altivo

I've been enjoying the interest matching and ranking memes this week, mostly because it has revealed quite a bit not only about my own friends, but about the way in which we all tend to think and process this stuff. It has also pointed up some shortcomings in the LJ interest listing.

For instance, if

animist lists "wolf" in his interests, while I list "wolves", technically we don't match. And it's possible that we really don't. Perhaps he means WOLF as an archetype or a spirit, while I mean wolves as furry critters who are wild and beautiful but frightening to some people of narrow perceptions. But more likely there is a commonality here that is being missed just because we thought in different terms while making up our interest lists.

This affects our ability to locate others who share our interests, too. If I search for "wolves" as an interest, I will fail to find

animist even though he is certainly someone I should know about if I'm looking for other wolf boosters. Likewise, in looking for LJ communities interested in, say, the BBC television series Dr Who you will get completely different lists depending on whether you look for "doctor who", "dr who", or "dr. who". Some of this could be improved in the code if the LJ folks were to add some soundex or fuzzy matching options. But I also think more of us should either agree on standard vocabulary for interests, or fatten our interest lists by putting in terms in multiple ways.

For instance, I've learned that I should probably list "ham radio" as well as "amateur radio", "wolf" and probably "lupines" as well as "wolves", and "padfoot" as well as "Sirius Black".

Many of us list very generic topics in our interests: "reading", "writing", "music", "drawing", "food", "sex", etc. This is all very well, but nearly everyone is interested in most of those things. To take advantage of the potential for finding friends who can inspire you, be more specific. Which authors and genres do you read? What kind of music? Which artists? This is especially important in light of the apparent limit of 150 interests per user. As you approach that limit, consider dropping the highly generic interests like "reading" in favor of the more helpfully specific ones, like "tolkien".

Don't be afraid to expand your interest list. Give it some thought, and make it describe you in more detail. It's worth the trouble.

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