Strange, but apparently true (edited)

[pecunium]

Friendditto.

I've not heard of them before today.

Since I've no locked posts, I am not worried about them for me (though I can see where I might want to lock some posts, or filter them) I do have a couple of private posts, which ought not be affected, since I am not using this service.

But I hear things about it which I find offensive. Not crucial (since if I want to post something you've locked I can always paste it, this just makes it, so I hear, easier), but offensive.

I don't think it can go to the locked posts of friends, by way of the FOF reading list.

If it can, then I am past offended, because that, it seems, is an invasion of privacy.

So, as I 1: have no locked posts, and 2: have no way to know if any of you have chosen to use this, I won't ask you to take yourselves off my friends list. On the other hand, if I do start locking posts, and then see them talked about all over town. I'll be annoyed.

***

I went and looked at them. The FAQ says they can't keep Friends Only posts. Since this seems to be the cause of so much of the angst, I wonder what the facts are. I see no reason, on the face of things, to doubt them. Then again, I am loathe to share my password with anyone.

Comments

[scarletdulcinea.livejournal.com]

What is this?

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

It seems to be a means for archiving one's f-list.

But, because one has to be logged in to use it, it allows one to save all entries, of all the people one lists as friends.

Which implies I might log in, call up your LJ, and then download it to my drive.

The quibble seems to be that the folks who run this are, in some way, affiliated with LJ Drama, and might take advantage of the access you, granting this program, access, could provide to a third party.

I have looked at the site, and in part it's a remote host for saving posts. I'm not sure why one would do that (it links to the url) but there you go.

It is probably a tempest in a teapot, but it seems (call me old-fashioned) unseemly. Like reading someone else's mail.

TK

[geekchick]

t seems to be a means for archiving one's f-list.

But, because one has to be logged in to use it, it allows one to save all entries, of all the people one lists as friends.


Basically, you can archive any LJ posts you normally have access to on that site, including other people's friends-only posts if you give it your username and password. Even if the original post is deleted, it stays on the frienditto site (so when someone locks down or deletes a post after having all of LJDrama descend upon them, it's still available for snarking and ridicule on frienditto).

Honestly, can you think of a single reason to repost someone else's friends-locked entry on a public site where the entire world can read it other than to stir up more drama? (Because lord knows there's not enough drama on LJ already.)

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

Ok, let me get this straight, because this is the part not clearly made in the FAQs.

If I use it to save something, anyone who is a friendditto user can look at it?

Yikes.

TK

[geekchick]

Anyone, period. So far as I can tell, you don't have to sign up to use the service, all you have to do is point it at an LJ entry you want to "archive" (by which they mean "repost") there. If you want to point it at a friends-locked entry that you have access to, you give it your username and password, it's used to access the post, and that previously-filtered entry on LJ is now posted on frienditto, in public, for the world to see.

[fidelioscabinet.livejournal.com]

I think it's a trick to pry-bar your way into locked rooms.

They're not affiliates of LJ.

And no, no one has the right to get into my house, my bank account, my medical records without proper legal permissions. Since LJ gave us the right to friendslock a post, I have the right to use that if I want, and to expect it to stand.

[alongtheway.livejournal.com]

I went to the website to learn more, and it looks like they deleted the whole site.

[jmhm.livejournal.com]

I don't see where they need your password to get public posts.

Not that I friends lock much of anything but eleventh commandment posts, but it seems terribly rude.

[jennae.livejournal.com]

The sole purpose of Frienditto is to provide a place for LJ drama to "archive" posts that get deleted when the poster freaks out after LJ drama sics all of LJ on them.

The concept scares me too. Who knows what someone might do, especially if they are spiteful or get incensed during the way too commonplace flamewar and dramarama through out LJ.

:(

More information from one of the Frienditto "affiliates.

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

I went and looked at that post, and the entire tone was defensive in nature.

Being the sort I am, the nature of the defense was telling.

If you wish not to use frienditto, that is your prerogative.
If you wish to request that others do not use frienditto, that, too, is your prerogative.
However, such requests would be more likely to be honoured if you used facts rather than untrue statements that do little more than spread fear and can be proven incorrect by reading the frienditto FAQ.

The last bit is the part I find revealing. In the first place, the things I have seen said about it are all true, as per their FAQ.

I also think the likelihood of a request to not use it, or to remove oneself from one's list of privileged readers would be more likely to be honored if someone were honorable.

If a mistaken understanding is the reason someone asks one not to archive a post, that ought to be enough. Then again the use of the Linguistic Pattern "that is your perogative" is belittling, meant to imply one is doing something one has a right to, but such exercise is not based on the merits of the case.

TK

[don-fitch.livejournal.com]

Yes, more likely to be honored by honorable people (as I'd re-phrase it). That's right up there with "Never publish in a fanzine anything you're not willing to hear read in Court". (Marion Zimmer Bradley wrote that after an extremely messy & vicious divorce/child-custody trial, many years ago.) Being old enough to recognize a Voracious Black Hole when I see one, I don't do an LJ -- just read (& sometimes comment on) a few written by friends, acquaintances, and linked LJers -- and I take a rather liberal view of "Intellectual Property Rights", but I really don't think it's honorable to post, in such a public-access archive, things that your "friends" believed they were communicating at some level of confidentiality. True, our friends probably ought to be aware of the fact that "The half-life of any juicy secret, in this microcosm, is somewhat less than five minutes", but exposing their indiscreet writings probably isn't a good way to teach them this.

[geekchick]

The FAQ says they can't keep Friends Only posts.

I didn't see anything that said that, I just saw that they claim they don't keep your password after you use it to archive Friends Only entries. And I can certainly see friends-only posts that I shouldn't be able to see posted there.