4 ms·

In the real world, someone who follows you that is not a friend is a stalker. I suggest that the "too many friends" problem might better be described as the "to

by qjz 15y ago

In the real world, someone who follows you that is not a friend is a stalker. I suggest that the "too many friends" problem might better be described as the "too many stalkers" problem. How many is too many? One. The real problem is that we want to map our existing relationships to online tools without redefining them according to some nebulous model. Nobody has offered that capability yet. Friendship is intimacy. How can you achieve that in an environment where anyone can invade your privacy to some degree?

shubble 15y ago
No one want's to be a second tier friend. But it seems to me most people have up to 10 close friends, up to 100 sort of friends (the colleague you like and talk to daily, but wouldn't ask about your sexual problems), and then a large number of people they want to follow or not fall completely out of touch with (second tier friends who you no longer work with, but might ask a favor at some point). I've found that people get upset if you don't ad them on facebook. It marks them as unimportant to you. I doubt they'd like to be categorized as a second tier friend, or demoted to third tier. I'd say rather than creating categories, it would be better to allow users to make groups of friends, and select which group gets which news. That way you could say "Oh I'm sorry I didn't invite you to my party, I had you down under work people"...
- ams6110 15y ago
  Are most people really so insecure that they would be bothered by not being a "top tier" friend to everyone they have ever known? Surely you can name a person with whom you have a cordial acquaintance, but are quite obviously not in their circle of "close" friends. I my case that's the big majority of people I know. So what?
  - dodo53 15y ago
    Well it's fine if it's a symmetrical both of you think each other as same tier; less so if you'd disagree (e.g. some bosses think all their subordinates are their friends and would want them at their parties).
pnathan 15y ago
www.dreamwidth has built a two-tier system. You can 'subscribe' to someone, in which case you are reading their public posts. They can subscribe to your public posts too. And, you can 'grant access' to someone, and now they can read your private posts. There is also an access control model for posts. I think that renaming the relationship from 'friend' is a good thing. 'friend' is getting semantically overloaded.

by qjz 15y ago

shubble 15y ago

No one want's to be a second tier friend. But it seems to me most people have up to 10 close friends, up to 100 sort of friends (the colleague you like and talk to daily, but wouldn't ask about your sexual problems), and then a large number of people they want to follow or not fall completely out of touch with (second tier friends who you no longer work with, but might ask a favor at some point). I've found that people get upset if you don't ad them on facebook. It marks them as unimportant to you. I doubt they'd like to be categorized as a second tier friend, or demoted to third tier. I'd say rather than creating categories, it would be better to allow users to make groups of friends, and select which group gets which news. That way you could say "Oh I'm sorry I didn't invite you to my party, I had you down under work people"...

ams6110 15y ago
Are most people really so insecure that they would be bothered by not being a "top tier" friend to everyone they have ever known? Surely you can name a person with whom you have a cordial acquaintance, but are quite obviously not in their circle of "close" friends. I my case that's the big majority of people I know. So what?
- dodo53 15y ago
  Well it's fine if it's a symmetrical both of you think each other as same tier; less so if you'd disagree (e.g. some bosses think all their subordinates are their friends and would want them at their parties).

pnathan 15y ago

www.dreamwidth has built a two-tier system. You can 'subscribe' to someone, in which case you are reading their public posts. They can subscribe to your public posts too. And, you can 'grant access' to someone, and now they can read your private posts. There is also an access control model for posts. I think that renaming the relationship from 'friend' is a good thing. 'friend' is getting semantically overloaded.