today is not my birthday

[piranha]

*ack*, i didn't think about LJ's "birthday feed" since i never use the portal.

i appreciate people's good wishes because it's the thought that counts. however...

if you've known me for a long time, you know that i neither celebrate my actual birthday, nor mention it in public for privacy reasons, but tend to forget it and am happy about that.

from my userinfo:

PS: that birthdate is a lie; don't send me greetings based on it. since LJ is being so moronic as to require a full birthdate to be listed in the profile for the purpose of joining 18+ communities, i made one up. i am a long, long way on the other side of 18, and i am educated enough to not leave actual vital stats laying around where anyone can grab that data for nefarious purposes. thanks, LJ, for making your users either lie (if they're smart) or allowing themselves to be more vulnerable to online predators. *rolls eyes*. [/rant]

Comments

[djm4]

I think one can hide one's birthdate these days; I certainly did when I added it to my profile a few weeks ago (and IIRC one used not to be able to do that, which is why mine was originally blank).

[la-penguinita.livejournal.com]

I dunno. I kinda like the idea of April 1st as being a day to think about you and all my memories of you. May not be a "birthday", but it works in a perverse sort of way... *wink*

Have a good day!!

[djm4]

Yes - 'Edit profile' has, for me, both an option of how much detail to display for my birthday and an option for which groupings get to see it. Both can be set to 'none'.

[djm4]

It does make zie 'poisson d'Avril'.

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

i know i can hide it, but that makes it invisible for mods of comms that check this manually, so hiding is no good.

it pisses me off.

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

*snicker*. yes, i can see that. if i were into marking my passage once a year i would probably pick a specific date, and april 1 certainly appeals. (the older i get the less into marking my passage i am though.)

heck, perverse is good! thanks. :)

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

THANKS A LOT.

[kightp.livejournal.com]

Apologies; I'll try to remember this a year from now.

It's not just the Portal, though; one of the newer LJ thingamajigs will e-mail one birthday reminders for one's friendslist, and I know a lot of people who avail themselves of it ...

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

no apologies necessary at all, not for sending good thoughts. and this isn't something i expect everyone to remember.

i just don't like misleading people. which is why LJ pisses me off about this.

i think i'll just hide it again altogether, and then unhide if when i join a comm where they check this sort of thing.

[burr86.livejournal.com]

Calling you out on this: "LJ is being so moronic as to require a full birthdate to be listed in the profile for the purpose of joining 18+ communities" -- I believe LJ just requires enough information to verify that you're over 18. So if you list 1920 as your birth year, that's enough, but if you list 1990 as your birth year, you need to include month to prove that you're past 18 rather than still 17 (and so on, to the granularity needed).

[wild-irises.livejournal.com]

I don't like the LJ birthday feed thing at all, and this is just a subset of why.

But happy unbirthday to you!

[pyrzqxgl.livejournal.com]

Happy unbirthday! It's my cat's observed birthday, not knowing his actual birthday.

LJ requirements

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

that used to be the case once upon a time (before the whole "we must protect the childruuun" mess happened).

when the adult content stuff hit several of my smut comms last year and they demanded we had to have our full birth date (instead of our birth year only) i was gonna complain that they asked us to do more than LJ did, and before opening my big mouth i went to read the FAQs to make sure -- and i was glad i had. it specifically said that there had to be an entire birthdate. i am not particularly quick to blame LJ for idiocies, but that one stuck in my craw.

of course since you are the one calling me on this, i had to go back and check if maybe they changed it again, or if it was written so i could have misunderstood, and no, it's the same. http://www.livejournal.com/support/faqbrowse.bml?faqid=196&q=adult+content&lang=

All future members must display their full birthdate, including year, on their User Info page.

i gather you did not write that bit. :)

[novazembla.livejournal.com]

Remind me -- the traditional unbirthday greeting is "fuck off," innit?

@%<

[djm4]

I did think 'zie probably knows this way better than I do', but it also occurred to me that if I'd only recently spotted the option, it might be new (although presumably it isn't, and I've just been blind).

I do see why it's no use to you, though.

[djm4]

Sorry, it just slipped out before I could stop it.

[firecat]

I usually lie about my birthdate online, too. I tend to put the same lie everywhere; I suppose I could call it my "online birthday".

Re: LJ requirements

[burr86.livejournal.com]

Aha, okay, I see. Well, the FAQ is wrong -- note that it was last updated in June 2007, before the content flagging system came out. The content flagging system eliminated the need for maintainers to even see your birthday -- LJ will do the computation. (That FAQ is the same policy we've had since you were on the Abuse Team -- there's now less of a burden on maintainers.)

Well...fuck it

[blur01.livejournal.com]

Happy Birthday, JEP!