ravencallscrows | Look, Ma! I'm a Project Manager (Reply)

Formatting Comments to follow LJ posting structures

Page 1 Spec Section

Summary

To enable Live Journal users to be able to leave comments for other users without having those comments publicly visible if they so choose.

Scenario

LiveJournal user joesmith has several friends who read his posts. In one of them, he declares his undying affection for a special someone, but declines to mention who that person is. User imaflirt, who is one of joesmith's readers thinks he may be talking about her, and wants to share that she feels the same way toward him, but doesn't want her comments to be visible to anyone else who reads joesmith's journal, in case joe was actually talking about someone else. Although joesmith can restrict his posts' visibility to various groups, those who comment do not have the same privace offered to them. As a result, imaflirt doesn't post, and a possible relationship is stymied by the inability of both parties to communicate to each other exactly how they feel.

Design Goals and Justification for the Service or Feature

In the diverse community that is LiveJournal and its users, it is currently possible for a journal owner to restrict particular posts to a limited audience- either private, visible only to friends or user-defined groups, or allow full public access.

Currently, though, although users can restrict who can respond to posts in their journals by limiting visibility and not allowing anonymous comments, there is no way for a particular user to comment without that comment being visible to anyone who is able to view the original post.

Presently, the only way to approximate this is by leaving a comment and subsequently deleting it- the original post generates e-mail with the text of the comment to the journal owner without requiring that the comment remain in the public domain.

Value Proposition

Being able to make a private comment, visible only to the journal owner would allow private communication between LJ community members without creating awkward situations.