The Extra Cool Group! (of people Michael is experimenting on) discussion

What is your general strategy concerning friending vs. following members? I find GR to be different in FB in this respect in that: in FB, if I don't know the person in real life, I will not friend them (or accept their friend request). But GR is geared more towards making friends online you didn't have before...

So... do you just friend people you know in real life? Or who you've talked to on a forum? If you find someone who has similar taste in books as you, but have not talked to him/her in a group discussion or book thread, will you friend the person, or follow, or neither?

What if someone friends you who you don't know? Will you accept?

And what if someone follows you. Do you follow back? etc. etc.

I never follow people. If I had a yearning to follow them, I'd just ask them to accept me as a friend and check out their reviews in the updates.

There are only a few of my GR friends that I know in real life. The others I've met through groups. I don't bother accepting friend invites from authors I don't read.

Anyone who wants to friend me has to answer this question: "How do I know you?" I just want to know where they got my name from; it's usually from the groups I belong to.

I'm a mod of a group, and if I see that a new person is contributing a lot to the group, I'll send them a friend invite.

I'm really only interested in being friends with people who share the same interest in the genres I enjoy, because the points of being friends is to share book suggestions. If I don't read paranormal romances, I really don't want to get constant updates about these types of books I won't ever read.

I'm too nice. I friend anybody who asks to be my friend as long as their answers to my question, "Why do you want to be my friend." is not perverted. I have only refused 1 friend. His answer, "Because I want to fuck you."

I barely remember most of the friends. What I do is put my real friends in my top friends so that I can follow their updates.

I'm with Tressa, if I want to follow their updates I'll ask to be their friend.

Mike, I always look at how many friends someone has. If they have hundreds of friends already, I don't bother accepting them. By that point it's just hording and they're not interested in anything I read or have to say. Why bother?

I also periodically go through and clean out my friends. If I don't remember who they are, or if they don't use GR much, I delete them.

On facebook, I only accept people that I've met. On GR, I've begun to add/ accept other people.

Generally, I'll allow people into my network if they write interesting reviews and they are active readers of their network's writing. If I add someone (as opposed to accepting), I'll usually add only if I've seen that person in a mutual friend's feeds or if they have commented on my stuff (or vice versa). When adding, I always include a note and appreciate the courtesy when added.

I don't "follow" others. It seems somewhat arrogant to me to expect people to follow your work rather than to interact with you. I've had two people "follow" me and I added them both after. Of course, I realize that some people may accept friends and then maintain their top friends list.

As for common reads, I'm getting to the point that I don't read a great deal of what my networks read, but it's actually pretty interesting. I'm not really a fan of paranormal romance, but I often find the non-fiction reviews that come up quite interesting and I've begun to read a greater variety of books as a result.

Final thing. Regarding updates, I will usually uncheck "add to my update feed" before commenting so that I am not adding too many updates into others' news feeds.
Ryan

I usually don't friend people unless I have talked to them in some fashion (through threads or forums). I never thought of following as being arrogant, so that's a new one for me to mull over, haha. I love following because I don't like pushing myself on others and making them decide if they want to be my friend. I feel like friending is rather presumptuous because it's like I'm saying "We're friends just because we like the same books and maybe said two or three words to each other in some distant thread" whereas in reality I don't know you at all! Yet, I like your reviews and want to follow you, so following is (to me) a good compromise...

Ideally I'd like to keep my friends list down to just people I know in real life plus a few online people who I actually interact with regularly. And everyone else would be someone I "followed". That would be easier for me to keep in my head, so that I can see at one glance whether I actually know someone (or think I know them) rather than just someone whose opinions on books I trust.

It's different when people add me as friends though. I can't say no, cause then I feel mean.

Talking of following people about - this lack of notifications means I'm stuck on my homepage and no idea what's going on, and SPLAT - Elizabeth, you just beat me in here (hello and commiseration with the lack of info - it's annoying me, too).

Why? Well, actually because I really like keeping track of people who I've friended and who've kindly friended me, and it's amazing the places they get to and the reviews they find, so I love getting the updates on not just what they are reading but reviews and threads and comments they've found. But...I'm already feeling a bit guilty because I know I'm not keeping up with everyone and interacting as much as I'd like (in fact I'd say I'm failing miserably).

And then....there's funny occurrence of ending up on a review that really tickles the fancy and I've just got to go and squizz the person's profile page...and not wanting to seem a total prat, I 'follow' them, because not just one but several of their reviews are cool, but since they don't know me, I don't want to suddenly appear out of the virtual blue saying FRIEND ME', and then I wonder if they think I'm a creep becaue I'm following them....

And someone is following me....but I've seen them around and wonder if I oughtn't to send a message asking if they want to be friends, or would that be too forward, or..what? Dunno...but honestly I'd rather friend than follow.

People also seem to treat the whole concept of 'friend' differently, so I've ended up friends with people who just want to have another body in their network, which is fine by me, and we sort of have sporadic contact, which is also fine - the expectations are that much lower so there is less potential to disappoint.

Tressa, the person who has a lot of friends already could be like me, too nice to turn down anybody. But if I ask somebody to be my friend, you can be sure that s/he will be put in my "top friends" because I'm really interested in that person. I would give that person with lots of friends a second look, and not pass based on the number of "friends."

Tressa wrote: "Mike, I always look at how many friends someone has. If they have hundreds of friends already, I don't bother accepting them. By that point it's just hording and they're not interested in anything ..."

Facebook is for family, and old and new friends. Only people I've known well can friend me there. I have no hesitancy ignoring request for friends in Facebook, since I do not want to expose my family to strangers.

I find following creepy and I hate when I get emails saying new people are following me. I don't like the idea that people I have never talked to for some reason want to see everything I write. For a while I friended anyone who started following me to lower the creepy factor, but I realized that wasn't helping.

I don't like when I feel like I'm part of a "mass friending" so I have it so people have to say something to friend me. I will friend any bizarro author (I know that's a weird standard) or anyone who mentions one of my friends in the request (I get a lot of, "a friend of caris is a friend of mine" type requests, pretty much specifically about Caris).

As far as me friending people I try not to be creepy. I friend people that I actually want to talk to as a rule and I try not to friend people who won't be able to identify me. A couple of people I friended after I met them in person because I hadn't felt like I knew them well enough before that even though I thought they were cool. I generally comment on a review first then friend someone. I also tend to compare books with people before or soon after I friend them, just to be sure I actually want to associate with them.

On facebook, I delete people that I don't talk to anymore, I friend almost no one. I don't even friend based on who I know, I friend who I would associate with outside of their current context. (e.g. if I work with someone, but don't want to see them outside of work I won't friend them on facebook).

I accept almost all friend requests, except those from people who have more friends than books. Everyone else I do friend and actually try to get to know them even if I've never met them anywhere before. I've met many very active and interesting readers this way.

If a person doesn't have much to offer in terms of discussion or reviewing, I eventually move him/her from my list of top friends so that his/her updates do not clutter my updates feed.

I send friend requests to the people who write good reviews and who I am interested in talking to. I only follow some writers, mainly to keep up with their blogs.

I don't use Facebook or Twitter or whatever else is out there. I prefer to send pix to friends and catch up via email - GR is my first venture into the online community world and it's because of books, and I feel so naked here that I don't use my real name or refer to any vital statistics (in fact it sucks that I can be located because of these lousy review statistics - are you listening GR oberlords? I should have the option to turn these off!). I'd never have the energy to write a review for Amazon and we only use the account at Christmas time for buying books.

But I'm just a sucker for being able to see what people think about books and related topics on GR.

I didn't even realize there was a 'top friends' option until I saw it mentioned here and went clicking around on my profile. All my friends are top friends. That's about exactly as much effort as I'm willing to put into "maintaining appearances".

I never followed anyone until a couple of days ago. It was a whim. I just added people who I've thought had interesting tastes and reviews, pretty much, and those I'd look for on book review pages.

I'm weird though. I feel guilty about cluttering up the update feeds of my friends list.

Great topic to bring up, Jimmy.

Since I don't pay much attention to the "follow" option, I don't follow anyone except Margaret Atwood. I suppose I agree with Ryan's perception of the word "follow," mixed in with a little of Jasmine's: if I were to follow someone, I would feel like a stalker (even though they KNOW I'm following them), and I would feel like I was telling them I didn't want to really get to know them, just wanted to read their reviews.

When I'm being followed, I percieve it a little differently...I percieve my followers as people who probably won't talk to me and usually don't vote either, but who have liked a review or more of mine. I often take a look at their profiles, but I've only friended my followers on two occasions when they also were people who interacted with me. I usually assume followers want to stay off my radar unless they show me otherwise, so they usually DO stay off my radar.

I used to friend people a lot more frequently than I do now. It used to be based on one or two interesting reviews, but now I usually only friend people who I've both interacted with and enjoyed reviews by. Because I have trouble keeping up with reviews as it is, I'm in no hurry to add more friends unless I feel they're going to be highly valuable friends. However, I only turn down friends who make it blatant that they're just friend-horders or who want to sell me shit.

It's interesting how many connotations "friend" and "follow" have.

A couple questions I'm left with after reading this.

What information should we include in a friend request? What expectations do users have for their friends/ network?
Ryan

I follow people with the same tastes, or the super-literate. Sometimes the people I follow have read everything before me, and I get annoyed, but it's all part of the fun.

That's true! I was happy about that too. :)

I don't think it is creepy either, but I understand if someone wanted to disallow the following (which is an option). I feel uncomfortable if I KNOW someone really young is reading my reviews (I tend to swear a lot).

That's a good idea. Maybe I should offer friend requests to people following me. What I do is follow them back. It's kind of like mutual stalking.

do you just friend people you know in real life?

God, no....none of my real life friends or family read much, and if they do, they are not really into talking about their books with strangers.

Or who you've talked to on a forum?

Many of my friends have one or more groups in common.

If you find someone who has similar taste in books as you, but have not talked to him/her in a group discussion or book thread, will you friend the person, or follow, or neither?

Since I have 184 friends already and am approaching my limit of 200, I've become even more selective about those I accept as friends. Mutual groups are not mandatory, but I've grown to enjoy the social aspect of this site and prefer to make friends with those who write reviews, comment on friends' books, "like" reviews, and have common reading interests. Those who have not been active for a few months, or don't interact in any way are likely to be dropped.

To answer your question, I will "friend" those I'm sure I'd like to be friends with and feel they may want new friends and "follow" the others.

Ryan wrote: "What information should we include in a friend request? What expectations do users have for their friends/ network?..."

I have a challenge question set up to discourage "friend collectors" and authors just looking to promote their work. One author actually responded, "I'm a friend collector looking for more friends." When I checked his profile and saw he had about 40 books and 1,200 friends, I ignored his request. When I add new friends, I always send a message whether they have a challenge question or not. It's the polite thing to do.

Actually after seeing it, I would add that I actually don't like having my "real friends" (outside the ones I work with on here, a few are) because I like to talk about them in my reviews which I can't do on facebook cause they'll get offended, but periodically one joins and I never find out till they see a review and mention it.

What information should we include in a friend request?
Perferably I wouldn't need information cause I'd already know you. MJ talked to me about bs johnson then friended me, I didn't need much else. Michael did friend me without me knowing exactly who he was possibly because his name is common, he said my standards must have been low because I was friends with caris. This made me laugh so he was in. Generally honesty is good. I told mike reynolds I wanted to be friends because we had the same birthday, I didn't have any other reason, that turned out okay. If you are friend whoring say your friend whoring, I might not friend you but I'll respect you.

What expectations do users have for their friends/ network?
depends on the friend

I honestly don't pay much attention when people follow me, but I do have criteria for accepting new friends. I don't go out of my way to add new friends very often because I already have plenty to keep my feed interesting, but if someone adds me I don't need to know them personally or to have seen them around the site. I do check their profile to make sure a) they're not just collecting friends, b) they actually read books occasionally, and c) they read at least some books that I like or am interested in.

I rejected one friend request because although he did read and didn't seem to be a collector, all of the stuff on his profile was stuff I already know I dislike (in this case, I think it was all religious, conservative, and/or Dan Brown). I don't want to have a friend who will do nothing but remind me of those things when I come to goodreads.

Mike wrote: "I've accepted everyone who's asked to Friend me, but then I tamper with Top Friend status to minimize notifications for titles I wouldn't read on a dare, be privy to every comment made in a group, or witness any relentless pursuit of Friends..."

I have my updates set up so friends don't see when I add friends or see what I post in groups. I figure if seeing those updates too frequently annoys me, then it annoys others. Many groups have started up various word games and while they may be fun to me, I'm sure others don't want to see them.

I think in some cases, people don't know that they can adjust these settings, just like they don't know they can have "bottom" friends.

Jimmy wrote: "What is your general strategy concerning friending vs. following members? I find GR to be different in FB in this respect in that: in FB, if I don't know the person in real life, I will not friend..."

It doesn't matter to me. I'll friend anyone who wants to be a friend on FB or GR.

Mike wrote: "Given our sordid history, I just KNOW there's a bad joke buried in there somewhere..."

I couldn't resist. ;)

After Jimmy Followed me, I came back with a friend request because I saw his to-reads and really really wanted to hear about them when he read them, right away.

I mostly send friend requests to people I've interacted with, on or off line, somehow. I mostly accept friend requests from people with whom I have some interests in common or know in real life, and turn down people if I can't figure out why they sent me a request, or if they have millions of friends already, or if they seem like they're just trying to promote. I only just started following, but use it for people who are top reviewers with tons of friends already whose tastes I'm familiar enough with to want to see their reviews first. I think both statuses are pretty useful.

I vacillate all the time on my feelings about friending or following. I try to pretend I have criteria for accepting friend requests - which I've written about in my about me - but the truth is whether I accept one or not has more to how I feel that day than anything.

I get a lot of friend requests - often several in one day. I don't mean to say this as a brag or a boast - sometimes it really stresses me out. I have a challenge question, which is, "What is the best book you read in the last year, and why?" I had to add the "and why" when I started getting terse, one-line answers. No. I want to know people are human, that they read.

I feel like a lot of my frustrations about friend requests are maybe generational. Maybe if I were half my age, I wouldn't take online friendships as seriously as I do. I would never accept friends on facebook I didn't know even half-assedly - although I've made friends with some goodreaders there because I feel our interactions have been trustworthy. I mean, I have pictures of my kids up there; and here, I won't even use their names. But a lot of the requests come from people who have read one review (I think - I don't know) and that review tends to be The Hunger Games, and the friend requesters tend to be teenagers. This makes me uncomfortable for a number of reasons, one of which is that I have a very bad mouth. I still wish there was a profanity button I could click for my reviews, although that may be like honey before bees.

Anyway, one of my things I claim to use as a criteria for friendship is how long someone has been on goodreads. I'm enough of a dork to feel strongly about my participation here, and I'm not interested in being "friends" with someone who just signed on and friend requested the first thirty people they came across. No. I don't like unfriending, but I'll do it if someone is dormant for longer than 6 months - and I don't already have some kind of relationship with them or their reviews.

I have one friend request now chilling in my inbox. He answered my challenge question well, but he's an author who signed on in the last month, which discredits him on a couple of counts. I don't want just to be a bitch, so I'm letting it ride until next month, and I can see how he rolls.

i send friend requests to anyone who strikes me as interesting. some of them don't accept, and this bothers me not at all. i remove people if i determine them not, in fact, to have been interesting.

when sent friend requests, i check to see whether they qualify under the above rule. if so, they are accepted; if not, they aren't. a friend request is thus just letting me know you exist; i don't look into possible motives.

i almost always reject anyone listed as an author: if they were a *good* author, they would be researching, or writing, or fucking european handsoap models, but not likely friending me on goodreads. bad authors are uninteresting, and we know how i feel about that.

finally, i can't deny that freakishly unattractive people tend to be freakishly boring, probably due to generally freakish lives and interactions (please note the "tend to be"). this is not a litmus, but it plays into calculations. hurrah for superficiality and prejudice!

Nick wrote: "this is not a litmus, but it plays into calculations. hurrah for superficiality and prejudice! "

This must have something to do with science and mathematics.

When I was at Horrors causing problems for Tressa, I used to get friend requests all the time. At first, I was thrilled. Now that I'm over 100, it's not as thrilling, especially when I realized that I don't remember most of the people. I have the people I interact with and the people whose reviews I like marked as "top friends" to avoid the clutter in my updates. I'm still too nice to unfriend the people I can't remember due to no interaction. My off-line life is now too busy for me to cause trouble for Tressa at Horrors or other public groups. My interaction is mostly in my secret PNR group. Most of them are my friends already. So the friending has slow down considerably.

I usually avoid accepting friend requests from people who don't write book reviews. Or whose library is mostly books that I'm just not interested in. This is a book website afterall, and what you read and whether I'm interested in your thoughts about it are tantamount.

It seems somewhat arrogant to me to expect people to follow your work rather than to interact with you.

But isn't the onus of following on the follower rather than the reviewer? I sometimes follow people who seem to find cool books, so I can see what they come up with. Sometimes these individuals don't actually write much, and I hardly ever friend people who don't review or comment on books. Some people do use gr just to find recommendations and not to discuss books, and that's fine.

I don't friend or accept requests from people who seem to be collectors or authors using the site for promotion. Usually I won't friend someone who doesn't have many books in common with me or loves books I hate, but I'll disregard that if we've had an interesting discussion somewhere. Likewise, I generally ignore requests from people I've had no prior contact with, unless they happen to love some obscure favorite of mine.

Don't have a policy, really. I tend to friend *and* follow.

I friend pretty much everyone who sends me a request but I also prune my friend list every once in a while to get rid of the self-promoters and people I don't have anything in common with.

If I find a Goodie who makes me laugh, I compare books and if they rate in the high 70's or 80's I usually send a friend request noting something I've observed about him or her that I liked.

For some reason, I have many more women friends than men friends, weird? Maybe someone should post that question.

My reviews tend to be to the point; however, I'm working on being clever and imitating the best reviewers therefore I do not get as many friending requests as the Godess of Poetry and War!

i'll send a friend request to a person whose reviews or whose comments in groups i've enjoyed. i actually get pretty insulted when a friend request is ignored because i'd like to think i don't make them lightly.

i will accept any friend request made of me, although i am also an editor of friends as well. i like having a nice trim list of people whose reviews and/or group comments are ones that i enjoy. i trim folks who end up adding nothing to my life...much like in real life! my only exceptions are the good number of real life friends on my friend list, most of whom don't belong to groups and don't even post reviews, except rarely. i wonder sometimes why they are even on GR. but i could never delete them as GR friends because i am fearful of shaming social repercussions.

i don't mind following people and i don't think it is coming from a creepy place when i only want to follow someone and not friend them. however, on a hypocritical note, i will usually be-friend a person who is following me. it's more mutual that way.

my biggest & pettiest pet peeve are those friends whose updates include hundreds of books marked To-Read and never include any reviews. those friendships don't often last too long.

I rarely ever friend someone because I'm scared of rejection. :-/

My favorite friend requests are those I get after some fun exchanges in a favorite group. It's puzzling for me to get one from out of the blue from someone I don't remember at all.

What is up with people sending me a friend suggestion? Just because you know someone you think I want to know them too?

I feel like Tressa - don't send friend invites because of the rejection issue. As far as accepting friends though, I mostly do that with people I know from elsewhere on the net or else they write reviews. The reviews don't have to be of books I'm interested in, just interesting reviews. Followers I presume have no interest in anything but my reviews and I have no problem with that.

I often reject friend requests and never really thought that people would be bothered by it. Is it better to accept them all and trim later? Even with my rather large number of 184 friends, it's never hard to figure out who deleted me. Sometimes it stings a little.

Oh-oh!

mark wrote: "my biggest & pettiest pet peeve are those friends whose updates include hundreds of books marked To-Read and never include any reviews. those friendships don't often last too long."

nancy, i guess for me it is just easier to trim folks after i've gotten to know them a little bit. same rules apply everywhere for me. i know that for many, the opposite is true.

aloha, you post so much about yourself in groups, you could add 1,000 monthly To-Reads and never fear deletion from me.

Awww, Mark. Okay, I'll go into a room with you. We'll ask Brainy together.

at last!

Finally, I've got you two right where I want you :)

*packs two sets of ropes

I'm not saying I've never sent a friend request, I just don't do it on a regular basis.

I can only think of one person who defriended me, some guy named Phil I knew from a movie group. He's a liberal musician; maybe my conservatism rubbed him the wrong way. Who knows.

Most readers have big TBR lists.

i know that phil! at least here in GR. he's a fellow movie-lover in the bay area; we've been to many of the same venues. strange serendipity. perhaps one sad day he will delete me as well.

i've had several people de-friend me. i think the majority of them are various cute girls from the 1001 Books group, often recent college grads. my theory is that they respond to the eloquent, prize-winning prose that i occasionally contribute to 1001 Books discussions, become enamored with my manly and passionate posturing, and then quickly realize from my updates and reviews the kind of filth to which they have now become linked. and away they go. up, up, and away! perhaps i am leading people on simply by being a part of the classiness of the 1001 Books group.

I follow a limited number of people, either because they are an author who does not actively participate but I want to read their blog posts, or I am intimidated by a member's reading tastes. I want to see what they are reading but not scare them away from allowing me to peak over their shoulders.

I know few people in real life who read so I friend people who have similar reading tastes as me. I have encountered problems with this though, such as friends who have dropped me because they thought I only read a certain genre and were unhappy to see so many books of other genres pop up.

I prefer to friend people who have a passion or massive experience in a genre. If I am looking for a great mystery, then I will check out the shelves of friends who are well read in mysteries.

I do not have to regularly communicate with someone to be friends with them and I do not require reviews from friends. I prefer people who recommend books, have strong opinions, and are non judgemental of my reading tastes.

I regularly cull my friends list. If I do not remember or recognize a person, then they are gone. Every one of my current friends I recognize and highly value their opinions.

Sometimes when these features come up, I experiment. I'm not sure what I think about Following. Recently I've tried it with people whose reviews I've enjoyed, but have not had any interaction with. I usually only Friend people I've had interaction with. I have accepted Friend requests when I see there is common reading ground, but I prefer a note or some interaction. When seeking a Friend, I always send a note. Sending invites? Again, I don't know I think about it. I've only done it once, and to some extent I feel like I'm imposing. But that person did make friends with some of the invites. So I guess it turned out OK. But I don't think I'll do it again.
Goodreads & Facebook. Facebook is different, but there are some GR folks I would love to have as FB friends, since I've interacted with them enough.