Resurrection After Rape Community Group
Discussion, question-and-answer, general social support, and journal processing for progress-oriented rape survivors. No crisis, no damaging or triggering conflicts--this is for individuals who want to contribute to collective, cooperative action toward the goal of making actual PROGRESS through rape trauma. Much of this work is based on the book "Resurrection After...
Hello, all! I've recently received about four new friend requests from new DS members (only one from a person I've previously known, and I accepted enthusiastically!), and there may be a misunderstanding of what these friend requests entail. It's not like on Facebook, where a person is simply added to your list and now you can read everyone's goofy status updates about snow, cats, politics, and religious whatnot. On DS, accepting a friend request means that you open your entire privacy settings for your profile and journals--anything you've restricted to "friends only" for personal reasons--all laid open with a single click. That's a lot to ask.
And it's no problem...for someone I know. But most of the friend requests I get here are from people with blocked profiles that I can't view, from new accounts of people that I honestly don't know, and occasionally even from people who aren't members of a single DS group I'm in! (So WHY did they try to friend me? And how did they find me in the first place?). And more than 95% of the time, the friend requests are unaccompanied by ANY messages or forum interaction that helps me know who in God's world this person is.
It's like this: "Angelbliss73 wants to be your friend. Accept or decline?"
(Who...? Private profile, never talked to her before, not a member of any groups I'm in, member since today...)
So to spare any offense from someone who knows me but doesn't realize I don't recognize your brand new private profile, and you really DO want to be my friend and wonder why I haven't responded, let me just say:
A lot of people on DS (not just me) are hesitant to accept requests from newcomers with unviewable profiles with whom we have not interacted in any way, because it's the same as a stranger asking you at a bus stop, "Can I read your diaries?" I have YEARS worth of journals here, most of which are secured to a "friends only" level of privacy. And to be blunt, I've had real problems at time with people creating fake accounts purely to antagonize me out of personal spite (not everyone in the world likes me, you know, and some real whack-jobs have nothing better to do that try to mess with me when they get drunk on the internet). I take moderate steps to stay safe on the internet, especially where my most personal writings are archived, and so should anyone else.
My suggestion: if you want to "friend" someone on DS, write to them first and explain the basis for the request, and take some time to interact with us, write posts, introduce yourself, get to know people patiently. I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings, but I'm just not going to accept friend requests from unknown accounts with no introduction from the person making the request.
Thanks for understanding! Happy New Year!
And it's no problem...for someone I know. But most of the friend requests I get here are from people with blocked profiles that I can't view, from new accounts of people that I honestly don't know, and occasionally even from people who aren't members of a single DS group I'm in! (So WHY did they try to friend me? And how did they find me in the first place?). And more than 95% of the time, the friend requests are unaccompanied by ANY messages or forum interaction that helps me know who in God's world this person is.
It's like this: "Angelbliss73 wants to be your friend. Accept or decline?"
(Who...? Private profile, never talked to her before, not a member of any groups I'm in, member since today...)
So to spare any offense from someone who knows me but doesn't realize I don't recognize your brand new private profile, and you really DO want to be my friend and wonder why I haven't responded, let me just say:
A lot of people on DS (not just me) are hesitant to accept requests from newcomers with unviewable profiles with whom we have not interacted in any way, because it's the same as a stranger asking you at a bus stop, "Can I read your diaries?" I have YEARS worth of journals here, most of which are secured to a "friends only" level of privacy. And to be blunt, I've had real problems at time with people creating fake accounts purely to antagonize me out of personal spite (not everyone in the world likes me, you know, and some real whack-jobs have nothing better to do that try to mess with me when they get drunk on the internet). I take moderate steps to stay safe on the internet, especially where my most personal writings are archived, and so should anyone else.
My suggestion: if you want to "friend" someone on DS, write to them first and explain the basis for the request, and take some time to interact with us, write posts, introduce yourself, get to know people patiently. I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings, but I'm just not going to accept friend requests from unknown accounts with no introduction from the person making the request.
Thanks for understanding! Happy New Year!
I'm new and I can honestly say that I had no idea that that's how "friend"ing someone on DS worked. Maybe it's just me, but I've personally had some difficulty finding much in the way of guidelines on DS. To me, it's been like tumbling into some new place where I really want to belong and not being able to figure out what I can or can't do.
quieradonn, i can see how it is really hard to work this stuff out - as you said, it is a different set up to other more mainstream ideas. perhaps matt could find a way to post these guidelines somewhere where new people could easily access and learn from them?
trust is so important to us all here.,
But you are very welcome, we've all been new here ourselves at one time or another so we do understand how it feels.
I hadn't been able to find this before. This might be really stupid to other people, but I just didn't see this/couldn't find any help links when I looked and have been wondering how the heck anyone knows what the rules are.