shared/separate journals

[thehumangame.livejournal.com]

Some groups have separate LiveJournal accounts for those members who are interested, others share one account, and still others have a mix of shared and separate accounts. We've made the decision to share an account, because of these pros and cons:

Pros of sharing a LiveJournal account:

1. Managing multiple logins is a pain.

2. Sharing a journal means our posts will be read by a wider variety of people.

3. If we both share an journal, we'll end up mutually encouraging each other to write in it.

4. It encourages people (especially people who know us offline) to get to know both of us, rather than just one.

5. Non-multiples find it easier to grasp that we share a body if we also share a LiveJournal account.

6. thehumangame is a permanent account; it's unlikely that we'd manage to get our hands on a second permanent account...

Cons of sharing a LiveJournal account:

1. You have to take into account what other people want when picking styles and color schemes.

2. If you want to be perceived as separately as possible, a shared account probably isn't the best way to go.

What are your own reasons for making the choice you did? Can you add anything to the list of pros and cons? What do you do on other sites?

~j

Comments

[hellhound.livejournal.com]

That's a really cool list of pros and cons you've developed. We have a shared account [it's not the one I'm using now] for many of the reasons you've outlined, especially the multiple logins issue. I also like that it gets people to know all of us, rather than just one or two. Most of all, we chose a shared account because it's also a convenient way for us to communicate through a single journal, instead of having to check each person's journal separately. Some of us have separate journals, but as of now, I'm the only member who has a separate and active journal.

Though, we had the same problem you've put in the cons; choosing a color scheme and style we all liked. :P

[kyouketsusha.livejournal.com]

I think quite a few people have one shared account for the group, and then some individual ones for each person (or each person who wants one).

re: pro #1, I don't find it difficult at all, but then, I've had multiple accounts myself for years (no pun intended!)

And a con: I don't necessarily want everyone I know to know about my other, particularly people I don't know well yet. It's not that I/we want to be perceived as being separate, but rather that she's not quite ready to meet everyone just yet (and I certainly am not ready for her to meet everyone I know!)

[cirquels.livejournal.com]

we decided to get seprate ljs due to design and friends and stuff. some of us dont like some of the other people the others like. heh. and because everyone likes to have their own space. but i sometimes can understand why you want the same one. somtiems i get tired of logging in and out all the time.

[shadowechoes.livejournal.com]

We've got a main system journal, a few other collective journals, and then a whole bunch of individual journals. The main system journal gets updated the most because of the pros you listed.

Some of us have individual accounts so that we can have something of our own. Some feel that they may have to share a body, but at least they can have online accounts of their own. Some that are active in other areas of the internet don't want to be openly part of a multiple group. Echo's mundane journal has no reference to being multiple (or being kinky or therian for that matter) at all because that's the one she uses to keep in contact with friends at school - and she's trying to make friends, not scare potential friends away or have rumors around school that she's a nut-job. :/

[the-grayling.livejournal.com]

We originally gave an LJ to everybody, but most of them remained empty. (Only two of us were interested, and we prefer to let the scribe duties go to those who are best with language.)

Then, we made a community for "all of us", and discovered that we all liked photography, so every day, one of us got to post a picture. It became like morning breakfast with the family before we each went to work.

But keep in mind, if you're going to do this, you should make sure everyone has a separate email, too. That way, if one of you does something dumb and gets banned or gives out passwords to the wrong people, the rest won't have to suffer.

[tempusfrangit.livejournal.com]

Here, only Dalyna and Karena have their own journals, besides me. They use mine when they feel the need until they want to make their own. Both of their first entries mention needing their own space, etc. So I figure we've got a good method here.

[pthalo]

we do a mixture. we have three journals and many more people than that. The people who have their own journals wanted them specifically and they wanted their own friends lists and that was the easiest way to manage that without fussing with friends filters and all that. so one main journal, a journal for Lydia, a preteen girl in our system, and one for little kids, but mostly used by just one little kid with the possibility of others using it too if they want.

[our-menagerie.livejournal.com]

Cons: The amount of blinking things that annoy lots of people on our user info is already too full and couldnt fit everyones seperate little things on there.

"You have to take into account what other people want when picking styles and color schemes." With small systems this may not matter as much but with 50 people and 12-20 who post it is a royal pain to have to change it all the time.


Pros: logging in and keeping up with just one journal and one email would be so much simpler....heck even just two would be simpler. Also I agree would probably be read by a wider audience possibly.


We have tried it though. People have gotten rid of ljs and emails only to want them back again or someone else decides they want a new one of their own. So at this point I have given up control of it and for the most part let them do what they want with lj as long as its not hurting anyone.

[leucrocuta.livejournal.com]

In theory, we sort of prefer the idea of a single shared one because it's more elegant and less messy or something. in practice, I ended up getting my own. this is for a number of reasons: I liked the idea of having my own name, I wanted a way to read/comment to my own communities without having to read hers too. and also, since we're horrible at remembering to sign our names and have terrible memories, this way makes it easier for us to know when we look at things later, which entries were mine and which hers.

I think if we had a big frontrunning team of six or seven or something, we'd end up doing the shared journal thing rather than individual ones that we all updated separately. but since it's mostly just us two, two journals is not too much to keep track of. moreover, the logins aren't usually a problem - we have a longstanding agreement of using different browsers. I use IE, she uses Firefox, and we both just leave ourselves logged in there. this worked when we had different email accounts too, although we've gone back to just sharing one there.

(for a while we did get all overexcited and make different accounts for our soulbonds and nonfrontrunning people too. only to discover that they had basically zero interest in using them, so those are long since dead.)

We have both

[spookshow-girl.livejournal.com]

We have our own personal accounts, and another group account, which is actually not on LJ, but one of it's clones.

The major plus, is that we actually can and do maintain different friends lists. Not all her friends are mine, and vice versa. Although the union of the two groups is greater offline than online, it still doesn't completely overlap. This is good for various reasons.

The major minus, is that if we want people up to date on current events in our lives, we each need to make posts about it. In it's own right, it makes sense to do so anyhow, as we might have different perceptions of the event.

Our group journal is mostly for hashing out systemic issues, and was a general update for those who know us enough to have the link sent their way.

--Me/Us

[lion-azure.livejournal.com]

We have a shared journal, though the host has her separate one.

We actually tought about splitting things into individual journals some time ago, but decided against it. We share a body, and co-front a lot, so it's not that much of a loss of individuality to share a journal, too. Also, most of our friends are friends with more than one person in the system, so logging on and off for commenting purposes would be a real hassle (read: we're a bunch of lazy bastards :P). Everyone has their own set of userpics, and we use tags, so people should be able to tell who has written what.

Reason 2 also plays into it... some system members aren't very social usually, and having a shared journal has encouraged them to overcome that a bit.

A pro about having separate journals, and the reason we thought about it, would be joining comms on interests only one system member has, and the people on those comms not knowing right out (read: when they read our userinfo) that we're multiple.

Our host has a separate journal mostly because she made it before she knew about multiplicity, and because she doesn't want everybody to know right from the start.

[kangetsuhime.livejournal.com]

Originally, this journal was for Lu to talk about me in privacy and without bothering the more conservative of her FList.

Now though, our reasons are manyfold. We get to meet new friends completely independantly. We get to lock our journals independantly. We each get to have 100+ icons each, no annoying sharing. We get to watch different communities, and not irritate the others with communities they don't like. People friend us with no idea that we are independant (apparently gerbilsage was somewhat shocked realising I share a head with Luwana, since he's apparently bitched to her about me in the past!), which is nice. We get to have our own layouts, our own user infos, our own individualities.

It also doesn't bother us login wise. IE is constantly logged into my account since I use LJ most, and Mozilla stays free for anybody else to log into as they wish.

Cons of seperate accounts? I don't see many. I far far far prefer it this way. I feel like people read *my* journal because it's *me*. They don't read my entries because I happen to be using the journal of someone they know.

[kangetsuhime.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah *points above* that's a slight con. I post more, which means Lu's list (the larger and more RL based of the two) ends up rather lacking in updates on life. C'est la vie, it pans out well enough.

[arcis.livejournal.com]

we have separate journals for some members outside the system one...

for me.. that means I can ramble about weird things and get into nonsensical arguments with another member without hurting friends' friends page :D

the leader's LJ is not readable by anyone else in the system.. along with watching .. *cough* boring communities the rest of us wouldn't be interested to..
the archivist LJ is readable only by the leader.. etc..

it's a neat way to control information ^^; because everyone wants to let loose sometimes ^^~ btw, login is way easier using a livejournal client :D

- Oz

[vox-vocis-vita.livejournal.com]

Most of us had separate journals in the past, but we no longer use them. This one is a shared journal, and was originally created just for my headmates, while I had intended to keep using my personal journal. Eventually I gave that one up and started using this one.

For us a shared journal is easier to manage. Theres no logging in and out, which I absolutely hate. Hell, I never log out at all if I can help it. Its also much easier on our friends I think, especially since we all share friends. Of course with the rate we usually post in the shared journal, we're prolly still spamming peoples friends pages. >.>

As far as personal layouts/themes, ours was pretty much agreed on by everyone. Instead of making a layout for any one specific person, I made one that represented the entire system.

[ridetothesea.livejournal.com]

We don't have a big enough Internet habit to get separate journals, I don't think. It would be more work than necessary for what we do. We tried separate journals at GJ, and ended up disliking it. A lot of the journals stayed empty, and it didn't seem like a good idea to make that many LJs and have the same thing happen.

[asterism.livejournal.com]

Interesting...as we just decided tonight to make a shared journal.

Our host has been burned before on having "weird/out there" content in her personal journal, and has been victim of filter failure, so she liked the idea of a shared journal. I already had my own, but when another expressed interest in one of her own (we think she just wants to play the journal game and would probably forget it when she saw something shiny), we figured we might as well have a shared journal. It'll probably be used more than if Albireo got her own journal, and this way even the more reticient can take part if they choose to do so, without having the excuse of "it's too much hassle to make my own" to fall back on.

-Celes

[stealthdragon.livejournal.com]

We have a primary journal, with a filter for multiplicity-related posts, and this journal, which is for posting to one another in, as well as for communities that we don't want listed on the main journal. It works well enough.

[ksol1460.livejournal.com]

We've simply never seen the need to proliferate livejournals. As you said, having to keep track of all those logins is a pain, and might lead to more holes in security. Because we really do not know who's going to be at front, it makes more sense to us to have one livejournal (just as we have one body, interfacing between Laura and the earth world) and use icons to identify ourselves. Individuals can and do join communities related to their particular interests, and post as ksol1460 with their own icons. We see no problem, for instance, with both Andy and Imoreh commenting on a single post in a community, and apparently no one else has a problem with this either, since they've never said anything.

We've received very few comments or responses at all about our multiplicity; those few have been very positive and mostly along the lines of "Wow, I didn't know anything about what it was really like". Several people from those communities (primarily neilyoungfans) have friended us.

This is not how we used to do things. When we were on WWIVnet, Iris established a BBS just for us, and each frontrunner had his or her own account. We ended up with about ten. Each used its own colour scheme, so you could always tell who was signed in if you came up front in the middle of someone else's session. We still have individual email addresses.

[garden-keep.livejournal.com]

Mindy has her own journal. lots of her friends dont know about the rest of us so she dosnt like to share a journal with us. so we get to share our own journal because none of the rest of us write emough to really need diferent journals. we all have diferent icons tho!

<3
Meghan

[sharpsight.livejournal.com]

N) To provide background: in here, what one sees, all see; what one can remember, all can remember.

The login matter is probably one of the most important reasons, but there's also the problem of commenting.

The simplest situation: if one of us sees something important enough (or otherwise worthy of note) to be worth responding to, or entering input on, then the chances are good that another of us will also want to say something on the matter. Extend this situation to all such situations, and you get a common trend of two comments being made to the same thing quickkly in succession, with the person being responded to receiving two email notifications (assuming that that's turned on) and our time lost logging out and then in.

That on its own would be irritating enough to prompt third or fourth thoughts on the matter, but also in such cases it's common for those of us who are vocal about our opinions in such cases to disagree. In practice, this would lead to long, irritatingly painstaking-to-navigate threads appearing, as well as partly-filled inboxes.

One possibility would be to do all arguing off-'net, then only post a consensus that was arrived at, but then everyone's opinions would be stifled at some point in time (considering that some issues have no easily-reached conclusion), and no one would be as happy as we are when we can each air our opinions (and point out the flaw or flaws in the other's) and let the original writer decide which has more merit.

Thus: far simpler, more efficient and less messy/wasteful for all concerned is to have a single comment in joint response from all who wish to speak, and to have all arguments take place in those bounds. (Which isn't to say that some of us don't daydream about having separate journals, but as long as we're stuck with the same body and continued awareness of what the others are thinking and have thought (and have seen), such would be impractical.)

[ksol1460.livejournal.com]

"One possibility would be to do all arguing off-'net, then only post a consensus that was arrived at"

Which is very often (not always) what we do.

[sharpsight.livejournal.com]

N) Maybe you're better at reaching a consensus than we are, then. *bows respectfully*

[scream-aloud.livejournal.com]

I wanted my own journal because I don't agree with a lot of what diana does (her Ds S&M life for example). I wanted to be able to be seen as a seperate person, because according to me, I am a different person than diana or Rose or any of the others.

Independance rules.

[kid-mai.livejournal.com]

This is exactly what I think about one of our main fronters- I disagree with Her lifestyle and what's more, my childhood memories and relationship in my world have been totally different than Hers, so I wouldn't like Her friends to think it's She who came through that all.

-Mai