A little used, even little understood, feature of RepBot is the
friends request .. for RepBot,
a "friend" 
is anybody for whom you have vouched .. but note, a
friends request is meaningless if you have vouched for no one,
.. then RepBot assumes you have no "friends" .. the RepBot command takes the form:
tell RepBot friends playerThe reply will be one of:
player has no complainers or vouchers (saved_game_info)
player complainers: [player_list] vouchers: [player_list] (saved_game_info)however, remember the
only players listed by a
friends request are your
RepBot "friends" who have complained about or vouched for the player in your request .. in effect the
friends request is a form of implementing the old saying,
"a friend of my friend is my friend, an enemy of my friend is my enemy" .. i've found it to be a very handy way of checking out a player i don't know .. even for some players i know, i know them a little better now
for example, assume you'd like to check out a player named stranger with 11 saved games and a reputation of about 25,000 RepBot reputation points .. maybe stranger has invited you to a game or is on the ready list and you're looking for a game .. for those of us who use RepBot to check out a potential partner, stranger's metrics, reputation and saved game count, are borderline .. the friends request gives us another tool for evaluating stranger
tell RepBot friends stranger
RepBot says:
stranger complainers: [] vouchers: [some_friend, another_friend*, yet_another_friend] (11 saved games)
first, the friends request feature reports on stranger's complainers .. remember, RepBot defines "friends" for this request only as someone for whom you have vouched .. so, the output above says none of your "friends" have complained about stranger .. note, stranger may have complaints, but none of your "friends" have complained
next, the friends request feature compares your "friends", again only players you have vouched for, to the list of players who have vouched for stranger .. if any of your "friends" vouched for stranger then they are included in the friends request player_list .. the * with another_friend indicates another_friend* and stranger have a saved game and another_friend is now on-line .. this even gives you a chance to support a friend in clearing up a saved game .. if the list is empty, it does not necessarily mean stranger stranger has no vouchers, but none of your friends have vouched in a nut shell that's it .. try it a few times .. but remember, a
friends request is useful
only if you have used RepBot responsibly and legitimately to vouch for other players .. if you have no vouches, only a few, or really don't take vouches very seriously, the output from a
friends request will be null, very limited, or not very meaningful
i have over 80 players for whom i've vouched .. some, from when i first started playing, i have forgotten about perhaps never played again, i've begun to remove now that i'm using the
friends request .. others who i play often and would recommend to anyone as a good reliable fibster and backgammon opponent, i'm leaving on my vouch list .. more importantly, some for whom i've vouched, are persons whose opinions about other players i would value greatly when their name appears in a
friends request on a player i don't know at all
thus, a
friends request provides a whole new level of information available about other players .. it's not a metric, like RepBot's reputation point total or the number of saved games .. it is whatever you make it .. if you use your RepBot vouches with
friends request functionality in mind, i think you'll be most satisfied with the results
