Suggestion Friend requests from people with commercial interests

[Sas]

Today I got a friend request from a profile that is basically a shop. I really hate unsolicited friend requests from people with an obvious commercial interest as it feels like another ad being forced upon me like spam and was wondering what other people thought. Could it be possible to ban profiles with commercial interests from making blanket friend requests? I know some people have links to their favourite shop or even their own shop in their profile who might add me as a friend for other reasons (say, if we'd actually had a conversation or had shared interests ) but it is pretty easy to tell the difference between legitimate requests and just spam.

I know the ToS mentions how spam is not allowed, but am not sure if a shop using friend requests is considered spam or not. It would be cool if it could include friend requests from shops too As it is SO annoying.

Thanks!

 

[Rick Murchison]

1. I've PM'd the offender requesting a stop to this use of the friends feature.
2. I'll monitor their friends list to see if they stop; if they don't, I'll look into more effective measures.
3. Have any of y'all gotten any more than the initial friend request from these folks? Or any other irritants?
Please let me know by PM if you have any further problems.
Thanks,
Rick

 

[Sas]

Thanks Rick. I haven't had any other problems. My concern was that other people with commercial interests might see this profile's actions and get the idea to do the same thing (i.e. like myspace ) so hopefully it won't happen again!

 

[Walter]

Some folks who represent shops do have friends here. Capt Gary, for example, is someone I consider a friend. I would hate to see good folks like that have fewer options than the rest of us simply because they own a shop. When I received a friend request from Gary, I immediately approved it. OTOH, I've received several friend requests from folk who do not represent shops with whom I've never interacted and I know virtually nothing about them. It doesn't matter if these request come from shops or individuals, it's a PITA. I don't think we need to limit access to the friend feature.

 

[Sas]

I know some people have links to their favourite shop or even their own shop in their profile who might add me as a friend for other reasons (say, if we'd actually had a conversation or had shared interests ) but it is pretty easy to tell the difference between legitimate requests and just spam.

Yes, I addressed that in the OP Walter. I think the friend feature shouldn't be used by shops to send out blanket friend invites to 100s of users. It is really annoying and is basically spam. I get a friend request from someone, I check their profile and get shown their sales pitch. People who add me as a friend who I don't know, without having commercial motivations don't really bother me so much as usually I send a message and it moves on to talking about shared interests, etc. Shops have one intention by adding lots of people, and that is to sell you stuff so I see no benefit in friend requests from those types of people. I *hate* unsolicited advertising. But yea, it was just a suggestion so if most people don't mind, I can deal with that

 

[krbailey]

Received the same friend request today also and notified the board in a seperate thread. By the responses, it seems to be only one member currently involved and they are known to the moderators.

 

[El Orans]

See post 11.