I really like the idea of having a "lock to Dreamwidth users" options.
All the people who say it doesn't actually add any level of security or
enforceable privacy are right. The thing is, there's clearly a need for this
level of security - especially in the fandom and writing community - because so
many people are using the work-around for it already.
By which I mean, this would be basically the same level of privacy/security
offered by the current strategy of friendslocked communities with open
membership, or locked content with an open automatic-friending-back or
friending-on-request policy. A *lot* of people do this. It provides an illusion
of security rather than real security, but when it comes to creative work and
people feeling iffy, sometimes what they *want* is illusory security - the
feeling (much like with the various easily-breakable adult content locks) that
yeah, anyone who wants to can easily see it, but they have to have made an
actual effort, or already be part of the conversation, so they can't claim
people were having it randomly thrown in their faces. (This sort of illusory
security is very common, for ex., in the RPF community. And in kink
communities, to a lesser extent.)
(The other common reason people do the "open locks", of course, is to preserve
first publication rights for original stuff. I've heard really contradictory
things about whether a) friendslock does preserve it and b) non-locked blog
posting even hurts it, but if we had a lock-to-users option that people *could*
claim preserved publication rights, that would be very well-used, I think,
considering the DW userbase. And I know that some off-lj writers' forums I've
been on locked-to-whole-forum and claimed that was good enough...)
It would be even more useful if the lock-to-DW option let in all DW users
except those you have banned from your journal - that let people lock out
stalkers and trolls without having to lock out random passers-by - and I can
see that being *very* useful.
I'm actually less worried about Great Aunt Gertrude - there have been enough
cases where Aunt Gertrude got an account *and* got friended without revealing
her ID that most people who have reason to be worried should already realize
that anything but fairly tight filters isn't actually safe (and plenty of drama
involving people who don't use tight enough filters.) I'm more worried that if
we have this level, especially as the DW community grows, people will start to
use it habitually and DW would become as unfriendly to non-members as Facebook
is. But that's a ways down the road.
(Is there going to be a lock-to-watchers option? That might be nice instead, as
an easy way of mimicking the open-friendslock strategy. You don't have control
over who sees the content, but you do *know* who sees it, without having to
trust them all. It would also be an interesting way of using the trust-vs-watch
split; "lock to all watchers without trust"...)
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