a query for those who pay attention to these things

[the_siobhan]

OK, so what are serial adders, and what's the deal with them?

('Cause I appear to have one, and I'm trying to figure out what the purpose of this is supposed to be.)

Comments

[jenifoto.livejournal.com]

It seems to be a trend lately. People who start fake journals or communities just to add people and piss them off.

Hey, speaking of adding...I just added you today, we have several mutual friends and I see your comments here and there and thought i'd add you...so "hi"!

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

It seems to be a trend lately. People who start fake journals or communities just to add people and piss them off.

I wondered about that, 'cause whenever I see them mentioned people seem to be annoyed.

But I don't see how it really affects me. I can make my posts friends-only if I don't want them to read me, so what's the diff?

This is a rhetorical question btw - I do that a lot. ;->

And hi back!

[inulro.livejournal.com]

That's how I feel about it.

I get amused when people have hissy fits along the lines of "somebody I don't know added me so they are obviously STALKING me".

[benton.livejournal.com]

The difference beign is that I *am* stalking people!

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

Cool! I've never had a stalker before.

(Well, I had one for a little while. But I told him what would happen if he didn't fuck off, so I think that spoiled it.)

[benton.livejournal.com]

I had a nacent stalker once, but then I started stalking them back, and they got all offended.

Thats more my style than cowering. It is also more amusing.

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

That is hilarious.

I like your style, sir.

[sheepthief.livejournal.com]

Some of them have quite offensive names, and have links to sites that are pornographic, and I can fully understand users being annoyed about that. But you can stop them from showing up on your friend-of list by either banning them individually (look up 'console' and 'ban_set' in the FAQ) or just hiding the entire friend-of list.

[eve-l-incarnata.livejournal.com]

Hiding the entire "friend-of" list without banning meant that these dumbasses were still showing up when you read your own info. page. Please refer to previous comment about "Nigger" being spraypainted across the front of someone's house.

Being able to delete people from your "friend-of" list by banning is only a recent feature, within the last week or so.

[sheepthief.livejournal.com]

Yep, and in response to this recent problem, though TPTB have been talking about all sorts of changes to the friends list system for a while now.

[eve-l-incarnata.livejournal.com]

My brain has a meltdown every time I see an acronym. What does "TPTB" stand for?

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

If I maade a guess, it would be The Powers That Be.

[eve-l-incarnata.livejournal.com]

Thanks. I could only hear the sound that people make when they stick their tongue out.

[timly.livejournal.com]

Thanks. I could only hear the sound that people make when they stick their tongue out.

that's hilarious. but, you need to watch 'angel'.

[sheepthief.livejournal.com]

Sorry, was being terribly lazy there - The Powers That Be.

Good icon. =:-)

[eve-l-incarnata.livejournal.com]

People were creating communities (and then IDs) with names like "nigger_central" and "kkk_membership", and then going around LJ and adding any person who had ever spoken out on race issues or the KKK (mostly POC). Harrassment IDs were, of course, homophobic, racist, or sexist, although some were just stupid (dildobucket or _eye_added_you_). As soon as I commented in the lj_biz poll about this issue, I was added to two individual accounts.

The best, most complete post about the The "Friend Of" Issue (http://www.livejournal.com/users/chr0me_kitten/436450.html) I've seen was in chr0me_kitten's journal.

I find it interesting that it's mostly been straight white people who don't have an issue with this.

[eve-l-incarnata.livejournal.com]

For many people, it wasn't an issue of who was reading their journal. It was like someone had spraypainted "Nigger" across the front of their house.

[mrph.livejournal.com]

It's bargain basement trolling. With an agenda. As I understand it, the history goes like this...

For a while now people - well, some people - have been moaning to the powers of LJ that they had no control over who friended them, and that this Just Wasn't Fair. Whole host of reasons why people feel that way, of course - some valid, many just highschool drama or misunderstandings as to how the 'friends' system works.

Then someone started a petition, which you might have seen, complaining that they could be friended by "child molesters, rapists, murderers, thieves, spammers and hackers", that this wasn't against the Livejournal TOS, and that something had to be done. There was some discussion in lj_biz, but the verdict seems to be that it's not worth major changes right now.

...and that's when we really started getting the serial adders. Usually with things like bestiality and pedophilia listed among their interests. Some of them are just gleeful trolls, but some of them are probably people creating a problem so they can justify a cure (everyone I know who posted on lj_biz to say that there wasn't a real problem immediately got friended by two newly created serial adders, for example...).

Then again, I'm a cynical git so I would suspect something like that, wouldn't I?

[benton.livejournal.com]

Heck if I know. I probably have the oldest journal with the fewest amount of friends, heh.

I hardly ever break 40 in either direction. I just add people when their lives are interesting, read them for a while, and then remove them when I'm no longer interested.

My life is sufficently uninteresting that I don't get much traffic. =)

[ev0lemi.livejournal.com]

here i thought you were talking about a snake.

[erik]

You've gotten a pretty good explaination of what a serial adder is.
The way to get rid of them is the same as any other troll: ignore. Trolls feed on attention.

[jendurrfukt.livejournal.com]

ok, i'm glad someone asked cos i had no idea. also, just lettin gyou know I friended you, liked what you had to say in LJ land.
eden