online journalers. fer chrissake. first it's how nobody is writing or participating in your forum, but then if someone does, we get the whole other rant about how it's your life, and nobody should ever talk about it or make any assumptions because we don't know the real you, etc. etc., unless we happen to say what you want to hear. plus, journalers don't answer their reader mail, in general.

molly's not as guilty of all that as most, though i have seen her flame a person or two. but still. pick a reason to have a journal, do it for yourself and don't worry about the readers, or do it for the readers and update a lot and be funny, and for god's sake never let the words 'butchie boy' appear in these pages again. personally i'd always read this just because it reminds me of home, so don't worry about me.

mo

-- mo (emtavano@earthlink.net), May 09, 2000

Answers

Feebak

What kind of feedback is it that the online want? Feelings of sympathy? I personally think they want any sort of reaction at all, if only to confirm that yes, someone actually read the whole thing. On the other hand, I get the feeling that opposing/dissenting viewpoints aren't necessarily welcome here. Remember that girl who didn't like Molly's boyfriend? yeah. I guess it's pretty easy to intimidate readers into continued silence.

-- Andr00 (andr00@earthlink.net), May 09, 2000.

well, yes...

Any sort of reaction can be nice. As for the girl who posted a half-assed message in my old forum about Mark, well... I think she didn't know what she was talking about. And so I said as much.

Opposing/dissenting viewpoints? I think I'm open to them. I especially like the political discussions that have taken place since I started this journal.

What really gets me, though, is when a reader doesn't read carefully enough to actually understand what happened in my life, and sends me mail which is reacting to something that didn't happen the way they thought it did. That happened with the whole Mark/porn thing, and again with the whole Mark/not calling on a Friday night when he said he would thing.

I especially like it when a reader sends me mail that says, "maybe you should look at this from a different perspective," or, "may I offer another viewpoint," or, "I've been through that and here's how I dealt with it," or, "Hey, I just started a journal, what do you think of the design..." So, yeah, I like all sorts of reader response.

Even if it makes me a little sad. Like when people accuse me of intimidation.

-- Molly Zero (mollyzero@diarist.net), May 09, 2000.

guh

>What really gets me, though, is when a reader doesn't read carefully >enough to actually understand what happened in my life, and sends me >mail which is reacting to something that didn't happen the way they >thought it did. That happened with the whole Mark/porn thing, and >again with the whole Mark/not calling on a Friday night when he said >he would thing.

oh please. we should _study_ the entries now? what do you think this is, the talmud? no. people get impressions of things from the limited information provided, it can't be helped, you can't fly off the handle every time we don't immediately read the situation correctly -- and then later wonder why you don't hear from us again.

mo

-- mo (emtavano@earthlink.net), May 09, 2000.