LJ doesn't understand english

[demoness101]

Dear LJ,

The sentence "jcreed is your mutual friend" makes no sense. He is my mutual friend with whom?  If you mean to say that we are each friends of each other, pick another word or phrase.

Sincerely,

Ms. Mean-What-You-Say-and-Say-What-You-Mean

Comments

[simrob]

It's not *that* bad, more an artifact of the fact that "friendship" isn't a reflexive relation on livejournal like it is in the real world.

"jcreed and you are friendly" -> "jcreed and you are friends" -> "jcreed is your friend"

"jcreed and you are mutually friendly" -> "jcreed and you are mutual friends" -> "jcreed is your mutual friend"

I seem to recall that there was a huge OMG/EMO/LJ/BBQ battle over this a few years back that basically lead to the option to select "Show friends who have also friended you" versus "Show list of users who have friended you" on your facebook profile. The wording before the change suggested that people that were friends with you were also people you somehow approved of, and people got upset when user accounts with offensive names friended them (extremely mild example: "iaddrepublicans" is friends with me, which I obviously had nothing to do with). If they'd done twitter's "follow" it woulda been different, presumably, because that's kind of socially understood as a not-necessarily-symmetric

[simrob]

Clearly I meant "LJ profile" not "facebook profile" *headdesk*

[demoness101]

I didn't even notice. In two years it'll all be one massive privacy-free conglomeration of weirdness.

[gustavolacerda]

would you prefer "reciprocal friend"?

[demoness101]

Actually, yes, that would be much more consistent and meaningful. I suggest you file a bug report. ;)