Nimetic

Here's the question..

I have profiles on a couple of social networking sites. I'm now trying to determine the "web's best practice" for handling friend and link requests.

In particular... take the case where somebody who you know of and have met (years ago) at parties requests "friend" status. If you haven't ever really chatted to them in the past for more than a minute (the obligatory intro bit) - is it misleading others to accept the link?

Is the situation different if you've heard good things about them, or if you've heard bad things?

passthru

How about just sending a message and chatting a bit? If you've only talked to a person for a minute, and it was years ago, why (how?) would you consider them a friend? There isn't much purpose of being "friends" on a site (unless it lets you see eachothers profile & pictures); all it really lets you do is have a list of people on one page when you want to send a message to somebody.

I recently got an invite to linkedin via email. The guy's name sounded very familiar but I had no idea who it was, even after looking at pictures. It took about 2 months before I figured out who this guy from a different state was and why he had my email. If you run into somebody on the street you haven't seen or heard from in years, would you ask them "want to be friends?" or would you say "hello, how's it going, what's new?" first?

SabrinaFair

I use social networking sites primarily for, well, networking. Most of the friend requests I get are from friends-of-friends and vague acquaintances. I accept them, if for no other reason that it gives me an "in" with that person. I've actually had some casual contacts become good friends through Facebook, etc.

I don't think its misleading to others. If you were holding this person out to be your BFF, then that would be misleading. Being linked to someone through a social networking site....not so much.

Just my $.02, of course.

Best,
Sabrina

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MSD

You're thinking waaaaaaaaaaaay to hard about this. If they're a porn bot, decline the request. If you mildly dislike them, decline the request. If you really dislike them, accept and find blackmail-worthy photos.

Lasereth

Have you ever spoken with them. If so, accept.

genuinegirly

It's entirely a personal call.
I have friends that were exceptionally good friends or roomates years ago. They are friends. I have old housemates that I kind of knew but not really, they too are friends. I have classmates that I studied frequently with that I haven't spoken with since graduation, but they're still friends.

If you don't think of them as friends, don't accept the friend request.

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Cernunnos

On social networking sites, I tend to decline random friendship requests from people that I don't immediately recognize as acquaintances. If I have met them at any point in the past, however, and they seemed pleasant enough, I will accept the invitation as a means of coming to know that person better. To reject their request could easily be perceived as disinterest and cause them to abstain from future networking efforts with me. With that being said, I am not currently active on any social networking sites.

Oh, and as for bots, don't just reject the request. Report them.

Prince

I rarely send out such requests myself, but I get them every so often.

If I know who the person is, and they're not an arsehole, I accept by default, even if I don't plan on actually actively speaking to them. You never know, and besides I don't want to be rude.

To be honest while I have an account at MySpace and one on Facebook, I rarely actually use these accounts for anything. MySpace in particular lowers my IQ every time I make the mistake of visiting that shithole. So therefore allowing some dipwad to add me to their list is really no skin off my arse, and if that changes then I can always erase them later.

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MSD

To add to my previous post, let's just say that I wish the "I don't even know this person" option on Facebook set the quoted text as your relation ship with someone instead of defaulting to declining the request. I have no idea who two thirds of my Facebook friends are.

Yesterday, on the train, I was talking with friends and we ended up chatting with a middle-aged guy who was standing near us; he's a bank manager. Towad the end of the conversation, he mentioned that one of his interns had set him up with Facebook and Myspace accounts as a joke, and that he now has hundreds of friends who he hasn't seen or talked to since high school. My brother responded by saying that people add our band s a friend just because of the name. The response from the guy who we had just met on the train was, "Oh! You guys are Death Penis?! I keep seeing that and wondered who that was!"

At that point I turned to my brother and said, "OK Steve, now that we have name recognition, I think we have some sort of obligation to record and post music worth listening to."


I'm e-famous.

Nimetic

That's my view entirely. Some people just send the request - without any accompanying greeting. That seems slack to me. If they want access to my profile - I think they should be willing to type a couple of words.

However I don't want to send the impression that I'm pissed off with the person. They're welcome to correspond.

I'm more relaxed on linkedin. There's no pictures on my profile - nor personal views. That's simply business as far as I'm concerned.

Daniel_

I take the oposite view.

If someone can't work out who I am from the request, we weren't worth being friends. Likewse, if they ping me and I can't figure out who they are, then I'll bin them.

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Nimetic

I'll go with that... entirely.. for people that I've spoken to or corresponded with recently or with whom I had some sort of connection at some time in the past, even if it was a long time ago (school?).

But not for people that I've not spoken to in 5+ years and who I met once or twice without really connecting in any way. ie through mutual acquaintances.

Know what I mean?

Clermont

I'm more cautious on LinkedIn than I am on Facebook. Facebook doesn't matter so much- it's mostly social. Folks on LinkedIn might be called on as a reference while you're hunting for a job. If I'd rather not have that paste eating goober being the only connection a hiring manager has to me then I'd rather keep the fact that I know him a secret.