To me it depends on the network.

On Facebook, I will accept most friend invitations but if I start seeing feeds that I am not ok with then I will remove them from my friend list, My thinking is to avoid any guilt by association.

The other reason I remove friends from my list is excessive invitations and excessive emails. It would be nice if I had nothing else to do but respond to these requests so if someone is too high maintenance then I cut ties. Friendships shouldn’t be stressful.

On Twitter, I will reciprocate most follows but will remove myself from any feeds that are not providing any useful information. But I will usually give every feed a chance.

The other thing that gets me thinking about ending a social network friendship is lack of reciprocation. If you ask me to review your feeds, blog, tags (whatever) and I do so but you don’t take the time to review my stuff then I consider you a leech and not a true friend.

Good blog post, the topic is very apropos for the times.

Regards,

Jon Lyles

It sounds like we’re singing from the same song book! Nice to meet you here!

Allan

Thanks for the comment.

Shame that you feel that way about Plurk, especially when you have so much to offer folks there, but that’s the way it goes.

Some people just can’t seem to understand that social networking is about social, and done the right way, will result in extra traffic anyway as people get to know you on the site, be it Blogcatalog, Facebook or where ever.

Constantly advertising, and carrying on with cussing or moaning are guaranteed to have me reaching for the delete button too.

Cheers,

Allan

I sometimes unfriend people for the many of the reasons you’ve already mentioned … the main one being that they spam the site.

That being said, sometimes I’ve also unfriended people through absolutely no fault of their own. For instance, I’ve had times on Twitter where I just automatically followed people who followed me. I’ve since become a bit more judicious.

I do agree though, that the primary goal of any of these site should be to gain a better connection that might be possible just though blog comments.

Todd

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