CatEcumen the Ecumenical Cat

One of the things I like about the design of Dreamwidth is the redesignation of what has been traditionally called "friending" at LJ and its clones, and the clarification of the difference between subscribing to someone on a reading list versus claiming that person as a personal friend. "Unsubscribing" doesn't sound as rejecting as "unfriending," either.

As a recent article about following a celebrity on Twitter noted, following someone's public postings doesn't mean that you know them, although it can create an illusion that you do.

I have subscribed to a number of writers/bloggers from fandom who have created journals here, and the majority of those are people I don't know IRL at all, and therefore can neither like nor dislike, trust or mistrust, value or fail to value as individual human beings, but whose posts I simply enjoy reading. Most of these will not be given access to whatever non-public posts I might make here in the future (haven't made any yet), nor will I expect access to their non-public posts either. I am hoping that Dreamwidth is going to be a sufficiently sophisticated and understanding environment that there won't be lots of drama happening as more and more people who join will do what I'm doing here, setting up a reading list of people who have interesting things to say that I would like to read, without claiming that they are somehow my personal friends just because I like to read what they write.

Still, if anyone is offended that I subscribed to you, please do feel free to let me know. Thanks!