Benefits and Downfalls of Accepting Friend Requests

[Camelot]

Title in question form. =)

I never thought about requesting friends in EN World, but it has recently come to my attention that this could be a way to become more involved with my favorite forum. However, I'm slightly worried about giving away personal information and what if someone who I thought would make a useful friend turns out to just be annoying and whatnot...

What actually happens if you form an EN World friendship? What are the pros and cons of this?

Thanks in advance!

 

[Morrus]

Not a lot, to be honest - at least in this iteration.

In the next version of EN World the friend feature will be more powerful - you'll be able to follow your friends' activities on the site (if you want to).

 

[fba827]

Title in question form. =)

I never thought about requesting friends in EN World, but it has recently come to my attention that this could be a way to become more involved with my favorite forum. However, I'm slightly worried about giving away personal information and what if someone who I thought would make a useful friend turns out to just be annoying and whatnot...

What actually happens if you form an EN World friendship? What are the pros and cons of this?

Thanks in advance!

In this current version of the boards, at most all it effectively does is let others see who your friends are (if they go to your user profile), also it provides you (if you go to your own user profile) an easy way to quickly see if your friends are online right now or not (the graphic under their username in your friend list would be highlighted).

But, as you can see, in both instances you or someone would have to go to your userpage which isn't necessarily done very often. And those two benefits really aren't much other than a convenience.

However, (as Morrus just mentioned) there is another version of ENWorld currently in development (with an unscheduled release date). In that version there will be a little more functionality, such as tracking what recent activity on the boards (i.e. posts/etc) your friends have done (and they tracking yours).

If you friend someone you can always de-friend them if there is an issue. But so far the friends thing is so "in the background" it's a nonissue for now other than a social thing (i mean, you'll make someone's day by telling them you want to be friends ).

 

[Rel]

I use the friend function over at CM on a couple of people who change usernames frequently. When I check my friends list and see a name I don't recognize, I know that cinnamon has changed her username yet again.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

I use the friend function over at CM on a couple of people who change usernames frequently. When I check my friends list and see a name I don't recognize, I know that cinnamon has changed her username yet again.

So you're not using it as a "friends" function, but just to keep tabs on your enemies?

But it's a good idea either way. I should do that with Krieg's Spiel.

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

Not a lot, to be honest - at least in this iteration.

In the next version of EN World the friend feature will be more powerful - you'll be able to follow your friends' activities on the site (if you want to).

Eww....

Make sure there's an option to not allow others to follow you, please.

I'm young for this site apparantly, but never really got the whole social networking "tell people where I am or what I'm doing" every ten minutes thing. Also, while I'm on a bitter old grandpa rant, Twitter is stupid.

 

[Morrus]

Yes, you can elect not to use the new features. They're there for those who wish to use them.