During the time when I was doing link finding for metanews, the main reason we didn't link much in the way of LJ or DW posts was staffing limitations*. Asking people for linking permission really wasn't a limiting factor or impediment. Nine out of ten people (possibly nineteen out of twenty) responded to a query in the comments, and almost all of them said yes. We'd wait two to three weeks for a response to the request and then, if we hadn't gotten an answer, assume that that meant 'no.'

Some people on DW and LJ have profile statements that include permission to link. We didn't ask for permission for specific posts from those people. We also decided that accounts that were clearly meant as real name accounts for professional authors could be linked without permission because they were intended as a public interface. That only applied if the name on the account was the name the person published under professionally. If the user name was bippitybobbityboo and the name on their books was John Smith, we'd ask permission.

Linking is a lot like demanding that someone throw a last minute party for their kid's soccer team-- 15 six year olds and all of their siblings and parents. Asking before linking gives people a warning to do the household equivalent of making sure the kids' bedroom doors are closed and that there aren't stray LEGOS in the carpet or smelly, dirty dishes in the sink. Some people will say yes. Some people will say no. Some people will pretend that message went to junk mail/got eaten by voicemail because saying no outright is rude and might lead to a panic attack and saying yes would lead to a worse panic attack anyway.

The people wandering into a post and wanting conversation are potentially crossing other social boundaries. Once I have guests in my house, I have an obligation as host. Somebody's going to ask why the refrigerator doesn't match the stove. Someone's going to rummage in the bathroom cupboard and get judgy about what's in there and what isn't. Strangers will argue with each other about politics or fashion or proper parenting practices.

Asking permission to link gives people time to say no privately. It's much harder/more humiliating and terrifying to say no after people are already letting themselves in the door and setting up chairs in the yard. At that point, if one says 'no,' it's in public. People might mock you on FFA or sneer at you in other places.

Going back to the last minute party-- There are knock-on repercussions for saying no and for not behaving perfectly while hosting. If you refuse or botch it and everybody knows, will you ever be able to attend a game or practice again? Will you be able to carpool? And those families will be there at school and for the other sports your kids might want to play.


*metanews was supposed to have link finders who focused on specific potential sources of meta. At the very end, I was doing most of the link finding. My assigned scope was entirely separate from LJ and DW. I might link things there if they were things from within my circle, or I might have a spare hour and figure that looking at one or two journals wouldn't make me more exhausted. We didn't link much on DW and LJ during those last months because we lacked staff even to track people we knew posted a lot of meta.

It wasn't that we were asking and being ignored or rejected. Almost everyone said yes.

Another reason that permissions weren't generally an impediment was that finding obscure meta posted by people who don't write it frequently is very difficult. Link finders can't possibly follow every account that might potentially post meta, can't check every newly created journal to see if there's meta. Going through half a dozen irrelevant posts to get one linkable post is feasible if one's absolutely certain that something will be there. Going through forty or fifty or a hundred posts to find something? That devours time.

Most people who post frequent meta either lock all of it or know that they may be hosting a party each time. A meta aggregating newsletter is more useful when it turns up things that readers wouldn't see otherwise. Someone new to DW or new to reading meta (or to reading it for a specific fandom) may well benefit from seeing links to that new post by person Q; people who've been around longer and/or have broader reading lists will have seen that post linked at least six times and probably follow person Q anyway.

Generally speaking, people who post meta infrequently won't ask to have it linked even if they know they could. There's a fear of rejection. There's also a fear of being seen as demanding/encroaching or-- worse-- pathetically needy. Bringing one's own work to the attention of the link finders leaves open the possibility that the resulting link is a pity link.