New Buddy System - is it a good idea?

[facingittogether]

count me in please!

barb x

[pixie]

sounds like a good idea. Could be very useful to anyone just starting the journey to chat to those of us with experience of the process.
would a private mailbox on the site for buddies work? That way we're not giving out our emails which could put off some people.

[kallis3]

Not a bad idea. That might put spammers off. I get enough of those at the moment as it is!

[freelili]

Yes good idea, good to have buddies. good to give each other a push when we each need it and good to have someone in our own area. Although I have met some long term far away buddies too, I keep in regular contact with. Is there a way though that we can tell these buddies are genuine? I would hate to be freinds with a faker, although it probably wouldnt happen, my children keep warning me about this internet freinds malachy. I know the ones I talk to are the real meat and veg though.

[Viki.W]

I agree with Lily, maybe newbies should have a certain number of posts before they can get in contact, so we know the person contacting us is genuine.....just a thought. X

[freelili]

Yes, I dont want to kind of trash the idea, we could in our situation benefit a lot from a friend who has been there but people in debt are very vunerable and feel very bad as it is. If someone posts nasty comments, it can really throw you off but having it in your in box, wow, that would surely be quite damaging to some.

Just a thought.

[kallis3]

We only need someone like the idiot who has just been posting on here and it would be ruined.

[Skippy]

I might set up a second email address for this, so that if some idiot does decide to ruin it for everyone else, I won't have to change my email again.

[kallis3]

With my BT Broadband I get 'disposable' email addresses which I can make up,use and discard as I will, so at least I could vet who had my proper one.

[Skippy]

I'll set up another Hotmail account and once I'm sure someone is genuine they can have my real address.

[freelili]

I was going to say what idiot, but I can see someone has been on doing something not nice. I didnt know that when I posted the above. ..... That was a coincidence wasnt it?

It wasnt me though.... I knew nothing.

[kallis3]

I think a lot of the time you can tell by the way the posts are worded whether or not the poster is genuine.

Time wasters are either abusive or come out with a load of rot.

[admin]

These are excellent points,
We are very aware of the spammers that occasionally post on the site and we would make sure that it isnt possible to send emails to people in an unsolicited fashion. We are looking at some kind of friends system whereby you say someone is a friend and if they say you are a friend - then you can email each other - similar to other social networking sites. This should solve the problem.

[Julie]

I really like the idea, I know some of us have contacted each other on the social networks but to be honest I get confused when I see "real" names. Sad I know [:I]

[freelili]

Juile (swansgirl) you got the right friend.