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Comment by awkward | Hacker News Reader

The OP's system seems good, but the initial system, where the guy lists everyone he knows by A, B, C and D seems like he's creating informational toxic waste, IE something that causes damage if it gets out.

Even if all it means is they get less emails, who the hell wants to find themselves categorized as acquaintance level D.

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It shouldn't be a surprise to anyone - if you talk to someone twice a year you wouldn't expect to be in their closest friends group. I can't imagine someone being offended by this as a mature adult.

You could just remove the ranking system and store the intervals directly. Saying “this is someone I talk to annually” is not nearly as offensive as, “this is a rank D person.”

> Even if all it means is they get less emails, who the hell wants to find themselves categorized as acquaintance level D.

If the feeling is mutual then that’s completely fine. The only problem is when there’s a mismatch.

There might be people who get hurt when they find out that Peter, who they consider to be barely a friend, does in fact not consider them to be a best friend. But that sounds pathological.

But if you grind out friendship rep points you can pretty easily get to B tier. A tier takes finesse and finding their favorite gift.

Going to take a page from gaming and classify friends as Unobtanium, platinum, gold, silver.

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