There were three things I wanted to mention, though, sort of policy-ish things, because I am stern and mean and no fun at all:
1) Political speech is not socially privileged with me. If you are a jerk to groups of people in the name of politics, I'm not going to enjoy that any more than if you were a jerk to them in the name of anything else, all the way down to frisbee golf or macramé. I will not have a political affiliation test for remaining on my friendslist, and I understand that political speech can get pretty intense. I would like to say that I'd never de-friend someone for their politics, but of course there are political positions that are way beyond the pale. But in general, within much of current American political discourse, I won't de-friend people for their politics. I will de-friend them for being a jerk about their politics, even if I agree with the particular position. Ideally this will not come up because everyone will treat everyone else like human beings except for Politician X, who obviously doesn't deserve it.
2) I don't promote things in this lj unless I actually genuinely like them. It's really no good writing to me to ask me to promote, say, a kind of onion rings, because I don't eat onion rings, ever, so it doesn't matter how good your onion rings are. If, on the other hand, I eat your sweet potato fries and they're really good, you don't have to ask, because I will rave about them on my own, no problem. I like good sweet potato fries. Sending me free stuff in case I like it is fine. Specifically asking me to shill for you for something I haven't even tried: not fine. I can stand a certain amount of targeted advertisement, but skipping advertising to me and moving right on to asking me to advertise for you? Not gonna happen, so save your pixels.
3) If I send you an unpublished manuscript, either for critique purposes or as a friendly thing, like I did for Christmas '06, I would really prefer that you not show it around to other people without asking me first. And I would really prefer that you not forward the pixels to people without asking me first. This is not about who has a right to what or lawsuits or anything like that. This is me asking nicely, saying, I would find it more congenial if you refrained. I would find it more civil. And I would more likely feel friendly the next time I was doing a friendly thing. If I'm still trying to sell a story, I'd prefer that there not be any real question about whether it's been published before, and I'd prefer that I know which editors have seen it, more or less. The stories I'm willing to have distributed hither, thither, and yon are linked right here for your reading pleasure and your second cousin's college roommate's co-worker's reading pleasure. Again, I know that once a story has left my hands, I don't control it. So I'm not saying, "YOU CAN'T." I'm saying, "Please don't."
