Friends?

[Mission]

I'm just curious - what does the friends function do for us? I don't get it. Is it just a warm fuzzies thing? (Seriously, I'm genuinely curious.)

[hurricane]

It's like the Friends function on MySpace. Yup, Warm fuzzies!

After all, aren't we all friends here and wouldn't we just add everyone?

-- Hurricane

[Capt. Sterling]

hell no

[Mission]

It's like the Friends function on MySpace. Yup, Warm fuzzies!

After all, aren't we all friends here and wouldn't we just add everyone?

-- Hurricane

Well that was kind of my feeling. My Space is all spread out and finding people there is a pain in the arse if you don't know what to look for from my limited experience with it. So the friends function can serve as a method of linkage there. Here, I don't see where we have that issue. (It could even be sort of divisive unfortunately.) Sounds like a function I don't desperately need the use of, at any rate.

Everybody's my friend. (Anyone remember the old Kansas song by that title?)

[Rev.Sam]

Yarr, I be agreein with ye lads on this'un

[Graydog]

I'm just curious - what does the friends function do for us? I don't get it. Is it just a warm fuzzies thing? (Seriously, I'm genuinely curious.)

It doesn't help you much unless your name is Jennifer Anniston.

[Duchess]

Friends....ewwww.....

[Hawk the QM]

Friends....ewwww.....

Pirates don't have friends.... we have potential victims that we know pretty well but still like.

edit:

Yaaar! I guarantee you that if you add me as a friend. you WILL feel all fuzzy inside. Probably your brain telling you yer about to get plundered

Edited October 30, 2008 by Thequartermaster

[Duchess]

Friends....ewwww.....

Pirates don't have friends.... we have potential victims that we know pretty well but still like.

edit:

Yaaar! I guarantee you that if you add me as a friend. you WILL feel all fuzzy inside. Probably your brain telling you yer about to get plundered

Hmm not exactly the reason I generally associate with feeling fuzzy....

[Stynky Tudor]

Originally the Friends feature was slated to be edited from the system software, I didn't care much for the idea of inclusion exclusion politic stuff on a message board meant to build community.

However a few people commented how they liked the feature, plus it looks to be tangled up with the Block function - so I dropped it off my todo list. The nice thing is that it puts the power to Block harassing PM contact into the hands of users that want - need it, without necessarily having to ask Admin to step in and get involved.

To be honest, I didn't even realize how the whole Friends thing worked until Jamaica Rose worked it all out during a phone conversation we were having.

If I understand it correctly - everyone can be your friend, you can be everyone's friend, but to be real friends for those bothering to pay attention you have to mutually ask to be friends. Does that sound right Jamaica?

[Mission]

Hmm. I think my policy henceforth will be to only add people to my friends list who don't want me to add them as friends. (So no one should be offended if I don't add them as a friend.)

[oderlesseye]

(So no one should be offended if I don't add them as a friend.)

Thats why my "Friends" Box is empty .. equal treatment ~ equal share

Beside ..my friends know whom they are.

Edited October 30, 2008 by oderlesseye

[Red Cat Jenny]

Sometimes the questions are complicated and the answers are simple...

This does help with spammers tho Ill agree there.

I'll be yer friend...how much coin ya got in them pokets?

[Ransom]

After careful consideration, I have decided to eliminate my "Friends" list. It just sounded a bit elitist to me, and like Eyes, I know who my friends are, and my friends know me. In all honesty, I think of everyone on the Pub as my friend.

So, if you get a notice that I have taken you off my friends list, it does NOT mean that you are no longer my friend, it just means that I don't need a list to remind me who they are.

[RustyNell]

If this board grows to outrageous numbers - after Nikki Bayley writes about us in the London Mirror, it may actually be a nice feature to keep track of the people you actually have met. Basically that's what I thought. I just noticed the feature and have been frantically adding everyone I've been lucky enough to meet in person. Its kind of a neat way to keep track of people you know. Not that any of you i haven't met yet are less important or friendly. anyway i don't see it as inclusionary I see it as a way for us folks with HORRIBLE memories to keep track of who we've already met so we know who we still need to meet.

Just my take on it.

[Pew]

I vote bacon.

[LadyBarbossa]

Apparently there is a limit to who to befriend, cause apparently not everyone who I befriended and vice versa is not on my list. Pity.

All in all, it's not too bad of a feature. Those who wish to will use it. Otherwise, others won't use it.

~Lady B

[blackjohn]

I vote bacon.

Here here!

[Mary Diamond]

If this board grows to outrageous numbers - after Nikki Bayley writes about us in the London Mirror, it may actually be a nice feature to keep track of the people you actually have met. Basically that's what I thought. I just noticed the feature and have been frantically adding everyone I've been lucky enough to meet in person. Its kind of a neat way to keep track of people you know. Not that any of you i haven't met yet are less important or friendly. anyway i don't see it as inclusionary I see it as a way for us folks with HORRIBLE memories to keep track of who we've already met so we know who we still need to meet.

Just my take on it.

Agreed ~ though I will be using it more for quick contact access.

[Ransom]

Lady B's statement is exactly why I decided to stop using the list. You might forget to put someone on, and they will be hurt because they weren't included. Someone puts you on their list, and is disappointed if you don't return the favor, even if it's someone you normally don't have a whole lot of communication with. Also, at this point, I wasn't using the list for anything, since I'm not a heavy PMer anyway.

Like I said before, I consider everyone on the Pub to be my friend, to one extent or the other, and the people with whom I interact all the time know who they are, and don't feel slighted because they are not on some arbitrary list of "friends."

That's just the way it works for me. For others, obviously, it's a totally different thing. And that's fine.

[blackjohn]

It was a new bell and/or whistle to futz around with when this new edition of the Pub came along. Honestly, without looking I couldn't even tell you who is in my friends list.

Here's a question, consider it rhetorical if you like. Can someone you don't know in a physical sense really be your friend?

(one of those things I ponder to no end...)

[Mission]

Here's a question, consider it rhetorical if you like. Can someone you don't know in a physical sense really be your friend?

(one of those things I ponder to no end...)

Oh goody...

Can someone you do know in a physical sense really your friend? How far, physically, do you need to know them for them to be your friend? Is sight enough? Discourse? Contact of some form? Hugging? (I'll bet pirates didn't hug all that much. We are not being PC... :angry: )

What is friendship, really, if not a form mutual attraction? Is physical presence required for such? For example, I would consider you, blackjohn, to be an on-line friend of mine. We share many common interests, intellectual meanderings and certainly philosophical views. Of course, not having met you, I might immediately be put off by something about you in person that you either misrepresent or cannot represent on-line. Suppose this was so. Would we not still have common interests, intellectual meanderings and philosophical views in common? Could we still not share a platonic mutual attraction?

Having just stumbled out of a Social Psychology final last night, let me share a bit about attraction, since it is the foundation upon (at least in this long-winded argument) friendship is supposedly built. Soc.Psych research finds there are five reasons we chose friends:

1. Proximity - Physical proximity, which sort of supports the tenets of your original point.

2. Association - What do we associate people with? I associate you with the pub and philosophy. I like the pub and philosophy. Ergo, I like you. (It's not quite that simple, of course. My own equations for attraction are so arcane and complex that I don't understand them, but you get the point.)

3. Similarity - Many social psychologists give a lot of weight to similarity. We will almost certainly find people similar to us here and thus form friendships on that basis.

4. Reciprocal Liking - We like people who like us. I can remember way back in nineteen ought eighteen when you, Phil and I were discussing life, the universe and everything and you said something like, (and it's been deleted now by the geniuses at large, so I can pretend to quote it accurately when -in fact - I am not) "Mission, when, not if, we meet, I am going to buy you a shot of your favorite single malt scotch." (Glenmorangie 18yo, in case you were wondering.) and I thought to myself, "I like this fellow!"

5. Physical Attractiveness - We tend to like people who are more attractive to us than not. (Note this doesn't necessarily have to have the sexual connotation we usually assign it.) You may think this is not possible on the 'net, but, being re-enactors, we tend to have scads of photos of ourselves in our kit and thus I have a distinct impression of what you look like and judge you to be attractive as a fellow re-enactor. (But don't let that get out, it will ruin my reputation. :angry: )

Now this isn't a checklist, it's just some things that attract people to each other, which how most friendships start. So you can have some of these elements and not others and still find each other appealing.

So I say we can be remote, non-contact, on-line friends. (This material will be on the exam. )

[blackjohn]

HA! I knew I'd get a fun answer from you Mission!

[Mission]

Well, you did prime me. (You could prime me even better with 18yo Glenmorangie.)

[Diosa De Cancion]

Oh goody...

That was a great list! I It has me thinking... I really must work now, but I also find that there are some people I meet that I just get a 'positive energy' from (for lack of a better term) and want to talk to. Others have the opposite effect and I tend to try to keep a wide distance... despite the fact that others find them nice and 'friendly'.

Then there are the people who keep walking by...staying about 10-20 feet away(acting as if I have the plague) and say I never invite them over to have snacks... oh wait, that's just Mission....