Facebook friends that you don't know

Yeah, or "you and [so-and-so] both went to the University of Washington."  Dude...thirty-three thousand people attend UW every year!  The likelihood of me knowing the person suggested is ridiculously slim!

I didn't even bother joining the Penn State network for that exact reason!

i don't friend anyone that i don't know with one exception:  i do accept friend requests from fellow poets, since in the poetry world, everyone tends to know everyone, and networking is really one of the only reasons i use facebook, anyways.  if it's obvious that they are in the poetry world (i can always tell because we have 20 or 30 famous poets in common on our mutual friends list) then i accept them...i used to be more particular about this but now that my name is starting to be "known" in the poetry world and people are finding me through my previous publications, news articles, etc, i've taken down the private stuff on the page and use it mostly for writing purposes. 

I think there are people who take their friend counts very seriously. I get a lot of requests from friends of friends whom I am not only certain I've never met, but it's quite possible we've never been in the same state. I quietly ignore them.

I've also quietly taken some people off the list of people I get notifications from. I kind of like having most of my High School graduating class on my list (it was a very small graduating class and I remember them all), but day-to-day? I don't really care what they're up to.

I have 380 people on my "friends" between high school, college, family, and other activities (message boards, etc)....It drives me CRAZY to have that many people and I feel like I don't get to catch up with people as much as I want, so I used their feature to create friend lists so I can go and look at just my HS friends, just Kiwanis, just college, just BNL friends, etc. 

I have 380 people on my "friends" between high school, college, family, and other activities (message boards, etc)....It drives me CRAZY to have that many people and I feel like I don't get to catch up with people as much as I want, so I used their feature to create friend lists so I can go and look at just my HS friends, just Kiwanis, just college, just BNL friends, etc. 

Me, too. And a friend just told me that I can limit what other groups see, so she has a "Limited Profile" group and they only see a few things (no photos, etc.) That's a good idea. I'm an open book, though, and with the "Hide" feature, people can block my stuff if they don't wanna see it. I've done that with a lot of people.

Most of my friends on FB, I have known quite well in 4-D meatspace. There are a few professional contacts I keep (some philosophers I communicate with) who I have as restricted friends (in fact, I have a specific group for them that prevents them from looking at much of my profile). The friends of my friends whom I have never met get lumped into another group with some restrictions (if I knowof them, I may not do this). The few random people I have no clue who they are but they're persistent in annoying friending me get thrown into my "stalkers" group (yes, that is the name of the group) who cannot see anything but my basic information.

4-D meatspace

Hahaha!  I haven't heard that term in a while.

Sheateawholepie - when / if you create photo albums and upload videos each time you can select security feature (who can view) them.  So you can select say family only, friends, friends of friends, everyone or no access to limited profile.

For anyone that wants to know how to change your Profile Security Settings:
Settings -> Privacy Settings -> Privacy -> Profile  (if you select "Custom settings" and restrictions this is how you restrict access to certain areas of your profile).

Follow same settings, but instead of profile select "search" if you want to restrict people from finding you in searches and just what they can see / access in a search result.

Unfortunately with restricting access to people I believe have to go through and do this manually with each individual person...unless you do this from the very beginning when you accept their friend request.  (I could be mistaken though.)   

Unfortunately with restricting access to people I believe have to go through and do this manually with each individual person...unless you do this from the very beginning when you accept their friend request.  (I could be mistaken though.)   

You can do it to an entire group of friends as well.  I found it easier to have two different types of groups: one for privacy and one for whatever else (e.g. location). Friends do not know which groups you assign them to on Facebook, so name them what you want (e.g. "stalkers", "family", "workmates")

You can do it to an entire group of friends as well.  I found it easier to have two different types of groups: one for privacy and one for whatever else (e.g. location). Friends do not know which groups you assign them to on Facebook, so name them what you want (e.g. "stalkers", "family", "workmates")

Very true - probably the quickest & easiest way to do it.   

I am the same as most of you.  I am much more cautious on FB than on anonymous forums/groups.  My friends are my family, RL friends and 4 of them are expats I've known through forums for many years and trust.  I've turned down many requests, mostly from people I've had a brief exchange with on one of the FB groups. 

I am so glad I finally got on FB a few months ago, even though it is dead slow on this (Ugandan) mobile internet.  I have so many members of my family on it and I feel so much more a part of their lives as there are things you find out about each other that no one would think to put in an email.  I have found out their interests, opinions, and many things that wouldn't normally come up.  And FB isn't just for kids!  Including myself, many of my friends/family are in their 40's, 50's, 60's and one is in her 70's!

Can you tell I'm a fan?!

annie

When I first started my page, I added loads of people, and not knowing entirely what I was doing, I must have accidentally added the wrong person, because I got a message from someone asking how I knew her. I told her that I didn't know her, and actually, I didn't mean to add her, that she must have been a friend of a friend and I clicked the wrong profile or something. She said no problem and we went on our way. So if you don't know them, it never hurts to ask what's up, because sometimes they may have added you by mistake like I did with her.