Horror Aficionados discussion
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Do You Have a Question You Make Potential Friends Answer Before Accepting The Invitation?
I don't, but I do check out the person's profile first to see what they are about and try to determine why they want to friend me. It's almost always because 1) they are authors and want me to be interested in their books, or 2) share the same interests in books as I do. I'm less picky because my profile is open. If it was private, I think I would care more.
I rarely friend authors, unless I've read their books and liked them enough to be interested in their future endeavors. I don't like the thought of my profile being public. Too many nosy people or just out-and-out loons on websites.
I'm a sorta-kinda meanie. LOL I do have a question, (how do you know me and why do you want to be friends) and on my profile I have a list of no-nos that will make me ignore a request. I'm a little more willing to give people a trial run, but if I don't interact with them consistently after that, I cut them. Adios.
I hate when authors friend request me out of the blue and chat up their book.
I hate when people type n txtspk and u cnt undrstnd wot dey r sayng.
I hate when people have more friends than books. Smacks of friend-collectors to me, and I want to actually interact with the people on my friends list, not just be some milestone number on a list.
I don't like when people want to friend me just because they are in a group I moderate. (Sorry, it's true.)
I don't like when people have no books in common with me at all, but say that we have a lot of "similar interests", like I'm not going to check.
There's more, but I'm at work and should probably do some. LOL
I do always check out the person's profile, compare books, check compatibility, and look at the number and type of reviews they've written. If they don't write reviews, it's unlikely I'll friend them. If they are new to GR, I'll give them a chance and see how things go. :)
I have a question now, 'Why do you wanna be my friend?", a witty response will get my approval. Anyone with comparable taste in books will get approved. I try to avoid "friend collectors", authors trying to get me to read their books, particularly their e-books (that just can't happen) and anyone trying to get me to join some board I have no interest in. Having that been said, I haven't actually made any friend cuts yet, so I have 39 friends right now, even though not all of them meet my criteria.
I recently cut over 90 people off of my list. It was just bloated. It's starting to edge back up now... I've added a few more in the last couple weeks. LOL I like to keep it around 75 people, max.
I usually do a book comparison. I have about 10 books I use as indicators both likes and dislikes if we compare favorably on these I will friend.Conversely, I don't make a friend request unless I have had some interaction in different groups and the book criteria is met.
I also avoid people with an inordinate number of friends.
Yeah, what Michael said. I always look at the person to see what they're reading. If it's all romances or all teen books, I don't friend them because I don't read that many romances or teen books. Ninety-five percent of the time the person reads horror, and that's OK in my book. I also don't friend friend collectors. Or friend someone just because they're in HA.
I purge my list occasionally, but now when I go to do it seems like I do have a connection with all the people on there. I might have to get the ax and do some choppin' though.
Haha, Becky, I thought we were friends at one time, but now we're not. Maybe I got chopped in one of your purges.
Umm... *cough* Probably. I think so. Sorry!
Bandit wrote: "which ten books, Michael?"Can't tell you that
Oh, I think the only authors I'm friends with are Ryan C. Thomas and Mark Mirabello. Hey, I'm not friends with Ryan. Maybe I never was; maybe I'm just a fan. Will have to check into this. Maybe I won't pimp The Summer I Died as much.
Becky wrote: "Umm... *cough* Probably. I think so. Sorry!"
Quite OK.
I don't have a test question but I will turn down anyone I haven't actually interacted with to some extent, or anyone I don't seem to have anything in common with. I do not accept invitations from authors at all.
Michael wrote: "Bandit wrote: "which ten books, Michael?"Can't tell you that"
Fair enough, I'm just glad me and my impeccable taste in books made the cut :)
Me, too, Bandit. Guess we're all friends with the people we want to be friends with. I don't even notice when people drop me as a friend. Except for *cough cough* mean old Becky.
I have excellent taste in people. (bet there is a Zombie retort coming)
Here's how much I have in reading common with you guys:Michael - 78%
Bandit - 73%
Gator 76%
Scott - 72% (must be all those anthologies you read that I don't)
excellentand no, Michael, no zombie retort, though several did come to mind ;)
Tressa wrote: "Me, too, Bandit. Guess we're all friends with the people we want to be friends with. I don't even notice when people drop me as a friend. Except for *cough cough* mean old Becky."O_O
I always check their profile. I accept all friend requests anyway.
tressa was the first I asked to friend me. If she recalls I voiced some trepidation about making the request. I thought it was kind of presumptuous of me. I am so glad she didn't turn me down and basically told me not to worry about friend requesting.
I'm with Scott. I don't have any test questions and also need to have had some interaction with but I don't really use a book list to make my decision. I do check them out because I like to try new reads. I never accept authors I find they all just pester you to read the're books. Tressa I am loving "Let's Go Play at the Adams" my favorite horror I've read to date!
Michael wrote: "tressa was the first I asked to friend me. If she recalls I voiced some trepidation about making the request. I thought it was kind of presumptuous of me. I am so glad she didn't turn me down and b..."Oh, my. You didn't think I'd bite, did you? I'm honored, Michael. :-)
Bobbie, Adams is an amazing book. Please write a review because I'd love to see it. I think there's a discussion thread here. Would love to get your insight. That book is still with me.
I will check a profile before I accept. If we are in the same groups or have some of the same friends, I'll accept. Once, though, I accepted a friend request, and all he wanted to talk about was sex. Then he would send me porno stories he supposedly wrote, and a pic of his bulge. My husband and I had a few good laughs over the latter. Creepy!
Since I have something close to 300+ 'Friends' on Facebook, you could say I'm really not very picky. Oddly, I'm much different in person and really don't feel comfortable with someone unless I have known them for a while.In Good Reads I will generally look to see if we have 'mutual friends' or at least share a group or two in common.
I am not sure about all this friend stuff. I suck at picking friends so hopefully a good one will pick me. I have had some weird requests....teenage boys...uh NO. One girl sent me request and she had NO books on her list...wth? I have gotten a lot of author requests and I have started cutting them out as they are only there to promote their book which is fine in the right forum....but don't friend me cuz you just want book promoters. I do cut people if they are just droolers and never contribute.Unfortunately my profile has to be public for one of the groups I am in. I love the group of girls but I hate having profile public.
Must have books in common or at least a list of books for me to peep at!
Eh I'm pretty relaxed about who I add (most are folks I've talked to here or in FA, SFA or who have a pretty favorable compatibility rating on books with some authors thrown in) but I do go and check out the compatibility rating, what books they've read, and if they're clearly a writer spamming me. I don 't tend to cull unless they don't seem to be interacting with me at all, they disappear or start spamming me with invites to their group or to read their book after I've failed to show interest. I'm pretty forgiving on the lack of interaction because I know i have some gaps with internet access or just being too busy offline. I do tend to prefer that if someone's on my list I talk to them in the groups or through some pms from time to time though.
Erica wrote: "I will check a profile before I accept. If we are in the same groups or have some of the same friends, I'll accept. Once, though, I accepted a friend request, and all he wanted to talk about was sex. Then he would send me porno stories he supposedly wrote, and a pic of his bulge. My husband and I had a few good laughs over the latter. Creepy!"Is his name John? Tall, white, and thin? If so, he's a weirdo.
Well, I suppose I'm at one of the extremes of the spectrum. About a year ago, I was just inundated with friend requests. All from authors whose writing I had never read. It was ridiculous. In the end I decided to require friend requesters to answer a question before they could even make the request. I rigged the game though, because though the question is something like; "What's the Capitol of Vermont, the answer required is something like "42". It's a jackassy thing to do, and I should probably re-visit that choice at some point, but it sure is peaceful.
Good topic. The OP's question is actually very good and appropriate. I'm fairly new here, and absolutely adore reading. It's a weird spot to be in when you actually are curious about finding new books, or seeing what speed they go through material, etc.. I'm hesitant to send out requests, really because they are random. The thing I am looking for is that they really are constantly reading, and it is very important that there are some similarities in preferences, a large amount of shared reads is good.
I recently looked at a profile because of the review, did a compare, and found it to be the most common yet. But, I looked closer and saw that she read at a freaky fast rate, and was the #1 reviewer here! I did the reasonable and sensible thing, I used the fallow review button instead of friend button.
edit: I had one author friend me in order to promote his book, I think it may have been my 1st here, and it has ended up being an absolute joy. He is very active, communicates with his fans, gets them involved (!), and promotes the heck out of his peers work as well. I had used the 'become a fan of' button for one of my all time favorite authors when I really wanted to use the friend button. He ended up sending me a FR on facebook (!!!) a few months later very unexpectedly after I had entered a contest, and transferred my reviews from here to amazon.
I must admit that I am one of the evil "friend collectors" that some of you have spoken of. ;) I accept anyone as a friend, but I only send out friend requests to people who have similar reading preferences.
J. S. wrote: "I must admit that I am one of the evil "friend collectors" that some of you have spoken of. ;) I accept anyone as a friend, but I only send out friend requests to people who have similar reading preferences."Then you're not a friend collector. LOL Some of the ones that I've gotten requests from have literally thousands of friends, make multiple friend requests with generic requests (until blocked), have little to no common interests with me, usually because they have no books on their shelves, or if any the number is dwarfed by their friend list, and all of their updates consist of "So & So is now friends with ______". No reviews, no status updates for a book, nothing.
Hey, Becky, I just peeked at your profile and we have 47 books in common. :] But I will not send you a friend request because I am an author, and I know for a fact that you have not read my book yet.
I'll accept anyone who friends me. So far everyone's been good, no spammers or weirdos. I like seeing what other people are reading and saying about what they've read, I've added tons of books to my want list from the friend-update emails :)
J. S. wrote: "Hey, Becky, I just peeked at your profile and we have 47 books in common. :] But I will not send you a friend request because I am an author, and I know for a fact that you have not read my book yet."LOL I'm ok with authors I've interacted with friend requesting me, whether I've read their book or not. I just don't like it when it's completely random and unexpected and I've never even talked to them before, because then it feels like spam.
And as a fan of Stephen King and HP, you are of course allowed to friend request me if you so desire. ;)
I just took a look at your book, and it seems interesting. Congrats on that by the way. First book, releasing in just a few days! You must be thrilled! :D
Tressa wrote: "Here's how much I have in reading common with you guys:Michael - 78%
Bandit - 73%
Gator 76%
Scott - 72% (must be all those anthologies you read that I don't)"
Not bad, 76%. And to think I accepted your request based on your witty retorts! lol
Kit★ wrote: "I'll accept anyone who friends me. So far everyone's been good, no spammers or weirdos. I like seeing what other people are reading and saying about what they've read, I've added tons of books to m..."This exactly! I don't care at all who requests me. I'm more particular about who friends me on Facebook, but on here - meh.
Gator wrote: "Not bad, 76%. And to think I accepted your request based on your witty retorts! lolAnd to think I sent an invitation based on your resemblance to Lloyd Dobler. You must be special: I usually don't send invites.
On another note, anyone notice that "reply" isn't working on the posts? Uber annoying.
I knew I was special! I just knew it!
The way I look at it is this: Why be a GoodReads friend with someone? The only reason I can see is if you share a similiar interest in books. I only want to see other people's status updates and reviews if they often read the sort of books that I am also interested in. So, I have got a question for people to answer, I just take a look at their profile and look at their recent reading history. If they look fairly compatible, I will accept them. I don't make requests very often.
Sometimes I become a friend with someone merely because I know them from elsewhere (other sites or real life) and my tastes might not be that compatible. For that, I find the "Top Friends" feature really useful. You can still be friends with people you don't want to offend but don't have to be bombarded with updates about books you have no interest in.
I don't even check on that Updates tab. I get emails from the threads I've posted in, and every few days get an email that shows me the books friends have read/are reading/want to read. I don't have an interest in knowing every single comment they made in a group or every single move they made at GR.Gator, your wife should show her appreciation for you more often. You need some validation, man!
I have friends who read books I have no interest in reading myself, but I still find it very interesting to see what other people think is worth reading even if I don't.
I do, too. I don't choose friends solely on our books. I have some who wanted to be friends because they live in Alabama or share the same political views as me. And sometimes they choose a book that I might like, too, even though it's not a genre I normally choose.
I check the updates pretty regularly, but I have it set to only show books added/rated/reviewed. I don't need to see every comment either (and nobody needs to see mine, so I set it to they don't post to my feed.)
I also have the Add to My Update Feed unchecked. I'm friends here with some coworkers. They don't need to see another side of me, haha.
Tressa wrote: "Erica wrote: "I will check a profile before I accept. If we are in the same groups or have some of the same friends, I'll accept. Once, though, I accepted a friend request, and all he wanted to tal..."I believe so. He vanished for a while, then popped back up and asked if I still hadhis "stories". Yeah sure buddy.
I blocked the creep. Were his stories about him finding a woman and her teen daughter so he could train her in the fine arts of sexual pleasure? I never got pics though, thank God for small favors.
Any request must answer my "How do you know me?" question. It is so annoying when some answer "You don't" or "I don't know you but we can remedy that." No, we can't.
Do any of you make any requesters jump through a question hoop? Just curious. Maybe I'm the only meanie in these parts.