To my mind, there's no contradiction, because the actors in the two clauses are different: in the first one, it's "you", ie, the person writing the profile; in the second, it's "we", as in, LiveJournal staff.
Barak isn't saying anything new; he's pointing to something that's been on the edit-profile page as long as I recall. If he's at fault, it's for using the passive voice instead of saying, "when you list your interests, you should do so as if you're saying, 'I like x' or 'I'm in favour of x'...". Burr86 and Barak (in his latest post) both say how LJ will interpret that list when push comes to shove.
It may seem inconsistent, but actually, it's a rehash of a system design principle: be generous in what you accept, and conservative in what you send. That's conservative in a non-political sense, by the way: in engineering terms, it means stick to the published standard and avoid options, extensions, and other non-standard usage. It might be a "geek thing", but actually, it works pretty well in human interactions, too.
The problem in the LJ context is that people tend to list X as an interest when they mean "the use of X in literature to evoke a reaction" or "society's views on X", perhaps because that's the shorthand in their community of interest. Somewhat flippant example: I might list "rape" as an interest; LJ's reminder might prompt me to say "growing rape" or "canola" instead. In any event, when the Jihad on Innocence comes knocking, LJ will (say burr86 and barak) consider my profile as a whole, including my bio (farmer) and other interests (wheat, oats, manure), in order to decide whether there's a case to answer. Stupid example, but enough to show how both clauses have a role and they are not inconsistent.
no subject
Barak isn't saying anything new; he's pointing to something that's been on the edit-profile page as long as I recall. If he's at fault, it's for using the passive voice instead of saying, "when you list your interests, you should do so as if you're saying, 'I like x' or 'I'm in favour of x'...". Burr86 and Barak (in his latest post) both say how LJ will interpret that list when push comes to shove.
It may seem inconsistent, but actually, it's a rehash of a system design principle: be generous in what you accept, and conservative in what you send. That's conservative in a non-political sense, by the way: in engineering terms, it means stick to the published standard and avoid options, extensions, and other non-standard usage. It might be a "geek thing", but actually, it works pretty well in human interactions, too.
The problem in the LJ context is that people tend to list X as an interest when they mean "the use of X in literature to evoke a reaction" or "society's views on X", perhaps because that's the shorthand in their community of interest. Somewhat flippant example: I might list "rape" as an interest; LJ's reminder might prompt me to say "growing rape" or "canola" instead. In any event, when the Jihad on Innocence comes knocking, LJ will (say burr86 and barak) consider my profile as a whole, including my bio (farmer) and other interests (wheat, oats, manure), in order to decide whether there's a case to answer. Stupid example, but enough to show how both clauses have a role and they are not inconsistent.