Friends network

A friends network is a network that shows connections between a member and other members. On this page we can brainstorm about a friends network, or otherwise we can explain why we don't want it.

A Friends Network is Good

• It is helpful for security to see the indirect connection of friend links between you and another member.
• It's a useful criterion for media visibility - you can choose for a picture or article that only your friends can see it.
• It's nice for staying in contact.
• It's fun to browse along friend links.

A Friends Network is Bad

Or some people say so ... (better if someone else can write about this)

Ok, so I will take this up Claudiaab 17:05, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

(inline comments by Lemon-head 01:02, 21 April 2008 (UTC))

• friends lists would turn BeWelcome into something like Facebook or MySpace, especially if 'online'-friendship also counts.

  hm, I don't like this kind of argument. BW is an online network, if we like it or not, and there is not much sense to supress this aspect of BW. And, Facebook and MySpace are quite different from each other already!

• real-life meetings are accounted for in the comments section, which is way clearer for other people to understand than just a label 'friend': What should I make of the information that this or that person is a friend of a person I know? Just assume that we would have the same friends, so I would also like this person? I would rather read the comment that person left, so I could find out which aspect of this person my friend liked.

  You can of course do that but there could be situations where you want to add someone as a friend, but don't want to write a comment.

• any kind of 'how-many-degrees-of-separation-networks' could also be realized with the comment system

  I don't like if too many other things depend on the comments. Otherwise, people will leave comments simply to activate the "friends can see my online status", or to express the "I know this person". Imo comments are the more serious trust network feature, while friend links are more for social networking. We should better not mix that up.

• how much of this would be public? - privacy issues...

  as much as the member wants.

Privacy / Connection Visibility Settings

Unlike contacts in an address book, your "friends" or "special relations" are meant to be shown to others. This does not necessarily mean everyone, but at least the members of BeWelcome will usually be able to see your friend connections or special relations.

A general precaution for privacy is that both sides have to confirm the connection, and each side can set a constraint on visibility.

A problem with a friends network can be that someone who is in fact very critical about public friend lists, does nevertheless confirm a connection, to not insult the other person, or to avoid looking bad with an empty friends list.

The problem could be avoided if we allow to confirm the connection but hide it afterwards, saying "you are not allowed to see the connections of this person".

It's not the same as ...

There are some similar concepts, but they are not quite the same.

It's not the same as "Special Relations"

Special relations sounds like a very restricted concept, and it does not really express sympathy. You have a "special relation" with all members of your family, but that does not always imply you like them.

And, is it really anyone's business who is in my family?

Is it anyone´s business which books you like? We are talking about information you want to publish if you don't want to leave it! Fabzgy 15:22, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Ok, true.

It's not the same as a Verification Network

Verification does not mean you like this person, or want to spend more time with him / her. It simply means you confirm the name, address and existence of the person.

It's not the same as an Address Book

Friends are public, contacts are private. And, storing an email in a list does not express sympathy. A collection of contacts can be useful, but they lack some of the fun.

Contacts score better than friends in terms of privacy.

Something in between are contacts on a Chat network (msn, icq, skype). These contacts are not public for everyone, but they reveal some information about your online status, without your active contribution. This would not happen by simply storing an email address.

Criteria to Compare

Some questions about the connection

• Does it ease communication between the two persons?
• What does it express towards the other person? Sympathy?
• Does it reflect a realworld (life) connection?
• What does it express towards others?

How meaningful are online friend connections?

Often people are not very careful with the friends feature. Usually the online friend connections reflect more or less which people you have met and decided to like, but often the collection of real friends is mixed with unreflected friend connections.

In a reduced point of view, what remains is a link from my profile to another, decorated with a friendly word, and associated with some ideas ranging from "I had a drink with this person" to "I like this person" or "She has a cute picture, so she's a nice decoration for my profile".

This means, we can't really use the concept for security, but it can still be useful for other things.

What (who) can be "Friends" with each other?

Members can declare a friends connection (if we choose to make a friends network).

Extensions of the "friends" concept in real life

It happens that two towns, or eventually two clubs, declare a symbolic partner connection, and organize activities like trips, student exchange etc.

Entities in our network that can be "connected" with each other

• Community Profiles can be connected with each other and with members. Somewhere it was said this can be declared as "friend connection".
• Groups can be connected (parent/child or cross-connection), this could be seen as being friends. A member of BW can be a member of a group inside BW. This can again be seen as an extension of the friends concept.
  wow this is a nice example that the word "friends" says just about nothing. So I can be friend with a group, an apple, a car homer simpson - cool user|philipplange

  Hm yes I use the term very widely.. like it can be reduced to "connection that a visitor can explore". I will restructure the section a bit - but eventually you are right. --Lemon-head 11:09, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

  If the purpose of all this is just to provide links from one profile to another lets name it just like this "links". Let people (groups, ....) create links to other parts of the site (profiles, gorups, ...) and tag it (lovely girl, flatmate, cool group, evil guest, ...)

  interesting concept

Don't miss the related discussions about a trust system - guess both would complement each other

• Proposed trust system
• forum: new trust system - anonymous and individual
• Proposed structure for a friend network

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