Anyone Else “Vet” Friend Requests?

24

Replies

  • yirara
    yirara Posts: 9,986 Member
    Oops, I just realized my profile was not visible to other people. Now it is. Now people should be able to read that I don't do friends. Lets see if it makes a difference.
  • slimgirljo15
    slimgirljo15 Posts: 269,456 Member
    eatpolerepeat wrote: »
    I do check people out though before I accept

    Me too.. sometimes I make a mistake though and have to delete straight away. :)
  • lx1x
    lx1x Posts: 38,330 Member
    eatpolerepeat wrote: »
    lx1x wrote: »
    Have a list of fr.. some just random request.. I just leave it there. Have only handfull of friends .

    If interact with them on forum.. I might add...

    I vetted this one and I was right to. He's well dodgy 😂
    joking, of course 🤗

    Pfft . 😂
  • springlering62
    springlering62 Posts: 8,686 Member
    This is all very interesting. Tbh there’s so much junk on my newsfeed that if people are making legit comments I only find them at random. Wish there was a way to turn off the “so and so earned XX calories”, and so on. It just floods it.

    I had hoped to make some “real” friends here, as I did in the early internet days (still visit with eBay buddies from back in the day!) but this format doesn’t lend itself well.

  • psychod787
    psychod787 Posts: 4,099 Member
    AnnPT77 wrote: »
    Yes. I pretty much accept all requests, but don't accept requests from men who have lots and lots of female friends with cute profile pics (but no or vanishingly few male ones). Those are the ones with the highest likelihood that they'll be sending PMs with iffy to inappropriate come-ons, IMO. (Yes, even to their internet granny 🙄 . . . granny don't play that game. 🤣).

    If it's borderline, I check their forum history.

    I'm not at all a good "MFP friend" (don't post much in the status feed, don't reply much to others there, though I try to respond to direct questions people put right on my profile page, and I understand that some people will send a FR in order to send a PM - I do answer PMs, if they're actual questions, not come-ons; and I've told some people to FR me if they want to see what I eat for protein, as a vegetarian).

    Huh... well aunt granny, I'm like 40% men 60% women. Better delete me!😉
  • Duck_Puddle
    Duck_Puddle Posts: 3,237 Member
    springlering62 wrote: »
    This is all very interesting. Tbh there’s so much junk on my newsfeed that if people are making legit comments I only find them at random. Wish there was a way to turn off the “so and so earned XX calories”, and so on. It just floods it.

    I had hoped to make some “real” friends here, as I did in the early internet days (still visit with eBay buddies from back in the day!) but this format doesn’t lend itself well.

    It’s possible. I’ve been here 8 1/2 years and some of my closest friends are people I’ve met here. I’ve met (in person) I think 30-something people from my FL, some just in passing while traveling, some doing races and travels and things.

    As for “vetting” - most of my FL doesn’t even venture into the forums. I’m not sure some of them even know they are here. Most of our activity is in comments on posts (ours and mutual friends). I recognize user names from these conversations. I will occasionally check with some other old timers if it looks like another reincarnation of a certain skeevy dude.

    We chat about all kinds of things. We often describe/discuss workouts in the comments part of the “burned such and such calories doing whatever they did”. We talk about life things-celebrations, successes, challenges & frustrations.

    Some are hosting/joining zoom gatherings during lockdown.

    It’s very rare that anyone on my FL posts a “question” (not like on the forums anyway). We all have struggles and challenges-but it’s never what/how do I do ______. Its more just navigating life and fitting in this health and fitness stuff. And a lot of fun stuff too.

    So it’s possible to make “real” friends here.

    One note: a relatively new “feature” (some places call them bugs) is that messages sent with friend requests aren’t always showing up in the request. Sometimes they (the message) will show on the app or the web (but the same FR will be blank on the other), sometimes the note doesn’t show up anywhere. This is different than the FR not going through at all because the requester used a naughty word in the message. This is just seemingly random. I know instant denial of requests without a message is popular-so I thought I’d pass that along.
  • Noreenmarie1234
    Noreenmarie1234 Posts: 7,492 Member
    Of course. I don't accept random friend requests, lol.
  • shaf238
    shaf238 Posts: 4,022 Member
    Yes absolutely, I have a small-ish list and only want people who are actually active and mutually supportive.
  • BigMamaLynsey
    BigMamaLynsey Posts: 390 Member
    Nope if someone wants to add me they can I dont sit and "vet" them. If anyone is inactive for over a month i would unfriend though, I do like an active newsfeed so I can praise others and they do it to me, feels great and keeps me motivated!
  • ninerbuff
    ninerbuff Posts: 49,029 Member
    Nah. If they're interested in having me as a friend on here, it's usually because I can give them information on fitness and nutrition for free. And that's fine because I don't mind passing on knowledge. I DO have to go through my list a every month or so to clean out the non users though. Which reminds me..............................

    A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
    IDEA Fitness member
    Kickboxing Certified Instructor
    Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition
    9285851.png
  • grannysmith54
    grannysmith54 Posts: 48 Member
    I am still trying to figure out how to send a friend request in this app
  • cpnknight
    cpnknight Posts: 200 Member
    It is extremely unlikely that I will ever meet up with anyone on here. The only "friends" I need on here are people that will/may help me to stop being the porker that I am at present.
    If someone local sent me a friend request and soon after suggested a meet up or private chat then they would be declined and deleted immediately!
  • crystalsan726
    crystalsan726 Posts: 795 Member
    Yes I do vet friend requests. There are some crazies out there!! 😄 I usually don't send friend requests one because on the app it isn't easy to do. I wish they would make it if you are in the forum and see someone you want to request for a friend there is an add friend button instead of trying to remember the name and search for it and then request for friendship. I don't do guy friends on here because I am married and the only male encouragement I need is from my honey. If I get friend requests and they are female I usually accept. I will only delete them if I see foul language (I don't like seeing that on my feed) or we don't interact much. I don't like to see a lot junk on my newsfeed so I have a small friend group of some amazing ladies that I met on here and we have been friends for quite awhile. Call me old fashioned I don't care. I am here for losing weight, getting healthy, and going on this journey with people who are like minded.
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 34,622 Member
    crystalsan726 wrote: »
    Yes I do vet friend requests. There are some crazies out there!! 😄 I usually don't send friend requests one because on the app it isn't easy to do. I wish they would make it if you are in the forum and see someone you want to request for a friend there is an add friend button instead of trying to remember the name and search for it and then request for friendship. I don't do guy friends on here because I am married and the only male encouragement I need is from my honey. If I get friend requests and they are female I usually accept. I will only delete them if I see foul language (I don't like seeing that on my feed) or we don't interact much. I don't like to see a lot junk on my newsfeed so I have a small friend group of some amazing ladies that I met on here and we have been friends for quite awhile. Call me old fashioned I don't care. I am here for losing weight, getting healthy, and going on this journey with people who are like minded.

    You can send a FR from the forum, it just takes a couple of steps (details depend on whether web or phone app).

    In their post, click on their user name (at left of post in web version, above it in Android app so I assume likewise in iOS version). You'll get some kind of a display about them. If you don't see an "Add As Friend" button (web version) or the two-people-heads icon that is the same thing in the phone app, click on their name again, until you see one of those two (it'll just be a couple steps, not dozens). Then click on the "Add" button or the people-heads icon to send a friend request.
  • kshama2001
    kshama2001 Posts: 28,052 Member
    slimgirljo15 wrote: »
    sgt1372 wrote: »
    I reject all friend requests.

    Will speak privately w/anyone who sends me a PM but I have no interest in "collecting" virtual friends here or anywhere else on the Net.

    Unfortunately if you try to send someone a pm who is not a fr it does not go through. they never see it. Strangely if you can catch their attention on forums and ask them to send you one it will close the loop and subsequent pm will be received. Mfp glitches 🙄

    I don't believe it is a glitch but rather a deliberate programming change to solve the problem of unsolicited messages. I think this solution was dumb for several reasons, one of which being that most people are not aware that you have to be friends with someone before receiving messages and thus are left wondering why no response.

    I hardly look at my feed, but would sometimes like to message people from the forums, and there should be something to let me know the Send Message feature does not work unless the recipient is already a friend.

    A better solution would have been to address the problem on the spammer end.
  • slimgirljo15
    slimgirljo15 Posts: 269,456 Member
    kshama2001 wrote: »
    slimgirljo15 wrote: »
    sgt1372 wrote: »
    I reject all friend requests.

    Will speak privately w/anyone who sends me a PM but I have no interest in "collecting" virtual friends here or anywhere else on the Net.

    Unfortunately if you try to send someone a pm who is not a fr it does not go through. they never see it. Strangely if you can catch their attention on forums and ask them to send you one it will close the loop and subsequent pm will be received. Mfp glitches 🙄

    I don't believe it is a glitch but rather a deliberate programming change to solve the problem of unsolicited messages. I think this solution was dumb for several reasons, one of which being that most people are not aware that you have to be friends with someone before receiving messages and thus are left wondering why no response.

    I hardly look at my feed, but would sometimes like to message people from the forums, and there should be something to let me know the Send Message feature does not work unless the recipient is already a friend.

    A better solution would have been to address the problem on the spammer end.

    You could be right. I only realised when I sent a couple of pm to forum members whom I wanted to say good job or just a cheer up note when I thought someone needed it and I got nothing, no acknowledgement at all. I did end up friending someone and they said they'd never received a pm and then a few people mentioned it had changed and you could no longer contact non friends. 😔


  • TonyB0588
    TonyB0588 Posts: 9,520 Member
    I usually open the profile and take a brief look before accepting. Some user's profiles are completely blank, and some are locked, so not sure why they're inviting me anyway.

    In the earlier days I could see age, sex, and location, but that doesn't seem to be MFP's default setting now. I just felt that some potential connections weren't age-appropriate.

    But the facts are that I don't post on my page very often, and I probably miss a lot of the posts my friends make as well. There's an email alert for every post, but I have those filtered to automatically go direct to a separate folder in my email account.
  • TonyB0588
    TonyB0588 Posts: 9,520 Member
    BigMamaLynsey wrote: »
    Nope if someone wants to add me they can I dont sit and "vet" them. If anyone is inactive for over a month i would unfriend though, I do like an active newsfeed so I can praise others and they do it to me, feels great and keeps me motivated!

    Your post is a wakeup call to me. I don't usually delete, but I just looked and discovered a lot of my "friends" have gone inactive.

    Of 406 friends, 1 hasn't logged in for 46 months, and that's part of a total of 151 who haven't logged in for more than 7 months, which means not in this year at all.

    Some stopped logging on earlier this year, but there are 64 who logged in during the past 1 month and are not currently logged in. Just 119 are logged on now out of that 406, so I could easily delete 300.
  • gcminton
    gcminton Posts: 170 Member
    Sure, in the sense that I don't accept them, although now you guys have me wondering if I should just so I have a chance at a good laugh. Then again, I changed my profile pic to one without my face, which makes it less clear what my anatomy might be.

    Really, though, I'm another person who would be a terrible friend here. I have a hard enough time managing my trauma responses just to post in the forums, so the idea of a total stranger looking around my profile or diary just kind of wigs me out and would guarantee I stop using MFP to further my goals. It's a work in progress.

    Sorry to anyone who I ignored! It really is a genuine case of "it's not you, it's me".
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