Eric S notapenguin's blog: "Eric FUBAR Policy"

though there are other subjects this sub-blog will cover... While I use my discretion in all cases and the policies in these blogs are closer to guidelines (but not quite)- blank, message-less requests from people I have not spoken enough with are deprecated, this counts against. I'll still consider them, but this should be obvious: if I know that little about you (and very few people actually write enough about themselves in their profile - especially now! - to work in their favor here),... really... if I have that little reason to

• like you (probably no reason to dislike you either- but that is not the point!)
• trust you with the material that only CTfriends can see (and not anyone who happens on my profile... and this is probably more important, and the reason why some conversation, a "feeling-out" of a mental sort, is important to me)

then in most cases, though again not all (it's my stuff and my decision :) )- I probably won't pass the request.

A bit of extra has been placed in the beginning of the About Me, which please read :) (in addition to the preceding post in this blog). Eric

In the days since writing my last post on Friend Requests I've received a gratifying and -completely- confusing number of them. Some of them blank. From people I haven't spoken with before. Erm, first of all, see the blog post in this blog just preceding (possibly too confusing...) it's good to have spoken with me awhile, since there's stuff I put in friends-only blogs and photos that I want some control over the viewing of. So I want to know a bit about the viewers of them. Y'know. Right. At least compromise by sending a friend request that isn't blank, if we haven't spoken before. Read my profile, tell me about yourself. The more the merrier. Or send an e-mail. I'm not asking for a college application essay. The really sensitive stuff stays written and locked in physical drawers, the somewhat less so, to CT family. I just want to know who I'm telling about things. The stuff that the whole world can know about? Goes in public blogs that are readable by the whole world. Like this here. Since only a couple people read the last one, I'm trying this. I can't apologize for the tone, since a sincere apology would involve an effort to rewrite it (I do cite haste, though.) To hopeful future friends, friends, soul-family, family, those in my life who have played a positive role, much love, and there will be more such in future and I hope to play such a role in yours' and others'. In the meanwhile acquaintances may become friends, "CT-friendship" like LiveJournal and MySpace friendship seems a moderately well-designed tool for helping that along a bit, but one has to know who one's letting in the door at least a little... (Edit a few days later- of course, in any case will accept or reject at my discretion and by my sense of things, but this is the gist...)

but there are quite a few people here whose profiles disallow all communication (except in stash comments and perhaps via gifts, and those are dodges that the admins may well close; and of course in the note with the friend request) if you are not already a CT-friend. I don't equate CT-friendship with friendship, but I keep some information behind lock and key that I don't want going out to people I haven't spoken with a bit and more than a bit (or maybe not much at all, but enough to feel I trust them... it varies of course!). I break this policy now and then and now and then I remember why I have it. If this is true I will interact with you in other ways as the site allows but they're few, not especially rewarding (unless I trust you with my e-mail or such and likewise, but in that case we have set up an alternate avenue of communication- changing nicknames to communicate is merely a more farcical way of doing the same :) ) - without personal communication I am less and less going down that line, and that is why. I'm not - nor do I expect to, should I, be- overburdened with CTfriend requests, but this is worth setting down (in addition to that bit about "read a bit of my profile. Please. Trouble now prevents trouble later.") Edit: after writing this and before editing the subject line of the article I did receive two CT friendship requests (... *blink*.) On the grounds that I would have missed this damned thing too with the title as long and twirly as it was, though it's not much better now, and I'm not locking anyone into anything (not going to take advantage of the accepted requests before they have an opportunity to change their minds in light of new information) though still, I really should put something in my too-long Profile, about three or four respectful essential things given that in my case at least (and almost always in the other person's) I'm opening some vulnerabilities here (f-o blogs and whathave)...