IT’S NOT THE MAGIC ROUNDABOUT! (Circle of Friends - tips on setting it up)

Member Name: moistoist

Product:	Circle of Friends - tips on setting it up
Date:	29/08/01 (75 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Friends!

Disadvantages: Can be abused a bit, but it's not a big deal

I was wandering around the Third Street mall in Santa Monica yesterday when a rather pointless and incoherently silly thought struck me – why a ‘circle’ of friends/’circle’ of trust etc. etc.? Why haven’t the triangles of the world gone to an employment tribunal to complain about this? Surely this is discrimination against the beautiful and yet misunderstood octagons?

After having seen a nice man in a white coat who injected some ‘magic liquid’ into my arm and told me to wear something other than a dressing gown in the street, I returned to my apartment and thought I’d write the Hitchhiker’s guide to the circle of friends, what it is, what it isn’t: why it exists (and if you like Cartesian dualisms, why it doesn’t)…


THE CIRCLE OF FRIENDS AND WHAT THE HELL TO DO WITH IT

Let us suppose for an instant that you are a ‘newbie’, a popular phrase for someone with excessive post-auricular moistness, or in specific terms, as wet behind the ears as an over- enthusiastic Labrador in an Olympic size swimming pool…you’ve written a couple of ops that you think are OK and you start cruising the site…after a short while you chance upon an op that particularly tickles your frontal lobes and you find yourself chuckling away and instinctively clicking for the ‘nominate for a crown’ button (spot the hint!)…or even just the VU rating button. You think to yourself, ‘I’d really like to know when this guy writes some more ops, or at least be able to check back to his/her page to see if he/she wrote an answer to the comment I put’. That’s where the first use of the COF comes in…just add them to your trusted user list and you’ll only have to click a couple of times to get back to their page.
That use is essentially – I LIKE THEIR OPS AND I WANT TO SEE MORE…

Also, if there is
someone you are friends with from another site or from the real world (really?!), then you can add them that way so you can check back regularly to see what they are up to.
That use is essentially – I LIKE THEM AND I WANT TO SEE WHAT THE HELL THEY ARE DOING…

Maybe someone wrote a particularly charming comment on one of your ops, and you want to thank them for bothering – reading a few of their ops in return is the best way, but if you like, add them to you COF too…all in the spirit of friendship.
That use is essentially – THEY LIKE MY OPS AND SEEM JOLLY NICE, I”D LIKE TO SEE SOME OF THEIR STUFF…

Another good use is if someone is new to the site and seems particularly keen to improve and write good ops – if you’ve raised your ratings a bit and someone has helped you to do it, there’s nothing like having someone say they trust you by adding you to their Circle…so look out for new members, and if they are obviously working hard to write quality stuff, it’s a nice welcoming gesture.
That use is essentially – WE WERE ALL NEW ONCE, CAN”T HARM TO BE FRIENDLY…

And that’s about it really…the circle of friends is just that – people you trust to write good ops/helpful comments and whose presence on the site you enjoy. Not exactly tough criteria to deliberate when you think about clicking on that button or not.


However, there are some downsides to the COF…and here they are


THE CIRCLE OF FRIENDS AND WHAT THE HELL NOT TO DO WITH IT

If someone adds you to their COF without ever reading any of your ops, it’s someone you don’t know, and someone whose ops you have never even seen before, let alone rated or commented on – then that’s not fair…and whilst it may not seem like a big deal, think about it – why have they bothered? Answer – they just want you to
read some of their ops…chances are without any reads back or even bothering to foster some kind of friendship or trust. That’s obviously going to be irritating. Having said that, there’s nothing in the rules against it, and it’s not exactly a major issue really?! So, the solution I came up with is this – if someone adds me to their COF without having ever touched any of my ops or me not having ever read any of theirs (i.e just copying names into it without bothering to do any reading), then I don’t read any of theirs…it soon stops them doing it if they merely add and add and add and don’t get many reads. You can spot people who do this really easily too – they’ve only been a member for three days and yet they trust three hundred people – despite having only rated 4 ops…
It’s common for people to trust more people than do them – I for example trust about 180 people but am trusted by just over 100 – and I’ve read well over fifteen hundred ops – the ones I trust are generally the ones whose ops have made me chuckle.

So in essence, there isn’t really a problem with people abusing the COF because it isn’t going to do them much good in the longrun (they’ll only get a read from a person by doing it once, and that’s going to be a slow way to make money! If you feel someone’s just opened your ‘trusted by’ list in another window and added the lot to their ‘I trust’ list, then you might think about complaining…but a friendly word in the right direction will often stop such practices. Many people misunderstand the COF when they join and think that it is perfectly OK to add everyone and anyone to get a few reads…it’s an easy mistake to make.


IN CONCLUSION then…

The circle of trust isn’t a magic circle (roundabout!)…it won’t get you hundreds and hu
ndreds of reads – only quality ops will do that. What it is is a way of acknowledging the work of those you enjoy and are friends with, and a way of reinforcing the ratings behind your ops (if someone has lots of people who trust them, ie into three figures, then chances are their ops are worth a look), which will ultimately help visitors to your work make the better decisions. And make you a bit of dosh, whichever is more important to you. And that’s got to be good.


And now you must excuse me…I have to take my medication…

:-)

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