[Poll] How Should I Use My Journals?
Over the course of developing/using my Wordpress journal, I’ve decided that I definitely want to use it as an active component of my website, beyond just storing backups of my LJ posts there. It’s an ideal method of writing site news, and using it even to the limited extent I currently am has encouraged me to post more often. Plus, the nerd in me loves having absolute control over every aspect of it (in fact, I recently modified it to respond to the same user-chosen colour scheme settings as the rest of the site).
At the same time, I wish to maintain an active presence of some sort on LJ. The community aspect of it is very much a part of my online social life, and that’s not something I can just walk away from. Plus, many of my posts are a bit personal, and Wordpress doesn’t have a very good way of making things friends-only or using filters.
So, here’s what I’d like to do, my bright idea as of tonight. I’d basically split my posts and have two journals. My LJ would receive a change of username, and be primarily used for personal/furry/filtered posts. The things that a random visitor to my website wouldn’t care about. The Wordpress journal built into my site would contain more generalized posts, things that aren’t out of place on a public website. I make enough of those posts to make this a worthwhile pursuit.
To get an idea of how you, my friends, family, colleagues, and random readers feel about this, I’ve created a poll. It’s on my Wordpress journal, because I can’t make polls here on LJ, but you don’t need an account or anything to vote. So, please, tell me what you think 
How should I use my journals?
- Use Wordpress exclusively, LJ sucks (6.0%, 1 Votes)
- Use Wordpress for public posts, and LJ for personal ones (44.0%, 8 Votes)
- Post everything to both journals redundantly (see note below) (17.0%, 3 Votes)
- Use Wordpress sparingly, stick with LJ primarily (6.0%, 1 Votes)
- Abandon Wordpress and come back to LJ for everything (11.0%, 2 Votes)
- Other (Please Comment) (17.0%, 3 Votes)
Total Voters: 18
Loading ...Things to keep in mind before voting:
- I know people are going to say “It’s your journal, do what you want”. I know that, but I’m doing this because I care what all of you think on this matter, so please vote anyway.
- My Wordpress posts would still be available here on LJ, via ![[info]](http://stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
lupinia_studios.
- Anything major would be posted to both locations.
- Unfortunately, there aren’t any good options for allowing OpenID registration/logins for Wordpress. But, creating an account isn’t necessary to post a comment on it, so it shouldn’t be a big deal.
- I’ll be changing my username on LJ at some point anyway, regardless of the course of action I pursue. Since this is a public post, I don’t want to get into details of what my new username will be, but all of you should be able to figure it out by now.
- My previous idea of posting everything redundantly has proved to be excessively tedious. Plus, I don’t like having the capability for comments to be posted in two places independantly of each other. So, unless the votes for this option show an overwhelming majority, it probably won’t happen.
August 5th, 2008 at 7:11:22
I love ya Felix…but I say use whatever you feel most comfortable with and will utilize to your own benefit.
*Hugs*
August 5th, 2008 at 7:30:51
Not to sound mean but Felix, I think your indecisiveness gets the best of you. Do what you feel is right. I think I’m agreeing with swift on this from his LJ comment.
I agree with swifty, do what you feel is right for yourself.
August 5th, 2008 at 9:14:36
I dont read whatever the heck wordpress is. So put the stuff I read in here ;P
August 5th, 2008 at 10:21:34
Wordpress is just a piece of software used to add a blog to a site (of many available); it’s why there’s a syndication account for it.
August 5th, 2008 at 13:41:42
(already is pretty sure what your new lj name is gonna be)
I actually feel happy for you. taking your life in a direction that lets you be more you. I’m trying to do that now with moving to Norcal, and I know it can be tough trying to be what you want to be WHEN THE MAN….oh wait…wrong rant….(hits self for watching too many “Homie the clown” skits yesterday)
…WHEN the work you have to do is enormous.
*hugs*
August 5th, 2008 at 13:55:23
Please read the post. Anything posted to my website is mirrored on LJ using this account:![[info]](http://stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif)
lupinia_studios
August 5th, 2008 at 14:21:33
I know, but this doesn’t just affect me, because if I were keeping a journal only for my own benefit, I would’ve switched exclusively to Wordpress long before now with no real discussion. I feel I’ve made my decision, but I want to know what everyone who cares thinks about this.
August 15th, 2008 at 23:42:23
One minor annoyance with your wordpress rss feed… It truncates.
Example:
* points to [...] and grumbles *
I use my mail client to pull RSS, and its nice to have full text available without that pesky extra click. It makes trolling blogs for treasure that much more lazy.
August 16th, 2008 at 3:34:34
John:
I’ll see what I can do about that, but I’m not sure there’s much that can be changed in that regard.
August 16th, 2008 at 9:10:12
Having more than one journal can lead to multiple personality/blog disorder. i’m a former LJ user bogged down in this situation right now, myself.
Thoughts:
I understand that Movable Type integrated a rock-solid OpenID system long ago. I did a test run of MT a couple months ago, but its backend is not as user-friendly as WP. If you can run WP, then you can run MT, but navigating MT’s backend forces me to ask myself why I’d want to make the switch. (all the same, I’m going to look into it again tonight.)
Regarding the OpenID thing, even if you found a way to bring into your everyday life all the time, I wonder if you’d still run into the problem of people not using it when they can. I love the concept of OpenID (regardless of my internet anonymity issues), but I know it hasn’t really caught on yet. I think it would need provider much bigger than Yahoo or Google to really hit the spot - I’m eyeing FB.com right now, obviously.
And finally, I notice that my former LJ-friends don’t read my journal anymore, not because i post sparingly, but because it’s not on LJ.
August 17th, 2008 at 4:59:32
Well, in my case, I already have multiple-journal disorder, fostered by LJ’s filtering and security options. I have personal, intimate posts that I want to control access to, and I have public posts that I’d like for more people to see. What I’m trying to do is put more separation between them; have the public posts on my website, which I already give out to everyone (the URL is on the back of my car, even), and have the intimate posts on my LJ, so that fewer people need to know that it even exists. In other words, I want the best of both worlds
OpenID support was a request from a friend when I first brought up the idea of using a non-LJ journal system. I’ve yet to be able to get the WP-OpenID plugin to work at all, and it seems like they’re always one version behind in supporting the new WP updates. Since comments can be posted anonymously here, and it takes like two seconds to sign up for an account, it’s not a huge priority.
Thanks for the feedback! And, for what it’s worth, I read your journal
August 17th, 2008 at 12:09:43
well, fwiw, keep an eye on my homepage over the next week or two, since i’m trying to rectify my multiple blog disorder, and many of the RSS feeds will likely become inoperable..