A General Question

[madshutterbug]

Basically, it's a question about maintaining one's LJ, particularly as I get to a point of interest to contemplate paying for a membership.

There are several communities I'm interested in. I subscribed briefly to one of them, but the volume of postings made it, not difficult, but time consuming to get to the entries from individuals I'm most generally interested in reading when I peruse LJ. There's also the Filters function. So, it seems to me this is the tool I need to investigate solving this dilemma.

General question first: how many of you utilize filters for this or similar reasons?

I'm contemplating this plan:
Create a "General" filter; this includes the people who I'm most often looking at on my current, unfiltered Friends view. Set this up to be the one I use, and I'm in business as usual right now.

Set up a couple of "Community" or "Commune_(subject)" filters; these will include the particular communities of interest. Switch to this filter when I want to skim the communities. Since some of them are graphic intense (photographic communities) this would be most often only when I'm directly connected to the Internet rather than via dial-up out here on the Ranch.

Comments

[jeliza]

That's exactly what i do -- I have "mustread" filter for just my close friends (the pressed for time filter) a "people" filter, a "communities" filter and a "arty" filter, which is people and communities that tend to be pic-heavy.

[fatfred.livejournal.com]

I'm on several communities, but I just click the button where they don't post to my web page.
I am a member, I can post to them at any time, and when I want to read them, I just click on "Your Friends" on the sidebar. The list pops up and I can click on which ever comunity I want to read.

[thatwordgrrl.livejournal.com]

I have two separate community filters (a first-tier for ones I want to keep close track of and then a seconc-tier for ones that I need not watch so carefully).

[marjai.livejournal.com]

The primary reason I have a filter is because there are a few folks that I consider friends (I want them to see my friends-only posts) whose posts I don't care to read on a daily basis (feminazi rants; weekly posts consisting of "Fuck You!" in large, friendly letters; you know, drama).

I use the Default View filter for this purpose.

[starcat-jewel.livejournal.com]

I don't want to start a fight in someone else's journal... but have you ever really considered the implications of the term "feminazi"? To me, using that word simultaneously trivializes the very real horrors committed by Nazi Germany and demonizes every woman who calls herself a feminist. There are some feminists with whom I seriously disagree -- but none of them are Nazis.

[marjai.livejournal.com]

I didn't mean to offend, starcat, for which I apologize.

[starcat-jewel.livejournal.com]

So far, I have the following filters: "Default View" (name used by LJ), which contains most of the individuals I read; "Groups", where most of my communities and feeds reside; "Secondary", where I keep a few people/groups who tend otherwise to overwhelm my pages, or who I don't necessarily want to read daily for reasons similar to the ones marjai lists; "Texas" and "Houston", which are posting rather than reading filters and should be self-explanatory.

The other thing I do is keep a folder of LJ bookmarks, which contains links to most of my communities' home pages. That way I can go directly to that community if I want.

Oh, and I also have my journal set to default to using placeholders instead of photographs on my Friends pages -- that saves a lot of download time even over cablemodem. If I want to look at a picture, I can just click on it.

[singingnettle.livejournal.com]

Oh, I have a zillion filters. The relationships I have with various people on LJ aren't one-size-fits-all, and even though I don't post anything that isn't more-or-less public, I still target posts towards people whom I think will be at least marginally interested in them.

Thanks, Everyone

[madshutterbug.livejournal.com]

OK, I have already started on building those filters! *G*

Just as a FYI (more because it fits my misquoting that "Like Minds work in Great Circles," which is a geographic pun):

I've been keeping those communities in an LJ bookmark folder on my laptop. Indeed, quite convenient... except on those day when for some reason I don't bring my laptop to work. There are still times during the day when I may visit LJ while at work, even those communities which might be Not Work Safe. Then my LJ Marks Folder doesn't help me much.

And, I clued into picture placeholders a while back; also a feature of convenience. Even with only a few LJ friends posting graphics regularly, it still helps in a big way on that 26.6 modem connection. *BG* When I start looking at photographic communities, it get's significant (which is one reason I've not joined them yet, and probably will still view them from home only occasionally).