A question about LJ ethics.

[kutsuwamushi]

Hypothetical situation:

You're friendly acquaintances with someone online. You like this person a lot. You think they're funny and get a kick out of talking to them. You're not close, though.

Sometimes this person is socially awkward in communities. They have an annoying behavior that is getting noticed. It's nothing awful; just something that violates the social norms of the community in some small way. Maybe she often posts comments that are tl;dr. Maybe she has a pet subject, and always must comment when someone mentions it. Maybe she overshares. Little things like that.

As far as you know, no one has said anything to her directly, and so she probably has no idea that she's coming across badly.

The only reason you know people are annoyed is that sometimes you see friends-locked entries about her.

Do you say anything to her?

I know that for a lot of you, the answer is probably "no"; you don't share what's behind a friends-lock at all, ever. It's as if that post does not exist at all outside of the small circle of people with access to it. (Or I'd probably hear more about myself, hah.)

For others, you might say something, but only in a very vague way. "Some people think this is annoying," for example. Or you might say something, but pretend you came up with the observation on your own: "Hey, this might come across differently than you intended..."

Personally, I don't know. I know it matters to me whether or not it's possible to guess who might have posted a friends-locked entry. For example, if I had only five people on my friends list, the answer would be a definite "no," because even if you could only narrow it down to those five people that would be, in my eyes, compromising someone's privacy.

What would you do?

NOTE FOR THE PARANOID: Yes, this is totally about you.

Comments

[fyredancer]

If it's gotten to the exceptionally awkward point, as obviously it has with people ranting in locked entries, it might be a good idea to offer feedback on behavior you personally have seen. It's definitely not "on" to share specific examples from locked and/or filtered entries.

[kutsuwamushi]

You mean by specific examples, something like... "someone has complained about this thing you did, they said it was annoying"?

Because yeah, I definitely agree that's getting way too specific. On the other hand, "this specific thing you did is annoying" is a specific example that doesn't say anything about who thinks it's annoying.

[juliet316]

I do have somewhat of a tendency to overshare, but that's usually when it comes to myself, and I've really shared anybody else's problems (maybe once or twice privately on IM with a mutual friend to enlist help to cheer our mutual friend up) and NEVER have I shared anything on an Flocked post. If it has gotten to that point, yeah I'd try to say something. Politely if possible, more bluntly if they continue not to get it.

[caltastic]

I think there's a difference between sharing specific access-locked content and using the presence of that content to verify one's own feelings about particular behavior. I think that approaching the Social Awkwardmobile with "you know, people think you're X" is definitely privacy-wonky, and you should instead use the people thinking X as an opportunity to affirm that yeah, maybe they're a little X, and go with your second option, and say "perhaps you should rethink that, it could come across as a little X."

I think when people are that awkward they often genuinely have no idea that they come across as X, and are willing to work on that behavior if it's not presented to them as an everyone-against-them hatey kind of thing.

[ashenmote]

Option the third. I mean, if you disagree with the way she is judged in the locked posts, then there's no point in attempting to address her behavior, but if you yourself see a problem with it, you might as well use that as your starting point and leave the friendslocked gossip where it belongs.

Like, it doesn't really matter if people are annoyed, what matters is if there's anything wrong with whatever she does or not.

/the world is totally simple

[kutsuwamushi]

You mean frame it as your own observation, right?

Like, it doesn't really matter if people are annoyed, what matters is if there's anything wrong with whatever she does or not.

I think that's a good way of putting it... but on the other hand, there's the question of whether you think they would want to know. Even if there's nothing "wrong" with their behavior they might change it if they knew they were getting a bad reputation for it.

And so much depends on circumstance as well. Especially if it's a pattern; if I'm not in many of this hypothetical person's communities, I might not be in the position to evaluate their behavior for myself. Some things are only annoying or noticeable as part of a larger pattern.

[ashenmote]

Yes, that's what I meant, I numbered them in my head.

But should they modify their behavior if the bad reputation is based on, well...what, if there wasn't anything "wrong"?

But yeah, I hear you on patterns.

Another side is, when I take my own 'annoyed posts' as a yardstick, they are regularly 1/10 actual annoyance mixed with 9/10 desperate clinging to a rare opportunity to connect with my friends about something other than the fact that my cats are cute. Makes me hesitate to take the annoyed posts of others terribly serious.

That said, it does make me very uncomfortable when people I like hate on other people I like*, but I don't think I'd ever do something about it. I don't know, I just don't expect I could make the hated-on person more palatable to them, no matter how I would go about it.

*blahblahgeekfallacycakes

[leora]

I would be inclined to say something, because I know I would want to know. Nothing though that hinted at friends-locked data, because keeping privacy is important. Something like:

I thought you should know that you do X in communities sometimes, and while that's okay if you want to, I just thought you should know that I've found that many people tend to respond poorly to X and find it annoying.

You can add in a "I don't mind it myself" if that's true, "but I wanted you to have a heads up so you could decide if it's a good idea or not."

It is very, very difficult if there is no reasonable way you could have noticed this yourself though. I would probably be inclined to ask a friend who is annoyed to tell them. They might not be willing (for all sorts of reasons), but I'd definitely be inclined to try.

Annoying people with no feedback from them about it is a horrible situation to be in. In fact, someone letting me annoy or harm them on a regular basis without informing me that I am doing so is generally something I consider to be a huge betrayal of my trust in them if we're close. I wouldn't want to generally stay too close to someone I couldn't trust to let me know about such things. Although I would, of course, take the circumstances into consideration.

[lady_ganesh]

I like these suggestions, and maybe there's a mutual friend who would be willing to be the bad guy who's annoyed but not that annoyed?

IF IT'S ME JUST TELL ME

[phosfate]

Listen to the 'mote.

Unless there is something criminal or harmful going on, don't play with locked posts. They can backfire on you. There was an incident a year or two back in which someone made a very long, detailed, locked post about another user and How They Had Wronged Her. She apparently expected that someone, somewhere would break the flock and let the subject know what she had said. She could then enjoy hurting the person, while simultaneously being a victim of her false friends' inability to keep a confidence.

No one did, because, as it turned out, her friends were not big jerks. This evidently disappointed her, so she re-posted the thing a couple of weeks later, unlocked. Public reaction was not supportive.

If your friends have a problem with something this girl does, they can darn well tell her themselves.

[kutsuwamushi]

If your friends have a problem with something this girl does, they can darn well tell her themselves.

Well, they'll have to, because after making this post, I couldn't say anything anyway, even if it wasn't hypothetical.

[lookninjas]

I would say "frame it as your own observation," if you can. It gets the issue in the open without that whole "Oh, and all these people are talking about you behind your back!" thing.

[herongale]

I feel this particular Mark Twain quote is applicable here:

"It takes your enemy and your friend, working together, to hurt you to the heart; the one to slander you and the other to get the news to you."

So, yeah, basically I agree with Ashenmote. What matters is whether the behavior bothers you, and you can address that as yourself without needing to reference anyone else. If it doesn't bother you, or doesn't bother you enough to say anything about it anyway, then let her work this thing out with those people on her own, IF they ever find the courage to complain about it directly instead of bitching about it beyond flock. (I'm not necessarily opposed to people complaining about others beyond flock, but it's already kind of dodgy behavior to begin with, ya know? Don't get involved!!!)

[ymfaery]

*waves at you*

I probably should pop out of the hermit hole more often, if only to do stuff like find people to add on DW. ;)

Ok, I have to agree with the 'Mote and everyone else who says you don't need to say anything if you're not bothered by the behavior. Or even if you don't witness the behavior first-hand: that was my main problem with all the wanks a few years ago involving a person I still have on my LJ friends' list and who I've also added on DW. I didn't share many communities with this person--I connected with this person on their journal, so I didn't have any clue about their behavior in other places until it showed up in the wank communities. And even then, I could tell some of the "wanky behavior" was actually problematic wording, for lack of a better phrase. (And possibly some grudge, but YMMV.) Said person didn't get wanky on their LJ much, and on the rare times they did, and if I was feeling social that day, I would comment on it. (Although there was a memorable time one of the commenters kind of jumped on me over something I said, so I just went "blah" and wandered off.)

If other people have a problem, they should (politely) say so. You shouldn't feel the need to say something if it doesn't personally bother you.