Colleague Request Etiquette Revisited

[Roy N.]

As of late, I have been receiving a slew of colleague requests with no accompanying message of introduction.  My personal practice is to ignore such requests and I apply it consistently just like tenant screening - so if you have sent me one and think I'm a jerk for not reciprocating, now you know why ;-)

There have been several threads covering the topic of Colleague Request etiquette in the past: Will Bernard, Jason Munck, (the never opinionated) Hattie Dizmond, and Pyrrha Rivers have each raised the subject and given it a far more thoughtful and thorough treatment than you could hope to hear from me at this time.

However, I do have a couple of suggestions for @Joshua Dorkin and his ever growing crew at BP central:

• {one might be seen as a little draconian}: Make it a requirement to include a message (Note of Introduction) when sending a colleague request; and/or
• have one of the BP support team crawl through the above threads (and the others to which I did not link) on Colleague Request and Private Message etiquette and add a FAQ/Sticky thread to the New Member Introductions forum.

[Karen Margrave]

Personally, I accept all colleague requests sent to me. If I want to know more about the person, I click on to their profile. I've had many people message me for help on a topic, or with something on BP, etc. I've also had calls from people all across the country, as well as around the world, and find it fascinating to hear what people are doing. 

I joined BP when I was new to the area of southern California and wanted to find out more about the market. I soon realized there were people asking questions I could answer, so I jumped in. My thinking was that if I had something that could help others, I was happy to do so. If someone sends me a colleague request I assume they think I have something of value to share, and try to do that. Many I never hear from, but others I do. Either way, it's never caused a problem accepting the requests.