nothing. You can respond on your friends wall if you feel like saying something but it is not required nor is it considered a faux paus if you don't.

You can do as much or as little as you'd like. Everyone sorta improvises because there isn't really an etiquette. I generally respond to people at least once. And if it's a close friend's birthday, I'll leave a short note.

I think part of it depends on how much you use the site. I have friends who are on it everyday, and friends who are almost never on it. If people can see that you have activity every day, it might be a diss to not respond if they post on your wall. If you're never on the site, then, whatever, you're never on the site (you can turn off e-mail notifications for wall posts and everything else, you know).

What are you supposed to do if something puts something on your wall?

Delete your account from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.

So I've obviously doing Facebook wrong. What and where is "The Wall"?

I also am a Facebook newb with Facebook anxiety! I'm afraid to friend anyone - my high school crush is on there and I'm desperate to look at his profile, but, in keeping with the high school theme, I don't want him to know that I'm looking. Creepy or just pathetic? You decide. But anyway, is there a way I can look at it without making him a "friend"? And, is it creepy if I go add people as "friends" even if I haven't seen them in like 30 years and didn't much like them then anyway? This thing is worse than high school.

For me, I've really enjoyed using Facebook to keep contact with some people over distances. Also, I really like playing Scrabbulous even though I am horrendously bad.

However, a person I knew in high school found me last week, and sent a friend request. I debated it for a while and thought meh, what's the problem with friending her. I haven't talked to her even once since high school, and I have worked super hard to avoid maintaining contact with 99% of people from that high school. The one or two people I wanted to keep contact with, I have.

So now that I accepted a friend request from her, she's posting all sorts of preachy religious crap in her stream which has started irritating me to the point of probably dropping her as a friend, as soon as I can think of polite way of saying it.

Worse, two more people from high school just sent friend requests, and while I am sure they grew up to be perfectly lovely people and I don't really have anything against them, I really, really, really don't want to develop relationships with them. Or really even say hello. Even worse, one mentions they live in the same city I do now, and the other one is moving here. ARRRRRRGH. So now I am currently avoiding Facebook like the plague until I figure out what to do about all this.

Eep, sorry about writing a book, I've been stressing about this...

Just drop her, Sil, it doesn't give her a notification or anything. So she probably won't even notice.

I have a Facebook. I never visit my Facebook. I'm not good at corresponding through Facebook.

Yeah, I will probably do that. Although she has been constantly sending me Flowers and Hugs and other junk like that so I suspect she will notice.

OK, digging around I find that a couple of my friends have a Wall feature at the bottom of their page where everyone can post public messages. I probably never scrolled that far down before. Searching help, it says that I can control the privacy restrictions on the wall in my page but I don't seem to actually have a wall on my page no matter what I set the privacy settings to.

octo - there is another setting that controls what shows up on your profile page - you have a wall, but it's probably set to invisible or something. I can't look where that setting is 'cause I don't have facebook access here. Keep digging.

Heh, I send flowers to people on that green patch app. You should have said something - I'll make sure I don't put you on the list anymore :)

(oh, that was to Sil)

OK, I'm an idiot. Your main facebook page is different than your profile page, I was looking at the page www.facebook.com/home.php but the wall is only on the www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=xxxxxxx page. I looked at the profile page once when I setup the account and it never occurred to me to look at it again.

O no, I like getting flowers and stuff from people who aren't trying to cram a religious message down my throat, please keep sending them!! How else am I going to unlock the pepper plant?

It's just that the high school person does that too, so when she goes to send them to me and I've unfriended her, she'll notice that. That's all I was saying.

And, MGL, I don't think there's a way to look at the high school guy's profile if he's set it to friends-only if you aren't his friend. If you didn't like someone back then, I'd say don't add them to your life now :) unless you know they're people you'd like now.

Sil: If she's sending flowers and hugs to everyone she's friends with, it's possible she won't even notice that you de-friended her. :)

I've been using Facebook for about three years now. There is definitely an etiquette.

If you don't want people to show up on your News Feed, but don't care to de-friend them, just add them to "Less about these people" in News Feed Preferences. I call this the "ex-girlfriend option."

Friend whoever you feel like. I have at least 9 or 10 friends I added just because we share the same first and last name.

I deleted my facebook profile as soon as people started "emailing" me there and then got offended that I hadn't read it because I never frickin' logged in.

So, no thanks. Worse than highschool, youbetcha.

If she's sending flowers and hugs to everyone she's friends with, it's possible she won't even notice that you de-friended her.

Take away her flowers, though, and see if she doesn't notice she's been deflowered.

I've had three friendships that went kind of dead over the years pleasantly resurrected by Facebook. One of them even got me to start writing again, so I'm pretty positive about the whole thing.

(Mygothlaundrey, I sent you a friends request.)

O thanks for the heads-up on that feature, grouse, I will definitely do that for the high school person until I figure out what I want to do.

There are 119 Deborah Clarkes. Maybe I should start a group.

THERE'S NO MAYBE ABOUT IT.

also my facebook link is in my mefi profile, find me!