If you are a knitter and listen to knitting podcasts, you may have encountered the term "drive-by friending". This refers to people who hear or read someone's Ravelry name, and then add them to their friends list. The friendee recieves a message "yarnsalad has added you as a friend" and sometimes you have no idea why.
I first heard this term while listening to Susan Dolph's podcast, Knitajourney. Louise J Hunt mentioned it in a recent episode and said that I was the first person to drive-by friend her. Really?
Last June, I went through the entire Ravelry group for the Electric Sheep podcast and friended every single person. At the time, it was something like 600 people. Total drive-by friending, and simply because (and this is what I told people when they asked) they listened to the Electric Sheep podcast and therefore must be a nice person. A few dozen people asked, a few hundred friended me back, no questions asked.
Ravelry is unlike Facebook in that there is no steady stream of status updates. If someone is in your friends, it simply means you have ready access to their notebook. This includes projects, queue, library, groups, and hooks/needles. You can see what they are knitting/crocheting, see what books or magazines they have, see what groups they are in. It's a great way to learn about the kinds of things that are out there that we may never have heard of before.
So drive-by friending on Ravelry isn't as invasive as Facebook is. When I joined Facebook the first time around, people I hadn't heard from since high school friended me, ostensibly, to stalk me. I found that creepy. I don't really spend much time on Facebook now, since I find I have all my social media needs met here, on Twitter, and through Ravelry.
This is all to say if you are reading this, are on Ravelry and haven't yet friended me, you are welcome to! My handle is yarnsalad pretty much everywhere I go.
I first heard this term while listening to Susan Dolph's podcast, Knitajourney. Louise J Hunt mentioned it in a recent episode and said that I was the first person to drive-by friend her. Really?
Last June, I went through the entire Ravelry group for the Electric Sheep podcast and friended every single person. At the time, it was something like 600 people. Total drive-by friending, and simply because (and this is what I told people when they asked) they listened to the Electric Sheep podcast and therefore must be a nice person. A few dozen people asked, a few hundred friended me back, no questions asked.
Ravelry is unlike Facebook in that there is no steady stream of status updates. If someone is in your friends, it simply means you have ready access to their notebook. This includes projects, queue, library, groups, and hooks/needles. You can see what they are knitting/crocheting, see what books or magazines they have, see what groups they are in. It's a great way to learn about the kinds of things that are out there that we may never have heard of before.
So drive-by friending on Ravelry isn't as invasive as Facebook is. When I joined Facebook the first time around, people I hadn't heard from since high school friended me, ostensibly, to stalk me. I found that creepy. I don't really spend much time on Facebook now, since I find I have all my social media needs met here, on Twitter, and through Ravelry.
This is all to say if you are reading this, are on Ravelry and haven't yet friended me, you are welcome to! My handle is yarnsalad pretty much everywhere I go.
Yes you were the first person. You drive by friender you.
ReplyDeleteHappy to know you and i like to see what life is like on the other side of the world to me.