How do you handle unwanted friend requests?

[Makk]

It irritates me to have these players I don't know crawl from outta no where and try to friend me. And the ship hoppers!! I hate ship-hoppers!!

I have to play with a person for a good while now in order to friend them, unless they seem like good folk, then they get friend-ed quicker.

I don't mind giving low-levels a chance. I play with them a bit, get to know them - I was a low-level myself once-upon a time, but a chance is the best you got so don't screw it up, right?

However most might have that idiot friend, so they get a free pass for that one once too.

[Bilgepump]

Originally Posted by Steely Jim

I'm sure everyone appreciated you being casual with their time to show me what a terrible forum poster I am, but is that really a lesson that lands when presented in the "do as I say, not as I do" format?

You are absolutely right, sir. I was trying to humorously suggest that perhaps you were over analyzing, but failed.

[Steely Jim]

Well, the thing is, even though I do my field primarily in archaeological contexts, my interests are more broadly anthropological. I have a real, professional interest in observing, analyzing, and attempting to explain the socio-culturally constructed rules we invent for interacting with each other.

If you'd like, then I'd be more than happy to start citing peer-reviewed literature to support my observations. You might feel that I should take my observations back to the academic community, and leave the actual game-players to just play the game.

I would suggest that if your sentiment is just that the sites that are ancillary to the game are not an appropriate venue for such discussions, then you should learn to just skip over my posts, rather than trying to set yourself up as the ultimate arbiter of what I can and cannot discuss in the open forums. If your sentiment is that my analysis is inaccurate, than I would be more than happy to present supporting information.

I don't think it takes any specialized training, or academic knowledge, to have an interest and understanding of people forming interaction rules for themselves to follow; So, for you, maybe that isn't something that lends interest to playing MMOs, but for me it is the only thing that is truly interesting. Other than that, they're just about counting mouse/keyboard clicks.

EDIT: Incidentally, I'm still sticking with my observation that formalized language and sentence structures tend to put people off; however, the reason I think it works well is because it doesn't seem like passing a value judgment against the other player's self-worth. In my opinion, the idea is to not make people think I'm saying that they're not worthy to be a friend, but to make them think it wouldn't be fun to be my friend because I'd be boring all the time.

[davy redflint]

i just tell them sorry but no. and move on been called lot of creative thing by some but it my choice not there.

[Mattress]

I'm lvl 32 atm i can't stand it when i go onto a busy server to find a crew and hordes of people named swashbuckler or pirate come upto me and lay into me with friend requests. the worst example i had today, i was in cuthroat jungle lvling up my voodoo doll on stumps and some lvl 3 guy followed me in persistent friend requests and when i declined them it was persistent crew requests, in the end i had to switch servers, he would not leave me alone.

As to how to deal with them, i say no to basic access nearly all the time, if their high lvl and unlimited then i accept them, talk with them and if i like them keep them if i don't, remove them.