TrekBBS Friend List?

[Jetfire]

If you feel indifferent or even snobbish about this feature, that's fine. You're not obligated to use it; however, there is no sense trying to debase or dismiss it, either.

To whom are you speaking to?

If it is I, Never was trying to do such thing.

 

[Zulu Romeo]

I am not sure what use the list serves, but I do find it fun to see who is friends with whom. Quite surprising at times. A look at that list can make a person rise or fall in your estimation.

Yes, in all honesty it is fun to see who's winning the popularity contests here, and also trying to second-guess who befriended whom (and who accepted someone's friend request) out of pity.

I use mine to collect my enemies in one place.

Bah! I feel the list serves only one useful purpose: to collect the souls of innocents and keep them forever.

Although an Enemies list sounds like a good idea. I wonder what would also happen if our Ignore lists were made public...

 

[RJDiogenes]

I'm using it to recruit a ragtag team for dangerous, yet whaaacky adventures through spaaace and time.

Heh. Might be a good starting point for a story.

 

[Robert Maxwell]

eh I dont use it...

You make me sad.

I don't know, does the "Friend" feature on MySpace serve any purpose? Facebook?

It just provides a quick way to get to other people's profiles, which I do with some regularity, since many of my friends here have photo albums and stuff on their accounts.

I think most people use MySpace & Facebook "friend" feature to see how many people they can get on their list.

I would imagine TrekBBSers not being so childish.

Yeah, I could have a lot more people on my list if I was just "collecting." Everyone on my list is someone I converse with on some level, or at least like.

I use mine to collect my enemies in one place.

HEY!

 

[Gaseous Anomaly]

I've sent a few friend requests, the majority I have been friends with since I joined or there shortly after.

 

[Zulu Romeo]

I wonder if the rate of friend requests in general will increase, now that this thread exists and people know about the facility? [The lady doth protest too much, methinks - someone]

 

[Gryffindorian]

If you feel indifferent or even snobbish about this feature, that's fine. You're not obligated to use it; however, there is no sense trying to debase or dismiss it, either.

To whom are you speaking to?

If it is I, Never was trying to do such thing.

No one in particular. The guy in the red shirt, maybe.

As for Facebook, the only ones on the my contact list are family members and a few on-line buddies. I'm not like one of my sisters who "collects" friends (even friends of friends whom she hardly even knows).

 

[melancholymecha]

eh I dont use it...

You make me sad.

aw sorry. My social anxiety manifests itself online as well as in real life. Im just not the type to be pming people & all that stuff. I try to maintain all my online "socializing" to the forum threads themselves. And then I get long spells when I dont want to post(or pm) at all & just stay in lurk mode.

 

[Mike Farley]

I wonder if the rate of friend requests in general will increase, now that this thread exists and people know about the facility? [The lady doth protest too much, methinks - someone]

Not so far.

 

[Lindley]

i'm friends with a bunch of people. 98% of whom possess breasts.

i just wish i had friends like that IRL

It's easy to make friends like that in real life.

The hard part is convincing them to show them to you.

These days, anyway. For some reason it was much easier when I was six.

 

[Mark de Vries]

I have two friends here, and they both sent a request to me. I have to find a use for them

 

[Jadzia]

When the system started, I put out some friend requests. Since then, others have sent requests to me. I generally accept them all. I keep thinking that at some point some kind of fun feature set will be implemented by Antony to make use of the Friend List in some interesting way. Maybe it will, maybe it won't, but at least the List is there & waiting if something interesting ever does manifest utilising it.

I'm not sure what use the friends list could serve, beyond additional channels for communication; invitation to a user hosted feature; or some kind of reputation 'game'.

What sort of new features did you have in mind?

examples:

• A chat facility? And you can only see chat text written by people on your friends list?
  
• Everybody could have a personal 'visitor messages' forum (which is a standard vBulletin feature) that allows people on your friends list to post friends-only-readable messages.
  
• There is also groups feature that can be activated in vBulletin which does the same as above but the relationship is person-to-group, not person-to-person. One person would still be the administrator of the group, so it's essentially a user hosted feature like the above.
  
• Flash games? There could be a collection of these available which receive player scores and will keep a high score table across the board. Not directly related to the friends list, but it is a common feature on other vBulletin sites. It may be possible to augment this with team scores via the friends list.
  
• Points/rewards/reputation. Many vBulletin sites have a way of giving and taking points from other users. Sometimes can be used to purchase "stuff" to adorn your profile page with. I don't personally like this. Again, not directly related to the friends list, but the list could be used to gift/swap/share such content.

 

[tomalak301]

I started using it as a way to look popular but it's probably the most useless feature here. BTW, I'll friend anyone who asks.

 

[Zulu Romeo]

What sort of new features did you have in mind?

examples:

• A chat facility? And you can only see chat text written by people on your friends list?
  
• Everybody could have a personal 'visitor messages' forum (which is a standard vBulletin feature) that allows people on your friends list to post friends-only-readable messages.
  
• There is also groups feature that can be activated in vBulletin which does the same as above but the relationship is person-to-group, not person-to-person. One person would still be the administrator of the group, so it's essentially a user hosted feature like the above.
  
• Flash games? There could be a collection of these available which receive player scores and will keep a high score table across the board. Not directly related to the friends list, but it is a common feature on other vBulletin sites. It may be possible to augment this with team scores via the friends list.
  
• Points/rewards/reputation. Many vBulletin sites have a way of giving and taking points from other users. Sometimes can be used to purchase "stuff" to adorn your profile page with. I don't personally like this. Again, not directly related to the friends list, but the list could be used to gift/swap/share such content.

I fear that these features could only lead to the Facebooking of the TrekBBS, which is generally not my cup of tea. (Yes, I'm antisocial even on online social networking sites. )

However, one use of the Friends list so far, as many have mentioned, probably came about semi-indirectly via the Privacy FIlters option introduced a few months ago, to allow certain photo albums to be seen only by people on your Friends List.

This way, the private visitor message facility you suggested can be implemented kind-of by starting a photo album with a single picture, then allowing friends to access it only, and they can post messages by posting to that private album.

Off-topic, I think they should reintroduce the Visitors Messages facility again. It looked interesting.