One of the things I really like about LJ...

[randomness]

...is when my friends start talking to each other in comments on my page.

Some recent examples in particular stand out, because they involve people who (as far as I know) have never met in real life.

• ccunningham and bookteacher, about the library at Skywalker Ranch


• madbodger and julianyap, on reference sources for the banning of marriage by the early Christian church


• eeyorecol and skreeky, on mixed (baseball) marriages


• coraline and holmes_iv, about Wagner's Lohengrin.
  

I think I'm so pleased about this because one of the things I've always liked about throwing parties is putting people from the many disparate social groups in my life together. But large parties are problematic in many ways. Even when they work well, it's by no means assured that the people who would have things to say to each other will actually meet. Moreover, LJ is better at this than I could ever be, even if I carefully picked guests for a small party, because people will end up commenting on things I had little if any idea they were interested in.

Well! I suppose I've found the second reason for my LiveJournal's existence.

Comments

Why I shouldn't throw lj parties

[gee-tar.livejournal.com]

Consider yourself lucky. The comments on my lj from people who don't know each other often end up getting into fights.

Re: Why I shouldn't throw lj parties

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry to hear that. I think there are a couple of things going on in my LJ:

• 
  The topics I tend to post about aren't hair-trigger ones.


• 
  My friends tend to save their flamage for situations that really deserve it.

Having said that, people may end up locking horns in my LJ as I write this.* There's no telling. But I generally don't post about things like politics or religion; my friends list is way too diverse, and I'm too middle-of-the-road, for that to seem like a good idea to me. I don't really feel like this is a problem. There's certainly plenty of political ranting going on elsewhere, and I comment often enough, so I feel that's fine.


*Some of my friends may take that as a challenge. We'll see who takes the bait.

Re: Why I shouldn't throw lj parties

[nafe.livejournal.com]

I once got into a near fight here, but i decided not to savage a stranger. Why, I'm not sure.

Re: Why I shouldn't throw lj parties

[nafe.livejournal.com]

My family as a whole goes by "Smartpig".

Re: Why I shouldn't throw lj parties

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

I think you two need to meet sometime.

Re: Why I shouldn't throw lj parties

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

Didn't really deserve your full ire, I think.