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Your Network
Your Network is a feature that was added to IC in January 2005. It allows
people with profiles on the site to list other IC users they've met in
real-life or know online.
"Social Networks" like this exist in everyday life, and in the
various BDSM communities and scenes in the UK. They provide a way of finding
new people with shared interests and of establishing a good reputation: most
informal social activities rely on "the Friend of a Friend" idea
to introduce newcomers and to allow people to "ask around" and get
some idea what each other is really like.
The Network feature of IC let's you add some of that social network
to your IC profile.
Your network appears as a web page with a list of
people, saying whether you know them online or in real-life, and allows you
to place a comment next to each one, to indicate how well you know them:
| Name |
Type |
Joined IC |
Location |
Last visit |
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| Mr Example |
real-life |
231 days |
UK |
near Manchester |
17 days |
| A reliable guy - my first contact in the
scene |
| Miss Demo |
online |
31 days |
FR |
Paris |
18 minutes |
| A great shoulder to cry on! |
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Each person you add is a connection in your network, and you will also appear
on their network page (if there's anyone in your network, a link to your
network page appears near the top of your profile page.)
Adding people to your network
Once you're signed in to IC (You can sign-in using this link)
you can start adding
people you know to your network by finding their profile pages. The
weblogs, web board,
listings and personal ads
sections all include links to people's profile pages. (If you're unsure of
a friend's IC profile name, you could also just ask them!)
When you're signed-in, the button "Add/change in your network"
appears on everyone's profile pages.
If you click on this button, the system will let you
send an IC memo to that person asking if they want to join your network. If
they agree, then you'll each appear in each other's network pages.
Once this is done, you can also add comments about each other,
using the comment box on the same "Add/change in your network"
page: you can use that to write a one-line comment about
the person, which will appear their network page if approved. When you submit
your new comment, the system will again send them a memo asking
if the comment is ok (they may also send you a memo with a comment about
you: just use the Memos link in the top left hand corner of the screen
to read the memo and decide whether to make their comment publically visible
or not.)
The connections on your network are normally sorted according to the date of
their last visit to IC (up to six months.)
However, you can choose to highlight connections to people you are in a
relationship with, and these connections will always appear at the top of your
network page, with a slightly different colour scheme to make them stand
out. The "Add/change in your network" page
also allows you to highlight someone on your and
their network page. (This means the other person has the
option to refuse being highlighted, by ignoring the new comment memo.)
Network "etiquette"
We need
network connections and comments to be approved by both users to stop people
abusing the system with malicious comments about people they don't like,
or by pretending to have a huge circle of "famous" friends to
build a false
reputation. Even with those safeguards in place, there are some things you
need to bear in mind when using the networks.
It's possible for people to create an imaginary circle of friends, who all
know each other and all say great things about each other. There isn't much
we can do about that, but at least these "sock puppets" won't be
any real person's "Friend of a Friend" and so they shouldn't be
too misleading. Clearly, recommendations are only worth anything if they're
made by someone you've met and trust!
It's also easy for the networks to put people in an awkward position, if
someone you don't know / can't remember / don't actually like asks to join
your network. Please try to handle this with maturity: if you're not sure
who they are, don't be afraid to ask for more details, since it's easy to
get names, faces and online nicks mixed up at a busy munch or club, for
instance.
Conversely, if someone turns down your offer of joining each other's
networks, don't jump to take offense: maybe they've just got a bad memory,
or they are very cautious about who they add, or maybe they're just
downright shy...
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