running log and elections

ran a slightly extended version of my usual route today, so maybe 2.7 miles? that puts me at just over 5 on the week. my run this morning felt fantastic. oddly, because i almost decided not to run--and i got a late start--because i was at a friend's house until 11 last night watching the election results. i had to take a bus home, which entailed transferring to another bus downtown. the first bus was 5 minutes late, so i missed the second bus and had to wait an additional half hour. that means i got to bed late, not enough sleep, etc. etc. etc.

but the election was definitely worth watching. and i got to meet my friend's mom, who was visiting from the D.C. area.

i was almost universally happy with the election results. i wish darcy burner had won, but was otherwise happy with how the key races and initiatives turned out in washington.

now keep your fingers crossed for the virginia and montana senate races!

LJ "friends" survey--support graduate research!

hey all--
a friend of mine, evernanon (spelling corrected), is writing a paper and needs input from LJ users about their conceptions of the word/concept "friend." for those of you on my friend's list who don't know her and haven't already seen this, her post follows. stop by her journal and drop her a comment! (and, uh, i'll be doing that later today i hope.)

here's her post:


I'm writing a paper on LiveJournal "friends" and I could use your input.

I'm performing a content analysis of LJ users' thoughts: many people have expounded on the "friend" issue in public posts, and I'm gathering data from them. My primary technique for finding these posts is through Google, so I'll only be finding people who have allowed their blogs to be indexed -- this is the easiest way to get some quick-and-dirty data. I would like to get as much data as I can, though, and this is not a methodologically rigorous study by any means, so the more input I get the better -- by whatever means I can.

Ergo, my plea. If you have any thoughts, feelings, opinions, etc. on this topic, I would really like to hear them.

From Wikipedia's LJ entry:

Controversy over use of the word "friend"

The dual usage of "friend" as those one reads and those one trusts doesn't necessarily match the definition of the word used in everyday speech. Even the individual users on a user's friends list may contain a mixture of people met through real world friendships, online friendships, general interest, and courtesy (a user friending back someone who friended them). Sometimes a friends list represents something entirely unrelated to social relationships, such as a reading list, a collection, or a puzzle.

The fact that "friend" is used, without qualification, to describe vastly different things in the LiveJournal community is sometimes a source of conflict, hurt feelings, and other misunderstandings. This is intensified by the fact that friending and defriending (adding or removing another user from your Friends list) is as simple as clicking a button, while real-life friendships are formed and unmade over longer periods of time. Since creating a friend relationship on LiveJournal does not require permission or action on the part of anyone but a single user, any user can friend any other user. Many users are sensitive to being listed as a "friend of" a controversial user or someone whom they actively dislike. To combat this, a feature was created for users to hide the entire list of others who have listed them as a friend.

On April Fool's Day, 2004, the LiveJournal staff pulled a prank on all users by changing the terms "friend" and "friend of" to "stalking" and "stalked by." Though many users wanted to keep these terms, it caused controversy, particularly with those who had been victims of stalking.

Despite these problems, the word friend continues to be used to define these multi-faceted relationships on LiveJournal. This possibly reflects the designers' intent to have LiveJournal become more like an off-line community than some other purely on-line organizational structure.


If you've spent any time thinking about this issue, and would like to share your thoughts, please comment on this post. Anonymous posts are welcome. My paper is due on December 8th, so I can use feedback up until then, but obviously sooner is preferable to later.

Also: hehe, I only have 12 "friends" here because I just created my account less than a month ago, so if you could spread the word -- post an entry on your blog and direct your LJ "friends" here -- that would be really great. Especially if you have a really large friends list. HAR.

Thanks in advance. I have no expectations here -- I'm not going to be upset if only two people weigh in, I'm a very small fish in a huge pond -- but it would really rock if I got a lot of comments.

PS -- I am going to try and not respond to comments on this thread, so I don't interfere with what people say.

Informed consent: Because this is a public post with public comments, there is no expectation of privacy and therefore, I may attribute comments to screen names in my paper. Real names will NOT be used. Those who wish to comment anonymously can (obviously) be assured that their comments will remain anonymous.