I have seen some discussion in the Second Life forums about the etiquette of inviting someone to be your friend. The exchange developed some potentially useful suggestions, so I will summarize the discussion here.
First, there seems to be no generally established proper form for inviting people to be your friend. Maybe there should not be, since there are various reasons for offering the invitation. The function of the friends list is to make it easier to contact the person in the future. Some possible reasons you might want such easy contact:
1. Social interaction. You like the person and want to maintain social contact with them in the future.
2. Shared interests. You expect to work with the person in the future on some activity of shared interest.
3. Help. You expect to have contact with the person in the future because of possible help you may give or receive.
There are also possible reasons why people might want to limit their friends list. Some people like to have their settings such that they get notifications whenever their friends log on or log off.. The setting is (on Viewer 2):
Me (top left) > Preferences > Notifications > Tell me >(Check box) When my friends log in or out.
I have lots of people on my friends list, so I can't leave that box checked or I get a constant string of notices. People who do want to get those notices have to leave their friend's list short.
The consideration of friend etiquette identified several levels of assertiveness:
1. Just send the invitation.
Pro: Fast, simple
Con: Might embarrass the person who does not want you on their friends list.
2. Ask "May I invite you to my friends list?"
Pro: Fast, simple, gives the other person an option to explain, “I have to keep my friends list short.”
Con: Still might embarrass the person who does not want you on friends list.
.
3. Ask “Do you keep a friends list?”
Pro: Gives other person an option to invite you or to decline without rejecting you.
Con: May seem a bit standoffish. New people may not know what to answer.
4. Send a message such as
“I have enjoyed chatting with you.”
“I look forward to working with you on this.”
“If you need help, send me IM.”
Follow this with “Feel free to invite me to your friends list if you want.”
Pro: Leaves the decision up to the other person.
Con: May seem a bit standoffish.
===========================
The other hand
The other side of the friend offer is that people, out of courtesy, may refrain from offering it to people they have just met. Too much courtesy can make you miss friends you would really want to know.
Help
This could happen at the Hobo Helpers HQ (Rockcliffe), where I hang out looking for people who want help. When I started there, some newcomers would ask me if it was ok to send me a friend offer. Of course, I told them it was. But I realized that if one person asked, there were probably nine more that wanted to ask, but didn’t.
So I started sending Instant Messages to every newcomer I saw at Rockcliffe or Cookie, ending with the message: “Feel free to invite me to your friends list if you want.” I think that is appropriate when you are offering help, assuming, of course that you are willing to give more help later.
Shared interests
The shared interests might be business or other (such as hobbies). I regularly check the profiles of people I meet to see if they some interests that I share. I can get my clues from the self-descriptions and from the groups they have joined. If it looks as if we have common interests, I point that out and invite them to my friends list. You could argue that I might be considered too forward. On the other hand, if someone knows that we share common interests, the might feel rejected I don’t offer them friendship.
=================
But enough of my opinion. What is your opinion?
0 comments:
Post a Comment