Stranger in a Strange Land

There are a few things that really both me about online interaction:

When someone sends out an Evite, they can see if you have viewed the invitation. You can't hide it. So when you don't respond, it can often be insulting. When you don't respond after a week or two to determine your availability, it may hurt the sender/inviter. I know there probably is some time range that is appropriate for sending out an Evite, but sending it out too early should not be a bad thing. People are often busy and need to plan things that far in advance. So my rule here is to respond to the invitation within a week or two. This means starring the email in your inbox if you have to, to remind you to respond.

Another thing that bugs me is the 'maybe' category, simply because I don't like gray areas. I would guess that 9/10 maybes end up not coming to an event. Either do something or don't do something, don't be too cool to commit or not commit. Exceptions do apply.

People often talk about how annoying it is when an individual constantly updates their status on Facebook or Twitter. Although I have never used Twitter, I know how annoying it is when someone updates their Facebook status too often. At least Facebook has the option of 'Hiding' people. If I had to choose a rule it would be a once a day maximum. In fact, people should only update their status if something interesting or important happened to them. It might be easier to keep in touch and communicate with people this way, but most of your friends really don't care that you went to CPK for dinner.

Note: Although you can choose the 'Hide' option on actual Facebook, it doesn't apply to the Facebook application. So you may still be bombarded unless you remove the friend.

Finally, being a blogger and all, it sometimes is difficult to tell if people actually read my blog. The only way to really tell is if they leave comments. When people don't leave comments, it is discouraging. People often tell me that they enjoy my blog even though they never comment. I know I can probably get some visitor-tracker on my blog but I don't want to be Big Brother (even though I don't mind Big Brother). I don't want people to always leave comments (although I appreciate it), but if you leave one just every so often, it motivates me to continue writing.