Petra X > Status Update

Good question Petra! I have evolved a bit regarding this since I joined GR. At first, when I kept coming across the same person leaving reviews of books I read I started to follow them, but eventually friended many of them. I still do something similar; when I find a good review of something I read I sometimes check the GR member out, compare books, etc. If we have a lot of reading interests in common, and they write reviews, I will send a friend request.

I never figured out the top v non-top friend. Does that have something to do with your feed?

Phil wrote: "I never figured out the top v non-top friend. Does that have something to do with your feed?..."

Yes, you can select (where it says 'customise') to only see top friends or all friends etc. I have never managed to get more than a small fraction of my friends' reviews in the update feed which is more dependent on what GR wants you to see than what your friends have posted.

Great question! Top friends to me are those whom I take interest in the most when it comes to their reviews, their book/genre interests, etc, and also those whom I enjoy interacting with here the most. As an introvert, interacting here/discussing books and other things comes first. I don’t want to add a lot of people who sends friend requests if we don’t have any books or at least some common ground. Thought provoking topics or just fun questions are fantastic as well. Whatever expands the mind.

If someone repeatedly writes interesting reviews or reads interesting books, that increases the likeliness of me sending a friend request. In a few cases, it's more that I might find their miscellaneous updates interesting - like in your case, Petra. :-)

As for top-friends: I don't "collect" friends so right now it's all manageable and everyone is a top friend. If at some point the number of updates gets unwieldy, I intend to "demote" some top friends and switch my timeline to top friends-only. :)

I remove the "Top friend" designation from friends who share a lot of content that doesn't interest me, say, Colleen Hoover novels or just a high volume of non-relevant content, to keep my feed relevant. I don't ignore them, though. I routinely go to my friend list and pick a letter each time and engage with anything interesting they are reading, reviewing, etc. I find friends from my groups or they find me and I look at what they enjoy reading, whether they write reviews, common friends, etc. before deciding to send a friend-vite or accept one. The only hard rule I have is "more books than friends."

I very seldom make friend requests, but I accept most that I receive. I will occasionally remove one from my friends list if they inject a lot of stuff into my feed that I'm not much interested in.

I'm too timid to send friend requests to people I don't know in real life, but am happy to accept friend requests from anyone who is a regular user with a genuine interest in books and reading. I hadn't even paid attention to top-friend versus regular friends, but it sounds like I need to for the sake of my feed.

I've recently started trying to become more active and social on this account. I take a chance and add new profiles and mutuals of other friends on my profile.

Debbie Y wrote: "Great question! Top friends to me are those whom I take interest in the most when it comes to their reviews, their book/genre interests, etc, and also those whom I enjoy interacting with here the m..."

What gets people demoted into non-top friends or does everyone start off that way?

How do you feel when reading a friends outstanding review, knowing how you will respond; only to see they have chosen you as a friend who cannot comment. All my friends are top friends.

I’ll accept any friend request I get. I do uncheck Top Friend every time, thinking I may need to use that flag one day if the feed seems too long to review, but it’s been fine so far, so everyone stays in play.

I don't use the 'top friends' possibility... now that I have enough (active) friends here, I usually friend new ones only if they friend me first and I find them worth friending :)

Petra X is not feeling GR right now wrote: "Debbie Y wrote: "Great question! Top friends to me are those whom I take interest in the most when it comes to their reviews, their book/genre interests, etc, and also those whom I enjoy interactin..."

Everyone starts as a top friend. What would get one demoted? Probably spamming the page with things I don’t want to see. To avoid such situation to begin with, I’m just trying to accept friends who, judging by their interests/ reviews/ books, won’t do that. If my page gets spammed by things I’m not interested with, I’d miss posts I actually want to see. The number of friends isn’t what determine the experience here, but the quality of what’s being shared, at least that’s how it works for me :)

I no longer seek out new friends, though I sometimes send and accept request when I happen upon interesting reviewers.

When I joined GR, I actively sought out friends by two means:

1. I joined and participated several groups, including ones that did a monthly read. I didn't join in every month, but I came to know a few people and their reviews and friended them.

2. When I posted a review, I read other people's reviews. When I found ones I particularly liked, I looked at reviewer's profile and other reviews. I friended some of them.

I didn't figure out the difference between top friends and others till I had too many friends to be bothered to sort them.

My friending criteria are people who write and comment on reviews of books that overlap somewhat with what I read. I have a friending question, but people using the app don't see it, and some just write a silly answer. I don't accept requests from authors pushing their work, nor from profiles with a male photo who only follow and friend profiles with female photos.

--Any IRL friend who uses this site is also a GR friend, though none of them are truly very active here.
--Friends of my GR friends are sometimes people I send a friend request
--People whose reviews I really liked or admired on books I'm reviewing or considering
--I use that "compare books" feature!! I love browsing through that list and seeing how we mesh. There are a few books that I have extreme feelings about that I always look at on this list, but we don't have to share those feelings; it's just a gauge of how similar we are.
--Top friends are those who actually interact with me through comments.
--I never accept requests from people who are just collecting friends. If they have hundreds or thousands of friends, I'll probably say no, especially if friends outnumber books.

Wulf wrote: " In a few cases, it's more that I might find their miscellaneous updates interesting - like in your case, Petra. :-)..."

LOL, kind of damning with faint praise, but I'll take what I can, thank you :-)

Carol wrote: "I routinely go to my friend list and pick a letter each time and engage with anything interesting they are reading, reviewing, etc..."

I do that too! There was a reason we were friends in the first place is my way of thinking, but then it was either over-share or they stopped interacting with me so I removed them from top friends but I still like to see what they read and say sometimes.

I try to keep my friends to a manageable number, certainly less than a hundred. I follow people who's reviews I like and after a while I might suggest friends if we have talked about books. If I get a request I look to see if they are active, post reviews rather than ratings only and have more books than friends. Beyond that I usually accept

I recently did a purge of friends down to 50, remaining friends included personally known, in a group I regularly engage in, posts things I like to read, or reviews books I'm interested in. I was overwhelmed with my thread being mostly likes for people I don't know and was frustrated with missing the ones I really care about. It has helped me a lot and I find I engage more because I have less to filter through. :) It was nothing negative on the ones who I unfriended but I still needed to do it for my enjoyment and GR purposes. :) Now I try to friend those in my groups or known in RL. I don't notice a difference between top friends and regular friends. Do you know how that manifests on the threads?

L wrote: "I very seldom make friend requests, but I accept most that I receive. "

I don't make many friend requests and I don't accept many either. If someone shows interest - likes, comments on updates or reviews then I will but if they just hit 'friend request' and I've never even heard of them before (the majority) then I don't as I think I'm being 'collected' rather than friended.

Linda wrote: "I'm too timid to send friend requests to people I don't know in real life,..."

I feel like that too, but then I'm that way in real life too with people.

Rae wrote: "I've recently started trying to become more active and social on this account. I take a chance and add new profiles and mutuals of other friends on my profile."

Has it worked out? Have you made some friends who write interesting reviews or point the way to books you hadn't thought of?

I am very much like the comments above. I get more requests than I send out because of social anxiety. Mostly it's people I see a lot in my feed (because we got like 40 mutual friends) or have very entertaining reviews or are equally obsessed with Brandon Sanderson.

I keep Top Friends limited, mostly to people I know in real life or who write awesome reviews.

It's sad I'm not constant on GR as I used to...such fun with many people! Now I keep my feed as neat as possible, with top friends who have either similar tastes to mine, so it's interesting to see what they are reading/recommending, or people I like to follow independently of tastes, because I like their reviewing style.

For me, it's a priority to keep my feed interesting because I don't check regularly and it can be long to catch up. I also like to "like" the activities of my friends, and I have to at least notice what I'm liking :D Also, I admit I'm keener to "like" when I get "likes" back, and I always try to reciprocate, but I use the feature regardless. I'm more attentive to people who repeatedly notice my posts though, be they friends or not.

Usually, I don't accept friend requests from authors or from people who clearly didn't notice which books I like to read. For the others, I give them a go. Inactive friends don't bother me, the others get non-top friended, from time to time I prune a bit. I rarely ask for friendship, since I'm not this active in the community anymore, I've little ground for overtures.

Stacey B wrote: "How do you feel when reading a friends outstanding review, knowing how you will respond; only to see they have chosen you as a friend who cannot comment. All my friends are top friends."

That's not quite right. All friends can comment - top or not. But iIt doesn't worry me. People have their reasons. One of them is that quite a few people are troll targets and the trolls just keep making sock puppets and it gets wearing. I often have anyone commenting but then the persistent trolls come back and so I go friends-only for a while.