About comments (and commenting)

When you visit this here journal, if you really want the full experience, don't just check for new entries.  Scroll back a little, to see whether other recent entries have new or changed comments.

Case in point: look two entries ago, at " Holiday Newsletter, part 3".  This has collected three comments since it was posted on May 28.

And if you read those, you see my social network in action.

The first two are "anonymous," in the sense that Dreamwidth itself doesn't know who posted them.  Neither would a random reader (one who doesn't already know me).

The first comment, though, was not anonymous to me, because the commenter included her first name at the bottom of the text.  The second commenter didn't do that, so I didn't know who had left it; I guessed, but my guess turned out to be wrong.

Which brings us to the third comment, which isn't anonymous in any sense: I posted it, as a reply to the second.  Its main point: to ask Commenter 2 to identify oneself.

And today, having learned who that was, I further edited the third comment, thus "outing" her.

Exciting stuff, huh?  A reality show, you might say: learn more about not just me, but my friends and relatives too.