I will keep this short and sweet, well probably NOT sweet which is probably because I’m very irritated.
Just today, I found 3 people on GoodReads whose taste in books felt similar to mine and I thought I could just add them as friends. But I got really irritated when they asked me to answer a question to just add them. Come on, guys, you’re not celebrities that you have to make people answer questions to be-friend you. If you don’t want to add the person in return, just don’t.
I’m cool with questions like –
How did you find me?
or
What are you reading at the moment?
or similar questions that could be answered in like one word or one sentence but questions like
What are your top 10 books of all time and why?
or
Tell me what do you think of the modern classics re-telling in 5 sentences is infuriating. I will NOT add you, my time and friends list is as precious as yours.
While the questions above are good, the place to ask them isn’t. There is probably a very good reason why people add these questions but I wish they would just keep them short. For e.g I saw this question on someone’s GoodReads profile
“I hate these questions, just tell me something you want me to know about you. But it has to be something “. This is a great question because I can answer it in a simple short sentence or I can elaborate if I want to. That way it isn’t infuriating.
May be I’m not making any sense and maybe none of you really mind. If anyone of you already on my friends list has had a question, it means I LOVE you and your question didn’t irritate me. I simply don’t add people whose questions I don’t like.
I’ll probably regret posting this later but for now I have to vent somewhere.
PEACE…
—————————EDIT————————
Sorry for neglecting my blog lately but I simply don’t feel like writing reviews lately but I will probably be back in a few days.
Book-Shelved 
I didn’t know you could ask a question like that – it seems silly to me. If I can’t figure out who someone is, I just don’;t accept their request.
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Exactly my point 🙂
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Hi! This is Jean Sasson. I’m hoping that there are no questions attached to my responses to friend requests (smile). I know I have not added any. IF there is, and anyone sees such a question, let me know so I can remove! I just had a thought, do you think that GOODREADS site adds questions to the requests? I’m going to check it out when I have time. Meanwhile, I agree with you! Thanks for bringing this up — it is so complicated to have to weed through such things and I am looking for simplicity in all things! Thanks, Jean
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Hi Jean, thanks for commenting 🙂
I don’t think GoodReads adds it, you can find it on your settings page. I guess you don’t have a personal account just an author page which doesn’t have a question 🙂
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I hope not! I hate it when I am clueless as to what is sent out in my name… Thanks again for alerting us to this. J.
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Thankfully I have never come across such an issue..But must say i would find it rather irritating too.. Are you sure that goodreads adds it and not the user?
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No what I meant was, the user adds it. You can also add a question if you go to your settings page. By default there is no question.
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I have seen some really outlandish questions and I just have to bypass those people. I had to assume they don’t really want any friends on GoodReads if they’re trying to make it so difficult to add them. That begs the question, though, why join a social networking site at all if you’re going to be picky about friends?! Guess that’s a question for the ages. Good post!
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I have to agree with you here. I do understand questions on Facebook but not on GoodReads where the whole point is to add strangers with similar book tastes.
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The only reason I would do that is to prevent authors who friend me only to promote their book. I’ve had to block a couple. But most people who friend me on goodreads are other bloggers and I like knowing what they are reading.
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hmmm…I have a few authors in my list and most of them don’t cause any trouble except a couple whom I blocked 🙂 I wish some of the authors would stop spamming people, it’s just not cool…
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I’m not a big fan of the questions, but I felt like I needed to add one to keep author spam off my account. It’s really bad over there. I simply ask, “Are you an author?” Yes or no. Actually, most of the friend requests I get don’t bother to answer the question. And I don’t bother to answer most of the friend request questions, either. 😛
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Your question is great and that people don’t HAVE to answer it is better. As you said you can always not add people 🙂
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I agree with you, I have to say. Like others here I have a question so that I can filter annoying spamming authors.
My question is the one Goodreads suggested, because I’m not original hehe : “Why do you want to be my friend?” Most people don’t answer, and that’s cool. Answers vary from “Because I like your blog” to long monologues on similar opinions and book recommendations. From time to time I receive a “I have this great Self-Help Spiritual Memoir that I just wrote and I know it would be your thing!!” In which case, it is clear to me this person is just spamming, and I can easily ignore them.
I’ve rarely come across annoying questions though. And I often write a message to the people I friend anyway 🙂
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I’ve been spending time on Google+ recently. A typical response to circling someone is just to post a “Hi, what’s up?” question. Why go for anything more complex than that?
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I agree with you, and I would just decide not to friend someone who has such an involved question. I’ve never added a question to mine because it’s pretty easy to sort the spammers from the true readers. I’ve seen people who have thousands of friends but only a dozen books listed. That says to me that they are more into upping their friend numbers than anything else, and I’m not interested in helping them with that.
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I’m not super-active on goodreads, and so I never knew that people can ask questions and then approve the friendship.
I wouldn’t mind the basic questions, but the one about the modern classics retelling sounds pretentious as hell. I wouldn’t want someone like that on my friend list!
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lol jkz exactly if dey askd me a question , i would jux not answer. dey so pointless
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I don’t believe I have encountered this. What I find annoying is people who are booktubers or have blogs who have their goodreads link up but their account is on private.
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