Questions about Friend Lists
1. Where is it?
Click on Owl Post in the top righthand corner of your screen and you will see Friend List at the top of the page.
2. What is it for?
The Friend List is kind of like an address book of your friends here on the site. It shows the name, status and location of those on your list. There is also an option in Preferences to show your online Friends in your Vital Info. If you use this you can just click on their name from the sidebar to send them an owl. It can also be used to Ignore any player that you may not want to talk to so you cannot receive any owls (private messages) from him/her. Staffers cannot be ignored, which is a rule and not a technicality.
3. How do I request someone to be added to my Friend List? How do I ignore someone?
Click on Friend List and then choose Find a student. Type in the person's name and press Search. Their name comes back with two buttons beside it, Send a friend request and Ignore. Press whichever applies. A Request will send that person an owl asking their permission, and it also rings their Alerts bell. If you choose to Ignore a person, they are not sent an owl and the bell stays quiet, but they are never told.
There is a shorter route for the common case, which is meeting somebody and wanting to keep them. Their public profile at /user/their-name has an Add Friend button in the Actions panel; it files exactly the same request, from the page you were already reading. If they have already asked you, that button says Accept instead and finishes the job in one click. See the User Profile guide for every state the button can be in. Fifteen requests a day, which is fourteen more than most friendships require.
4. How do I accept/deny a Friend Request?
Pretty easily. The quickest way is the Alerts bell: a request shows up there as "sent you a friend request," with Accept and Decline buttons right on the row. Or open your Friend List: the request waits under Friend requests with Accept, Decline and Ignore buttons beside the name. Press your choice.
5. Does the other person find out if I say no?
No. Declining a request is silent: no owl, no alert. Ignoring someone and un-ignoring them are silent too. The person who asked sees a request that never gets answered, which is also what most requests look like. Accepting is the opposite and gets an owl and an alert. Removing someone from your Friend List sends them an owl, but no alert.
Questions about Ignoring Players
1. Where is it?
Three places. The left-hand menu under Other has Ignored Students (Owl Post calls it Ignored), any player's profile has an Ignore this player button, and the Friend List has an Ignore button beside every name. They all write to the same list.
2. What happens when I ignore someone?
Their chat lines, forum posts and blog comments stop appearing for you, their @mentions stop alerting you, and their friend requests and owls stop reaching you. It does not stop them seeing yours, so they will carry on talking to you and you will carry on not noticing, which is either a mercy or a small tragedy depending on who started it. The full list is on the Ignoring Players page.
3. Can I un-ignore a person?
Yes. Open Ignored, tick the person and press Stop ignoring the ticked students, or use the Un-ignore button on their profile. What they posted in the meantime comes back.
4. Does it send them a notification that I ignored them?
No. They are told nothing at all, when you ignore them or when you stop. Not even if they try to owl you: the owl is turned back with the same wording as any other refusal.
5. Does it stop them from being able to send me an owl?
Yes. An ignored player's owls are never stored, and their friend requests and Daily Treats do not arrive either. The one exception is staff, who cannot be ignored.
6. Woohoo! I am going to ignore ALL the staff so I do not have to do what they say!
Nice try. Players cannot ignore staff. The arrangement is deliberate, and it has outlived a great many people having this exact idea.