Question for Discussion...

[freetrav]

As you probably know, Livejournal allows you to append ?style=mine or &style=mine to a LJ URL. Doing so causes the LJ page to be displayed in the style of the viewer's LJ (if the page admits of having user styles applied). This may (probably will) be different from the style that the page's author (i.e., the owner of the LJ) chose to present his/her journal in.

Question the first

: How do you feel about using this when you are viewing someone else's LJ? Why do you chose to do it?

Question the second

: How do you feel about others using this when they view your LJ? Why?

This is deliberately not a poll, just an open question; comment and discussion is invited.

Comments

Because...

[emt-hawk.livejournal.com]

People choose themes I don't want to look at.

--Hawk

[kengr]

I do it because far too many people have styles srt that are almost unreadable due to color choices of font size.

Add in the folks who have *huge* borders, and readability goes way downhill.

As for folks using their own style when reading my LJ, I don't have a problem. I've got one of the really bare bones styles selected anyway.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

I do it because far too many people have styles srt that are almost unreadable due to color choices of font size.

That. I have one friend whose scheme is such that the text is light gray on dark grey, and the cursor is exactly the same color as the background, so unless I use "style=mine" I'm almost typing blind when I comment on his posts. I don't understand why anyone would use something to hard to read and write. I've mentioned it, but he's never responded. Makes me wonder whether he somehow sees the text differently ... some subtle undisguised colorblindness which makes the foreground and background colors much more different for him, perhaps.

[beki.livejournal.com]

I do it because a lot of the S2 layouts are a bitch to read. I am looking at their journal so I can read it. If it becomes impossible for me to read, I won't. plain and simple.

I use an old S1 layout that is easy for me to read. If someone wants to change how that looks in their browser, more power to them. I can't see how they are viewing my page, so it makes no difference to me.

[guppiecat]

I use that technique for when I follow comments. That makes it easier to read and streamlines my experience. I recognize that, by doing so, I am missing out on the designs of others. However, I still see those when I follow a link outside of LJ, so it's not like the styling is gone.

In short, when I'm in LJ, the point is to communicate with my friends, so I use a style that just gets out of my way. When I'm browsing, styles matter more, so I might pay more attention to them.

[imonkey50.livejournal.com]

Given the state of my eyes anymore, that would be a good thing. Some people have themes that make it very hard for me to read/post because there's insufficient contrast between the background and the actual text entry areas.

For those with 25 year old (i.e. fairly good still) eyes this isn't as much of a problem.

[pauamma]

I don't usually do it on others' journals as such (as in, http://freetrav.livejournal.com/), because when I look at someone's journal, it's more often than not to troubleshoot something, and I need to view it as they would. (I will do it, however, if I'm reading someone's journal for content and their own style makes it hard to read for me.) I did, however, set my viewing options to append it automatically to links to individual journal entries from my friends page. I have no qualms against doing either.

As to others applying their own style to my journal? I couldn't care less, and my style is definitely unadorned (I don't even bother to specify an icon, a mood, a music, or a location to my entries), so it's not like they would be *removing* elements of my design, because there's nothing to remove.

[jazzerat.livejournal.com]

Until recently I would have said such a choice was a rather interesting statement about the psyche of one who made such a choice. Self-centered, unbending, perhaps even a bit autistic in their approach to life. However, one of the ljs I now read at times uses an intensely irritating lavender background with bright pink print... I not only find it annoying, I have just enough color blindness I am very hard put to even read the words, and at times outright can't.
So it would seem there may be good cause to use such an option at times.... I like your scheme and find it very readable, by the way .
Given my own choices, I enjoy seeing all the different styles and formats people use and create. I'd be robbing myself by only viewing through my own.

[herveus.livejournal.com]

I take advantage of the ability to automatically have that done when I view an LJ via my friends page. I use a very spare style. Many LJ styles are overdone with funky colors and layouts that detract from readability.

If someone wants to do the same while reading my LJ, that's their business. I don't own their browser.

You can apply various styling bits to your web page to try to impose a high level of control over the presentation. I can then go to my CSS menu and disable all styles. If your overproduced page turns into gibberish, it's not my problem, but I likely won't waste further time on it.

[janetmiles.livejournal.com]

I use the option for viewing comments in my preferred style. I find most of the LJ styles distracting and some actively unpleasant. If that makes me self-centered and unbending, so be it.

If others use their preferred style to read my journal / comments, that's fine with me.

[robertprior.livejournal.com]

I didn't know that. Cool trick -- there are some LJs I'd given up on reading because I couldn't see the colours clearly…

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

If I'm reading someone else's journal, rather than my friends page or a comment in mine, I'll do so on their style ... most of the time. But some people use LJ styles that are either "Aaaagh! My EYES!!!" or, frankly, just plain unreadable. I'm glad not to have to put up with those.


As for people reading my journal in their style ... well, I like to think my style is fairly clean, uncluttered and readable. But they are going to miss out on some of my CSS text formatting. This may (probably will) mean certain posts will not look to them as they're intended to. Their loss.

[leiacat.livejournal.com]

I use it by default, because it's easier for me to read black on white than random assorted on different. For the same reason I never assign colors to people in my flist, either. I'm text-based, I want to hear what people say. How they present themselves is interesting to me too, but not in an everyday-way. I may well know/remember that this person I'm reading is really a lovely and perfectly legible lavender, and this other is a morbid dark-grey-on-black, but if I want a reminder, I'll go and get it. In the meantime, I prefer just the text to read, as that way I can go through it much, much faster, and stand a chance of staying semi-current on the contents.

As for my own journal - I optimized for simplicity and legibility-to-me. I never _use_ graphical or style-based elements beyond a choice of tiny collection of icons. Those who view it in their own style are most welcome to it, as there's nothing whatsoever lost.