OD survey thing
This seems to be making the rounds now, since I’ve seen it in a few friends’ diaries, so I guess I’ll do it, too. 🙂
1) When did you start writing on OD? About 6 years ago. I was 21, living in a different city, and had never had a real boyfriend. That feels like a LONG time ago!
2) How did you find OD and what made you decide to start a diary here? This is kind of a weird story. I used to meet guys online to have sex. Usually we’d just exchange a couple e-mails, then phone numbers, and meet right away, but once in a while I’d get one who wanted to talk for a while online first (which I mostly thought was annoying). Anyway, one guy sent me a link to his OD, where he had some very badly written erotic writing. It was bad enough (with the grammar and spelling) that it completely turned me off and I didn’t even want to meet him after that, but I thought the site itself was kind of a good idea, in the sense that I could write anonymously and other random people would read it. So I started one, and it was mostly just meant to be for writing sex stuff. I’ve strayed pretty far from that by now!
3) Have you ever tried other online diary/journal/blog sites? No.
4) Do you refer to your OD as a diary, journal, blog, or something else? I guess none of the above…I don’t tell anyone about my OD!
5) What is the meaning, reason, or story behind your diary title? I had to look to see what my title even is ("Devils and Angels"). I have no memory of putting it there, or what my thought process was. 🙂
6) Approximately how many usernames have you had on OD and what were some (or all) of them? Just this one. I’ve never bothered to change the name, even though I kind of want to because I think my name on here is stupid.
7) What is the privacy setting on your diary? (Public, OD Users Only, Friends Only, or Private?) I think it’s OD users only. Not sure, though.
8) Do you mostly write public, friends only, or private entries? Why? Public or friends only. I’m not sure why I’d bother to write a private entry…if I want to keep it completely private then why would I put it online?
9) How many entries do you have and what is their breakdown? 261 entries, 191 public, 68 FO, 2 private (ok, so I just said I don’t write private entries. I don’t. The 2 private ones are ones that used to be public and I decided there’s no reason for anyone to be able to see them anymore so I changed them to private) 🙂
10) What are your criteria for deciding to post an entry public, friends only, or private? It mostly depends on my mood on any given day, and what type of feedback I feel like getting. If I’m in an extra sensitive mood I won’t post publicly because I don’t want comments from random people who don’t know me and will try to give me "advice" based on one entry without knowing me at all. Anything blatantly sexual is friends-only. Or anything where I feel like it’s more information than I want in public. Usually I just make them public, though, because I’m narcissistic enough to want as many people to see it as possible. 🙂
11) Does anyone in your real life know about and/or read your OD? I have one friend who I’ve told about my OD, and showed it to her a LONG time ago. I doubt she remembers, though.
12) Do you consider the diarists on your friends list to actually be "friends"? A few of them.
13) Do you communicate with any fellow ODers outside of OD? If so, by what methods? I e-mail or chat with a few, and have one who I have met and occasionally talk to on the phone (although we usually just e-mail still).
14) Does your OD have a theme? I’m not nearly organized enough to have a theme.
15) Do you use any features (tags, chapters, friends/bookmarks groups, etc.) to organize your OD? My OD is not organized in any way.
16) Do you have a paid or free account? Why? Free. Because I don’t like to spend money when I don’t have to.
17) If you have OD+, what is your favorite Plus feature? If not, what feature would you like to see added to free OD? I’d love to have longer notes, and be able to see more of the "note conversation."
18) Do you have any habits or routines associated with your OD and/or writing in it? Not really. I just write when I have something I want to write about.
19) Do you write anonymously or not? Why? Yes (hopefully). Because I don’t want the stuff I say here connected to my identity in any way.
20) What is your note setting and why? I allow unsigned notes mostly because some of them amuse me, and also because sometimes if I write about something traumatic in my past I get "I can relate" notes that are unsigned, and I want to allow those. Only private notes because that’s mostly what I get anyway, and also because people who want to leave rude anonymous notes not only miss out on the satisfaction of anyone else seeing them, but also can’t fully be sure they ever posted. 🙂
21) Have you ever made an entry private that wasn’t originally so? If so, why? Yes, a couple times. Just stuff where I wanted to write it out at the time and later on decided that I didn’t want it out there for anyone to see.
22) Have you ever deleted an entry? Why? Yes, one time. I got in a kind of dumb argument via notes with someone, and copied the entire exchange into an entry. The next day I realized that was probably a stupid thing to do, so I deleted it.
23) Do you have any diarists blocked? No (I don’t think I can block. Plus there’s no one I really would want to block, anyway)
24) To your knowledge are you blocked by any diarists? Not that I know of. I’d be really surprised if anyone has me blocked.
25) Do you update regularly or sporadically? Definitely sporadically (although I’ve been much more regular with it in the last year)
26) Have you ever posted a picture of yourself in your OD? Yes, I used to post pictures when I first started, but I deleted them from here a long time ago.
27) Do you ever go back and read through your old entries? Only when I’m trying to find something specific.
28) Are you good about replying to notes? No, I’m terrible about it.
29) If you read an entry, do you feel obligated to note it, even if you have nothing to say? Not usually.
30) Which do you do more on OD: read or write? Write
31) What is your opinion of blank notes (notes that show a diarist’s name, but have no other text)? I leave them sometimes (but not usu
ally).
32) How much time and attention do you spend on your OD’s appearance? Do you feel like it matters? Hardly any. I just changed my colors up a bit a couple days ago, and I think that’s the first time I’ve done that in a couple years.
33) How much time and attention do you spend on your OD’s front page? Do you feel like it matters? Not very much. I figure no one ever reads it.
34) Do you ever look at the front page of other diarists? Rarely.
35) Have you ever nominated an entry for Reader’s Choice? No. I usually forget reader’s choice exists.
36) Have you ever had one of your entries nominated for Reader’s Choice? Yes, one (that I know of…it doesn’t give you any kind of notification or anything!). It was an entry where I basically just copied and pasted something my friend wrote to me, though, so it wasn’t really like MY writing got nominated.
37) Do you feel like OD is a social networking site, an online community, both or neither? Both, although I don’t use it as a social networking site at all.
38) Have you ever left OD for a period of time and came back? If so, why did you come back? Yes, several times. I came back because I missed it.
39) Are all your bookmarks on your friends list and vice versa or not? No. I don’t clean up the lists often, and definitely clean up friends more often than bookmarks. I pretty much never add someone to one and not the other, though.
40) Have you ever met any fellow ODers in person? Just one.
41) Approximate how many diarists on are your bookmarks and friends? I won’t approximate when I can just count…46 friends, 71 bookmarks (geez, need to clean those up!)
42) Do you have any diarists on your bookmarks and/or friends that haven’t posted in over a year? Why don’t you delete them? Yes. Not many on friends because I do clean that up periodically, but I often don’t bother deleting bookmarks. Plus, there are several where if they do ever come back to OD I want to know!
43) Do you have any entries that you’ve written that particularly stand out in your mind? Yes, but mostly because they were about circumstances or events that stand out in my mind. I’m never very impressed by my own writing. 🙂
44) Do you write for yourself, for your readers, or both? Both, but mostly for myself
45) Do you feel you can be 100% open and honest in your OD or do you feel like you have to censor yourself? Both….I’m totally open and honest about my thoughts, feelings, and all that, but extremely guarded with any identity-type stuff.
46) Would you, or have you, ever recommended OD to another person? If so, did you tell them about your OD and give them your username? No. I don’t want anyone I know in "real life" to read this. 🙂
47) If you were to describe your diary in one word, what would that word be? Random
48) Has OD changed your life in any ways? If so, how? Yes. I’ve made a couple really good friends through here. And met a man who could very easily be the love of my life. Plus, writing is generally good for me, to get out whatever stuff is just bouncing around in my head and would otherwise drive me crazy.