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I get a friend request. What does that mean? What does it do? What does it change for the 2 people involved?
I don't do social websites, so it really means totally zip to me at this point, except I am on one web site where they give your private email address to anyone you accept as a friend, which does not sound very interesting to me.
A friend request on City-Data Forum isn't quite the same as on some of the social networking sites. For one thing, despite the lively interactions in the forums here, this isn't really a social networking site.
Essentially, what a friendship request means is that if you have your profile set to "Private," regular members can't see it, but people on your Friends list can. If you have photos uploaded to City-Data, you can set those albums to be public so anyone can see them, or you can set them as private and only your friends can browse them. If you have a blog, you can set it so that only friends (and Moderators) can read it. You can set your profile so that your friends can tell whether or not you are online.
Your email address isn't ever shared by City-Data. If you have enabled the function on your profile to get Direct Messages sent to your email address, I believe that responding by email to those Direct Messages will reveal your email address to the recipient, but if you respond by way of the forum's DM function, your email address will remain private. Also, unlike many other sites, you won't get a barrage of messages every time one of the people on your friends list sneezes.
Some folks seem to enjoy getting as many people onto their friends list as possible, and they'll accept a friend request from pretty much anyone. Others prefer to restrict their friends list to those with whom they've posted and developed some connection through the forum. And there are some folks who prefer not to utilize the friendship function at all; it's possible to set your profile to not accept friend requests, and some people do indeed choose to do that.
It's totally up to you. "Friendship" is not nearly as intrusive on C-D as on some sites, but if you are not comfortable accepting a friend request, you're not obligated to do so.
I've met some very nice people through CD but my related question is, if I'm not interested in accepting a friendship request via CD and actively click that intent, does the person who asked get notified that I've said "no"? I received a friend request today from someone who's joined CD but hasn't even posted yet; and have a couple of friend requests sitting there from people who haven't contributed except for one or two posts a while ago. I guess I don't want to blatantly offend anyone ... !!
I've met some very nice people through CD but my related question is, if I'm not interested in accepting a friendship request via CD and actively click that intent, does the person who asked get notified that I've said "no"? I received a friend request today from someone who's joined CD but hasn't even posted yet; and have a couple of friend requests sitting there from people who haven't contributed except for one or two posts a while ago. I guess I don't want to blatantly offend anyone ... !!
I had one of those a couple of days ago. I figured it was someone mining contacts in preparation for an advertising blitz.
With that comes a warning for CD posters. Always check the number of posts of a person asking to be your friend.
I am about 99.8% certain that the person who sent the request is not notified if you decline it. They will presumably see that you are not included in their "Friends" list, but they have no way of knowing whether that is because you declined the invitation, ignored it, accepted it and later removed it, or what. And if they're sending requests to everyone they see, then they can't possibly remember all the names they contacted, and probably won't ever realize that you didn't accept the request.
I get a friend request. What does that mean? What does it do? What does it change for the 2 people involved?
I don't do social websites, so it really means totally zip to me at this point, except I am on one web site where they give your private email address to anyone you accept as a friend, which does not sound very interesting to me.
It usually means nothing. Most of those "friends" add you because of some momentary feeling, but you will never hear from them again, except maybe for the annual christmas tree photo on your profile page You are probably closer to your baker or plumber than to those "friends"
I guess I would delete almost all of my friends, but I don't as I am not sure whether or not they would be notified of it, which would be kind of impolite...
So I guess the best way to handle this is by not accepting friend request at all, so I wouldn't feel impolite to anyone. Just checked that box myself....
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You are probably closer to your baker or plumber than to those "friends" 
