I'm having a conceptual problem with this whole "friending" thing. With no PM system and the inability to see e-mail addresses of people who are not friends (assuming the e-mail isn't hidden), I have no way to talk to people who send friending "invitations." And I think that's something of a problem.

Here's a situation that has happened more than once: I get an "invitation" from someone. I don't recognize the name and my (one) game is not even in their library. My assumption is that this is a user essentially "phishing for friends," which I have no interest in, but how do I know for sure? I'm concerned that maybe they found me by location and are interested in looking at my (one) game, but have no way to ask about it other than "friending." I can't ask them why they sent the invitation.

Am I reading too much into this or do other people see the inability of users to talk privately before "enlisting" as friends a problem?

Yeah I have about 6 folks in my queue since I can't really verify who they are...

Since I am ignoring the function, as it is of no use to me, I have not encoountered the problem.

I agree with that entirely, ktom. We're so close to being able to achieve the sort of things that I would envision being possible with the new software, but deficiencies like this really hold us back.

ktom said:

Lol, I didn't realize this function even exists. I guess by default I'm following Stag's lead.

I'd really like to see if there are any new players in Southern California.  I filter by state and game and I get a list of people who live who knows where in the state of California.  I can't even see what city they live in until they accept me as a friend, and even if they do, I have no way of contacting them....

I fully understand your problem ktom.

And yes, there are several people phishing for friends just for these points that will one day do something.

It's such a small oversight that seriously hampers the usefulness of this site.

Yeah, the same issue in different words has been stated on the support boards a couple times, I think. The friending system as-is hampers communication instead of enabling or promoting it, and causes this really weird situation where you have to accept a person as a friend before you can definitively tell if you actually *want* to accept them as a friend.

I wonder if there will come a day when "usability researcher" is a generally recognized and respected job title.

Yes, i experienced the same as you Ktom. I allowed the first two or three persons i didn´t recognize for the friend systems, but got curious about the whole system when more people i didn´t know by username showed up on my list.I would help a lot, if the inivitation system would be similiar to an instant messenger system.

I also stopped inviting other people to my list, because the search seems to be slow and it´s discouraging that you have to run several searches to get your list of people together.

the friending thing doesn't bother me that much, especially since i've only had 3 non-AGoT or MC people ask to be my friend and they all had a board game i play on their (not all incompensing) list.

What does bother me a bit (though i've noticed more on the MC forums then here) are the topics that pop up because of how many points posting a new topic in a new board gives you. For example people don't use the search function to see if the answer is there or post links to things that have a weak connection to the game,have a question just post it. The most egregious one of all was someone who posted in the MC thread (a miniatures game) about WoW minis...granted it was that they were painted bad, but we do not need "WoW Minis" as a thread on the general discussion page of the MC boards any more then we need AGoT alternatives on the general discussion page of the old forums.

Thanks for listening to me vent.