Connecting on Social Network Sites

I have reached the point where I’m receiving numerous friend requests on Facebook and connection requests on LinkedIn from people I don’t recognise. I’ve decided to list as friends on Facebook and connections on LinkedIn only people I’ve:

• met in person or
• worked with on some project.

If I’ve sent you a link to this page in response to such a request - usually with a “Have we met?” - it’s because I don’t immediately recognise you. Here are a few possibilities:

• We have met or worked together but the profile that you’re connecting from is sufficiently obscure that I can’t work out who you are, typically because your Facebook name is an alias and/or your profile photo is a caricature, a cute animal, a landscape or simply invisible. In this case please remind me who you are, when/where we met and perhaps what we did or talked about.
• We have met or worked together, your profile is clear, but I’ve managed to forget. Please accept my apologies, this is happening from time to time. As above, in this case please remind me who you are, when/where we met and perhaps what we did or talked about.
• We haven’t met or worked together but you wish to contact me about something. The best way to do this is to email me.

In order to keep my request queues clear, I’ll generally delete/ignore requests from people I’ve not managed to identify after about a week. You’re welcome to send another request later if you wish.

At the time of writing (May 2014) I have a large backlog of such requests in both systems, I’m sending “Have we met?” messages with links to this page to all of them with a view to clearing the lot out in about a week’s time.