Extreme Friending

[intertext]

What is this method by which some people seem to be able to do bulk friending? I've been friended by several people now who seem to be interested in nothing beyond how many people they can friend all at once, regardless of whether you are actually someone of ANY interest to them. It's mildly annoying, and on the order of spam - if it gets more common and frequent it will be REALLY annoying, as I like to check out anyone who appears to have friended me, and now it seems that is a waste of time. ... then, there's the cry wolf factor - I can't ignore everyone; therefore I might miss someone of _real_ interest. Mostly, I want to know how they're doing it and whether this relates to the issues discussed in the petition in my previous post.

Comments

[ellarien]

I suspect there may be a script -- which would have legitimate uses, as for example when someone wants to go friends-only but friend everyone who has them friended already.

I've only had that happen once -- one individual with two journals, who friended me from both of them. That did seem to have something of the nature of spam about it, even though there were some generic interests in common.

[intertext.livejournal.com]

It's happened to me three times now in just over a week. In all three cases it seems to have been people just friending for the hell of it to see who would bite - you get automatically deleted if you don't friend them back. Makes me think there's something "going round"...

[gillo]

Strange. I believe there's a way you can block them from your journal if they annoy you, but you'd need to ask someone who actually knows somefink...

[pickledginger.livejournal.com]

Yes, one can ban individual users ... there's a FAQ on the topic. I don't know of a way of pre-screening folks who "friend" you, however.

[pickledginger.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the link!

As for the bulk-friend attack, I suspect a posting by one maduser with a large circle of maduserfriends. *le sigh*