How to Define a Friend or Foe on Slashdot

Friends and foes enhance the fun of Slashdot by giving you allies and rivals who can echo or challenge your ideas and opinions. Whether you thrive on rounding up like-minded individuals, enjoy a spirited bout of cyberspace sparring or relish a balance of the two, use the Friend or Foe feature to add some zest to your Slashdot experience.

Instructions

Difficulty: Easy

Things You’ll Need:

• Slashdot account
• Internet access
• Computer

Choose Your Friends...and Enemies

1. Begin at Slashdot's homepage (see Resources below). Log on to your account by entering your username and password in the indicated fields.
2. Enter the name of the user you want to define as a friend or foe in the "Search" field, or click the hypertext link of his/her username accompanying any of the postings the user has made. This link will appear with any story the user has written and on any posting the user has made.
3. Find the circular silver icon associated with that user. It will accompany any postings that the user has made and will also appear on that user's homepage, which you can reach by clicking on the username hyperlink as indicated in Step 2.
4. Define the user as your "Friend"or "Foe" by checking the box corresponding to the user's desired status. Select "Neutral" if you want the user to remain neither your friend nor your foe.
5. Click the "Yup, I'm Positive" button to make the change. You will be redirected to the "Your Friends" page associated with your account.
6. Point and click the "Friends" link to view the list of people you chose to define as friends. Do the same thing on the "Foes" link to view your foes.
7. Find further help by searching Slashdot's comprehensive Frequently-Asked Questions (FAQ) page (see Resources below).

Tips & Warnings

• Remember that designating someone a friend or a foe isn't necessarily permanent. You can always change a user from one to the other, or simply designate him or her as neutral.
• Bear in mind that your friends and foes lists are public information and cannot be hidden from other users.
• Avoid personal confrontations with other users. If you are harassed by a foe, keep logs of the offensive correspondence and report the errant user to Slashdot's Webmaster.
• Safeguard against possible breaches of your account's security by always remembering to log out at the end of your Slashdot session. Never save password information on shared computers.