don't really participate in because I just don't have the time to get fully immersed. A couple newbie tips:

1. You don't have to friend everyone who friends you. I figured this out after a couple weeks. 120 people have me friended and no way can I read that many LJs. My friends list is basically people I know from ACIDIC, WOFlink, or some other venue, and a couple people whose journals I have gotten to know and enjoy.

2. Decide early on how you will deal with trolls and hostile comments. Initially my reaction was to just delete them all, my feeling being, "How dare you track your nasty troll feet into my nice clean foyer!" Then I eventually decided to leave them up and let everyone else respond to them, which is more fun anyway.

3. I haven't disabled anonymous posting, but you can, and that is one way of keeping the trolls at bay.

Yee ha,

The Plaid Adder

Re: Welcome aboard!

[xochiquetzl]

I have anonymous posting disabled and non-friends screened, which pretty much eliminates trolls. I've decided I'm too old and cranky for trolls. ;)

Re: Welcome aboard!

[morgan-dhu.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the advice. I'm starting slow on the friends thing - after all, the main reason I'm here, for now anyway, is because people I know are having all sorts of neat interactions I couldn't take part in. Now I can. So it makes sense to friend the people I came here to interact with.

I imagine I won't run into trolls much unless I start using LJ as a public forum, and writing some of my treasonous thoughts on the world as I know it in my very own journal entries. If/once that happens, I'll decide on a troll policy. Probably the same one I use on Usenet: ignore trolls, respond to people who might be legitimately interested in debate until they demonstrate otherwise.

[hawkeye7.livejournal.com]

Welcome to LiveJournal Morgan!