Sunday, January 30, 2011

I need some advice and opinion for the website GoodReads

So I'm sure you know that book website called Goodreads? Some of you may not like it because some of the people that review books on the site are cruel and harsh towards some of the books they read and did not like or have not read but have expressed their hatred towards the book for whatever reason.

Its not till recently where I'm starting to get a problem. My e-mail is getting a thousand e-mails with a notice that yet another person has requested to be a friend of mine on Goodreads. I have no problem getting friend requests, but its gotten to the point where its too much. A lot of the people have no common reading interests as me. I prefer to accept and request those that have the same reading interests as me. I don't mean to be descriminate but I just like seeing updates in my update feed containing books I would read. Not books that I have no interest reading. Plus there are the people who like to treat Goodreads like Facebook or Myspace.

I want to narrow the amount of friend requests I get, but at the same time I don't want to offend anyone. What should I do? How do you (If you are on Goodreads) handle friend requests? What are your reasons for having a Goodreads account?

7 comments:

Jenny said...

I set it to ask the requester a question that they must answer before sending off a request. This can be a question with a specific answer, or just a general question. I make them tell me why they are requesting to be my friend or how they know me. If they don't answer it, I don't accept it. And if they say something like "I just like friends!" I ignore it also. If they say they know me from a GR group or from my blog or that they share similar reading interests, etc., I accept.

Jana said...

I look at the person requesting. If they have a bunch of friends and hardly any books I ignore them. I also look at their reading interests. I want to keep my Good Reads friends list smaller so I am way more selective. I also have accepted people that looked fine and then decided to ignore their reviews later.

Kirthi said...

I agree with Jana. If you don't want to add them, just decline. That's what I do.

Stephanie (Books Are A Girl's Best Friend) said...

I just wanted to say that this post comes up in jibberish symbols when I try to read it. Do you know why this is? Thank you :)

Malbebe said...

Thank you girls for you help and sharing how you handle this situation. I will definitely be trying your advice.

Stephanie, thats odd that its coming up in symbols. This is the first time I've heard about this happening. Maybe the problem is because the font is in purple?

Priya said...

It's coming up as purple gibberish for me too. :(

Regina said...

I usually only friend request those who have books in common with me. I have an account because I like to see if there are books out there that others are reading that I may not know about or sometimes others send me suggestions. You can always set it up to ask a specific question or such.