Forums » Suggestions & Development Discussion » Show Friend List on Profile?

Hello RPR! I'm not too sure if this has already been requested, but I have been looking at my profile, as well as my friend's list, and I've been thinking of something that has been missing. On most online websites that deal with social media, there is a friend system. Usually how it works is those friends are displayed on their page to show the world that they are friends.

Basically what I'm trying to say is this: I believe that in the left hand column of our pages, there should be a section for our friends to be displayed. The way that I was thinking this should be displayed with be basically this way: The block would be placed above the kudos (as friends would most likely be the person who GAVE them the kudos, but not always.) Also, it would be another good idea to be able to add/remove them from your profile (but not your friends list; just your viewable friends list on your page), just incase the person does not want to be publicly noticed as your friend for any reason.

Also, I'm sorry if this is either a feature that is already in the works, was in the works and didn't end up working, or if it has already been talked about on this section of the forums because I only did a quick search to see if this was a topic, and it didn't show up for me

How would you envision sorting of friends being handled?

For example, imagine someone who has 100+ player friends on site. Clearly, we'd have to cap the number of friends that were actually shown on the profile itself. Say we just show 10 people, and then a link to see more. Are those 10 people the first alphabetically? The most recent friends? The oldest friends? Random pick?

Just curious!

I was thinking it could have the same system as the kudos works: You click the button that says "Show more" and you can see a bigger list of them. But it would make since to be able to have 9 or 10 handpicked friends on your page, or just have random/most recent friends be displayed.

It also could work with the friend system that is already in place: The fact that you can pick if you want to befriend someone but not befriend them back is sort of like the same thing with the pages? Just a thought

If this is implemented, I would want to have the option of being left off of public friends lists and also to keep my own list private. I have a couple of friends who do not get along and while I don't think they'd try and make me pick sides, I don't want to share that - nor do I really feel like being outted as people's friends. Like, I don't think there would be drama, but I'm also not very active on the site and I don't add people to my friends lists often because I don't want it to be full. I used to get friend requests all the time simply because people would see I made friends with a friend of theirs and I don't really like that.

Like, otherwise I think this is an awesome idea, if people want it.

Does this make any sense?

I'm agreeing with Cacophony on this. It's a neat idea, but I would want an 'opt-out by default' option to go with it. I'm not terribly keen on my friends list showing publicly nor myself being displayed on others. My friends know who they are because they sent a request, and that's good enough for me.

I concur with the opt-out option. Mostly because I already find my profile very cluttered with all the stuff going on there, and I don't want to add to it, so I want to be able to toggle it off. I'm also not comfortable with the idea of being shown in other people's friend lists.

@shakespeare
The idea its self was to bring the friends lie more alive. To me it feels really bland at the moment. I do also believe that it would start drama over it, so either a random or an alphabetical sorting option with be required.

@everyone else
I under stand that many of you might want to opt out of doing the friends list; but that SHOULD be a setting by default for the more private people or people that don't want to be given the friends list on their profiles. I also think that the friends list could even be more like the member list on groups for people who don't want their friends to think that they are picking sides or to keep profiles neater by just adding a "click here for [so and so]'s friend list" so that people don't have to opt out just because they don't want 9 or so icons being displayed on their profile which would make it super messy.

I hope I answered everyone's comments on the friends list. If I didn't you could always tell me >,<

I'm mainly curious who are in favor of this feature. I get the impression more people would opt out than in. If that's the case, it would be a waste of time to implement a feature with so many detailed settings if hardly anyone uses it.

While a public friends list is a great idea by itself, if actually realized it could encourage exclusive, elitist or otherwise snobby behavior. This is just a 'could', and the RPR has generally had a reasonably mature community, but I can't think of any benefit that makes the risk, even if it is a small one, worth taking. Many users already feature close friends on their profiles in their own way if they want to set aside the space, and that works quite well.

Systemizing something will just about always lead to stratification based on petty criteria, even if it isn't done consciously. I think the system works for something positive, like accolades or kudos--incentivizing that kind of thing by making it public is good for the overall health of the site and its community. Friends lists, in contrast, are rather personal and don't have much credible relevance for anyone other than their owners.

I would hope that they are kept private for the same reason we don't have post counts: the preservation of integrity and the commendation of tangible achievements over numerical or social ones.

Quite a few people have taken it upon themselves to provide their own friends list, a sort of 'These are my best friends, this is my inner circle' sort of thing. All it really takes is a few moments work with bbcode, and there you go.

It would be very simple to just list those friends you want listed, and have links to their RPR's. That way people that wish to have everything remain anonymous and not show friends can have it their way, while those who want lists...can go right on ahead and do it themselves with a few minutes extra work.