Friends invitations - How do you decide if not on auto accept?  Do you do some thinking or quickly decide?

Why have autio accept if you then turn around and de-friend that person within a couple of days or less?  (Yes, that's actually happened to me at least once or maybe more.  One person on the forums here that I know for sure. No big deal here, but just wondering.)

I didn't understand the friend concept when I first joined. (Not sure that I understand it all yet, either.)  At first I wasn't on auto accept, but changed that later.

Have you ever de-friended (or is it unfriended) someone here?  I haven't defriended anyone yet, but have been defriended at least a couple of times (maybe more) that I know of.

Now for the last question (drumroll)  If a person closes their account (or it's otherwise closed by PBS) does your friend count go down by one if you had been friends with them?

I accept all friends although not on auto accept. I have never unfriended anyone & haven't noticed if anyone has unfriended me. I like that the site tells me whether a friend has the book I want to order or whether a friend is wishing for a book I am posting. 

I long ago put my friends list on auto-accept and I never even look at it.  I have no idea how many people are on there, whether or not they un-friend me, etc.  I'm sure I don't know most on the list.  I didn't want to be bothered by accepting or not.  If there was a way to turn it off, I would.  As it is, I don't have to worry about it so that's fine with me.

I accept all. I don't have very many. The compatibility % on most of mine is less than 30%. Some are only 12 or 15%. I think that is the reason I don't pay much attention to the friends. I have never requested anything off a friends shelf. I did once receive a request from a friend. One of the first friends a got several years ago has had their account on hold for several years. They either left the club of died. I deleted that friend.

I have mine set to auto accept. I used to decide on the percentage but found that less than reliable.I send books that actual friends give me and request books for them at times too so I send and order more than the type of books I read.

I am not sure if anyone has removed me from their friend's list as I don't pay any attention but if someone left the site he or she would be removed from the list.

I auto accept all friends. I have never unfriended anyone. That seems like a lot of work. If people have unfriended me, I have no clue, I don't check and wouldn't notice.

PBS friend software functionality revolves around being able to remember a relatively small group of people, in order to send them PMs quickly, or offer or receive wish list books directly while posting. 

To that end, I see friends as people who like similar books to me. Period. I have no other considerations when requesting a friend myself.

I auto-accept all friends. I've never unfriended anyone and wouldn't notice if anyone unfriended me. I tend to ignore the similarity percentages since I've found that I often have more books in common with a 12% match than a 29% match. I often used my friends list to help me determine the order to read my TBR list or as an inverse wishlist multiples (posting books to friends who are wishing for multiple books in my TBR list to save on postage). 

I accept friends manually and go and look at their bookshelf/wishlist to look for similarities to my taste. If it's not even in the ballpark, interest wise, I don't accept. Because I am a 100 Swapper I get lots of friend requests from people who joined the day before, etc. and I don't want to clog my friend lists with people who aren't active members. I have unfriended people who have nothing on their bookshelf or WL and have obviously left the site. I am not interested in having hundreds of friends who I don't know who they are. I have a number of friends that I routinely swap with and I want to easily find them.

Didn't even know we could 'unfriend' someone, though makes sense for it to be possible.

I want there to be a connection between the person and myself so I look at their profile, books, reviews before making a decsion.  No 'auto-accept' for me!

Thanks for all the replies.  I obviously still don't know everything about pbs friends as I've learned some new things from your posts. Not new to PBS, but still feel new to friends. Good to learn how some of you do or don't do things.

One thing I do like is the ability to order from a friend when searching for an exact title or ISBN and to choose to send to a friend when posting wishlisted books.

since I contributed to this thread I have gotten 3 friends invites including one from Gordon.

  From your previous post, I thought you were on auto-accept or I might not have made a request, or at least not so soon.

I posted a wish listed book last night and when I posted it a message came up on the screen that one of my friends had the book on their wish list. When I finished posting that book it was requested by the friend. First time that has happened to me.

That's exactly how I send most WL books to my friends, because I am so sick and tired of a WL request rolling thru countless inactive accounts. I think it is a great feature and I would rather it go instantly to an active member and I can mail it right away instead of waiting a week for it to be accepted, usually moments after I have returned from the post office.

I don't mind so much the roll overs waiting for a request. My pet peave is the people who wait 6, 7 or 8  days before they will mail a book that has been requested from them.

Having the friends come up as a requester on wish listed books is an obvious advantage to having a large number of friends. I have had several invites lately and this morning another wish listed book I posted has been requested by a friend. This is fun.

And by posting directly to friends, I find that those friends are also posting books directly to me, it's a win, win.

And by posting directly to friends, I find that those friends are also posting books directly to me, it's a win, win.

Friends are also more likely to mark a book received in a timely fashion.

sorry that waits bother you, but I am one of those people who can't get to the post office easily. If I get an order on Sunday, it gets mailed on Saturday. If I get an order on Thursday, it gets mailed on Saturday.

Margaret, it's waiting for a book I've mailed to be marked received in a timely fashion that's the problem. It appears that some can't be bothered to mark a book received without a several PM reminders. I've even had requesters PM back that they won't mark a book they've obviously received until after they've read it.

That's not the same as waiting to go to the PO to send books out.

Margaret if you are satisfied with the way you handle requests then there is nothing to say. But if you would like to improve your response I can give you some ideas that may help. Naturally it depends on whether you want to improve.

Margaret , no worries , I'm also one who can only get to the post office once a week due to a disability.  The system allows that, thats why its set up that way , to give people the time they need.

About friends , I really do like to be able to send wish list books to friends, and as someone else said they get marked received I think faster.

Marya, I completely agree with you that it is annoying when people take several days to mark a book received. I mark any received books either the day I get them or the next day, unless I am out of town, and even then, I have people collect my mail and open any packages for me so that I can mark books as received.

I was replying to this statement from Charles when I stated that there are valid reasons to wait to mail:

from Charles: "I don't mind so much the roll overs waiting for a request. My pet peave is the people who wait 6, 7 or 8  days before they will mail a book that has been requested from them. "

Charles, I found this followup remark incredibly offensive:

from Charles: "Margaret if you are satisfied with the way you handle requests then there is nothing to say. But if you would like to improve your response I can give you some ideas that may help. Naturally it depends on whether you want to improve."

I am satisfied with the way I handle requests, and I don't think you have the right to judge me as needing improvement. What do you know about my situation? And I find it arrogant that you assume that you can "fix" me or that I should do everything the same way you do.

I can guarantee that I can get to the post office on Saturday, so I mark requests as "I can mail later" and choose the following Saturday as the mail date, and then I mail the books on time according to that due date, and often earlier, if I find I can squeeze in an extra run to the post office. (Once I mailed on time but forgot to mark the books mailed, so oops on me!)

I have a TERRIBLE mail carrier, so I cannot put postage on and assume it will get picked up. Nor do I trust the local blue boxes.  However, the clerks in my local post office are excellent, and I am assured that the books are scanned immediately. If people request a book from me on Friday, it gets mailed the next day, which is excellent response! If they request on Sunday, then it gets mailed no later than the following Saturday, and if I can, I squeeze in another trip to the post office and the book is mailed faster. There is absolutely no way to control what day of the week I get requests, as I commonly get requests for books that have been on my shelf over a year, and even when I do post wishlisted books on a certain day to attempt to get the timing right, sometimes the requests roll through several 48-hour wait periods before there is a true request, so I still can't control the day I get requests.

Charles, I waited to reply to your inappropriate comment to be sure I wasn't having a knee-jerk reaction and misreading your statement, but upon rereading, I decided I needed to speak up for myself and hopefully cause you to think longer before you treat others this way. I am fairly sure that you didn't mean to be quite so rude, but please consider your tone when you post.

Margaret, I believe that you are responding to the wrong person.  I didn't say those things to you.

I'm going to go through the thread with 2 window sessions open to see who actually said them and will then post that info.

Edited to Add (ETA):  It was Charles that said both of those statements and not me.

I'm not offended by the wrong accusations, but am a bit hurt. So that others will know that I didn't say such things, I would like you to acknowledge, respond back that you made a mistake in saying that I said those things.

In the next 2 posts, I have copied and pasted the wordage showing that Charles said them.

Questions about PaperBackSwap - Questions about Friends - View Inline

Charles K. (textual)

Date Posted: 9/30/2016 5:50 PM ET Member Since: 6/30/2008 Posts: 1,933 Back To Top

I don't mind so much the roll overs waiting for a request. My pet peave is the people who wait 6, 7 or 8  days before they will mail a book that has been requested from them.