I post when there's something noteworthy.

Fair enough but what constitutes noteworthy as opposed to just, "Well that didn't happen yesterday."

Twitter is actually exactly for that purpose - short, snippet updates as often as you like. I certainly wouldn't consider it inappropriate to post that way on a site which is designed for it.

As for what people say on here... eh. I have a few artists where I have a mental note not to read anything written in the description or on their journals, and it's as simple as that. I don't have to scroll down that far or click that link, so I don't. Simply put - don't care so much. ;)

Sure an endless stream of journals about nothing gets irritating but if they don't care enough about what the responses may be, then I don't either. Journals are easy to ignore.

So true. Journals are easy to ignore but they aren't meant to be. I think it rather akin to sitting across the table from someone who is holding a conversation with you whilst showing you their artwork or what-have-you. Ignoring their journals is rather akin to saying, "Right, look, I don't care about you, just give me the goods."

It almost seems more fair that I say, "Look, I've listened to you for a while now and your work is good but you as a human being are so repulsive that I really can't stand to be around you. Good art isn't so rare that I have to put up with your crap specifically to get it."

I really really enjoyed the movie Mystery Men but I can't stand Janeane Garofalo and my distaste for that woman is so strong that I can't watch the movie anymore. It's kind of like that, but on FA there are so many MORE people who are so much WORSE than Janeane Garofalo.

     Hmmm. I'll note in passing the irony inherent in having a problem with people who journal
too much, the problem being so bad that the only way to cope is to post a journal
about it.

     Please tell me that made you snicker. It was intended to (and at least did it to me. :- ) )

     Don't do many journals myself, since don't often have anything of serious importance I'd like
the folks who watch me to know. Obviously, 'serious importance' is not a criterion that has
much currency on FA. Lotta journal glut over here too.



     To get rich selling overpriced pills, we must invent a disease first. Journalitis: The powerful
compulsion to fire off a blizzard of intolerably useless trivia every ten minutes in the
belief that your watchers are your friends.

     At the root of this syndrome--oooo yes, gotta call it a Syndrome--is the fear that if you stop
hopping up and down and wiggling your cute poofy tail in their faces, your watchers will stop
being your friends. This is an uncomfortable metaphor, given what a lot of furs look like
in RL, but let it stand, let it stand. The first two letters of fantasy are FA.



     Of course, many people's watchers *are* friends. And journals are correctly seen as micro-blogs,
and deployed as such with gusto. To hell with information content, journal glut stems
from using journals to try and maintain those friendships, chatter, chatter, chatter. And
incidentally easing the nagging and un-easeable anxiety that they're actually
all ignoring you.

     My dog ate another mouse. <Click> Post. Ahhh. I'm part of a social group. I feel wuvved.
What, it's only been five minutes? Lessee: My cat ate the Buick. Wotta furball she horked
up. <Click> Post. Ahhh...

     I think that's what's going on for most folks, to one degree or another. Least it'll look
good in the promotional brochures. How are you doing with the product packaging
design? :- )



     Not to make you pass out with shock, but I'll close by dropping a constructive idea on you. Take
the word 'watcher' and morph it into: Subscriber. Now take the word 'post,' and pound on
it until it becomes: Publish.

     Micro-blog my short tail [that I haven't got]. I took one look at the journals and thought, say, they
have something like this in RL, don't they? A way of sending out lotsa copies of information to
lotsa people at once, what was it called...?

     Oh right: A NEWSPAPER!! (pant, pant)

     Journal is the root word of, wait for it... journalism. Consider applying the word to what you're
doing with journals, and see where it takes you. Just cuz we're on FA, writing a journal doesn't
look like an act of publishing. But it is. Just without the advertising revenue (Damn it,
who's the crazy person who built this place?)



     To be succinct for once, is what you wanna publish [in journal] newsworthy? Will your subscribers
be interested in it? If yes, run that sucker at six. If no, spike the story. There'll be another one
along soon enough. You have your criterion. Or at least it's worth a try?

 fwbrown61


(PS: Still a fan of the pill idea. To quote Pink Floyd, this could be made into a
monster if we all pull together as a team. Look out, Pfizer, gonna take a
chunk outta your scrofulous ass. And we've got the fangs to do it. :- > )

In your second to last paragraph you have I think distilled the wisdom of the ages.

Would that most people were self-aware enough to realize that what they're doing has been done before, likely with more aplomb, and that perhaps, learning from the examples of the past might aid one in keeping subscribers/watchers/whathaveyou in the future.

I love reading your screeds, Fred. Always good for a grin.

     Y'know? All I can see is a business model--possibly a lobbying firm?--and a business name:

     Screeds-R-Us™

     If you feel the need, the need for screed, we're your knife-equipped rhetorical tiger. Short,
but a tiger. We slice, we dice, we chop logic into tiny little bloody bits of semiotic
goodness. Mmmm. Taste that dialectic.

     We'll dazzle your target with the footwork, confuse 'em with the brilliance, then hand you
their tail. If you want us to take on Fox News, tail, Murdoch's scalp, whatever; we're
up for the job.

     Screeds-R-Us™. Baffling 'em with the bulls**t since 1961. You won't be disappointed.* :- )


 fwbrown61


(* And what has me *really* laughing my ass off right now is, I know
I could actually *DO* IT!! )

You could at that. You could indeed.

Hmmm, if you want to keep up a regular posting schedule, so that people don't wonder if you've died or something, once a week is usually a good place to start. Honestly most of the journals in my feed tend to be "comission updates + random bits of fluff about life" so I just skim the titles and names of people who wrote them before I decide to read them.

I think Alyx has a good idea in that one posts when something noteworthy has occurred. In my case, marriage was noteworthy. Unfortunately perhaps, for other people, "My poop was green this morning perhaps I should cut back on the grease." is noteworthy.

Clearly there's a disconnect. We should have a ratings system for noteworthiness.