I have a special plan for this world

[venta]

Recently, there was a non-ubiqutious sheep on the rounds which invited the reader to choose an interest from the writer's interest list, whereupon the writer would explain it.

To be honest, I'm not sure any of my interests really require any explanation (beyond, possibly, "bendy swords" which you should know all about by now). If I'm wrong, and any of my interests baffle you, do let me know. That's if you're baffled by their nature, of course, bafflement at why they interest me is your own problem.

It did remind me, though, that other people seem to regard interest lists in a different light to me.

Many people fill up their interest list to the maximum (150?), then complain that they have way more interests that will fit. When I glance at their user info pages, I see their interest list as "impenetrable block of text" and move on.

Now, I could come up with a list of 150 things that interest me. I'm interested in everything (and anything). The purpose of my interest list is to provide a quick-glance introduction to someone who doesn't know me, and is meant to present a spectrum of things which I like. It's a sketch of me and my life - details can be filled in later.

For anyone who hasn't memorised my user info, my interests are listed as:

alan moore, bendy swords, cityscapes, cooking, folk music, goth, grant morrisson, jack vettriano, john donne, magic, mayhem, music, new model army, northeast, pedantry, peter warlock, real ale, robert anton wilson, rosemary sutcliffe, sedition, thomas tallis, winter, words

When I first started this LJ, I jotted down a representative selection of interests, discovered I had 23 (a fine number) and left it at that. I hope it's a small enough number that it's readable if the reader is so inclined. If there's anything which you think is sufficiently significant about me that it ought to have been included in preference (or addition) to one of the others, I'd be curious to hear about it.

I'm not sure why people have huge lists of interests. Maybe they have so many interests that they can't be pared down to a shorter list. Maybe they want maximum hits from unknown LJers searching by interest (does anyone do this ? Does anyone meet interesting people by doing it ?). Maybe they're working on the same principle as me, but have a higher opinion of people's ability to read lists (is it just me that gets daunted by big blocks of text?).

How did you choose what went on your interest list, and why ?

Comments

[jiggery-pokery.livejournal.com]

My interest list is as it is because I was trying to get some useful results out of the "find people with similar interests" toy.

Me +1 - and it worked, and I still think it's one of LJ's greatest and most interesting assets. I keep asking whether it'll come back each year, but they haven't worked out a way for it to do so, alas.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Eh ? I'm confused. Was there a specifid find-people toy ? I'd assumed Onebyone just meant "using the search box to find people", but you're implying something more sophisticated than that ?

[jiggery-pokery.livejournal.com]

Indeed there was. It ranked everyone in order of LiveJournal by order of Magic Index, where Magic Index points were awarded for sharing interests with you, and more Magic Index points were awarded for sharing interests with you that few people had listed. It was really cool.

Of course, there's no guarantee that people with similar interests to you are going to be interesting - but at least four of the top 30 were and were people I would otherwise not have met.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Ah. Since I've never been actively looking for more LJ-people, I've never encountered such things. Sounds like a fun toy, though.

[onebyone.livejournal.com]

I can't remember whether it was built in or an external screen-scraper, but it listed other LJ users in order of how many interests they share with you, weighted by how common those interests are (so uncommon shared interests score more points).

Would be easy enough to re-implement as a screen-scraper, worst case is that it has to hit 150 pages, one for each interest you list. Maybe LJ wouldn't like the load, though.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Don't mention scrapers today. I am very upset about scrapers.

My old device for removing ice from windscreens has finally chimbled away into uselessness. The extremely snazzy purple replacement I bought was pressed into service this morning, and was discovered to scrape efficiently, but have the depressing side effect of spraying the removed ice, in a nice thick whoosh of tiny particles, directly up the sleeve of the user.

And it was such a nice shade of purple too :(

[onebyone.livejournal.com]

Have you tried bicycle clips?

[venta.livejournal.com]

Don't think they'd have a sharp enough edge to scrape effectively, to be honest.