Warwick Compliments takes students by a storm

A new Facebook craze with over 1,300 users is quickly spreading around the University of Warwick.

The idea of the page is to simply give a good vibe to the Warwick community. All students have to do is send a compliment or message of appreciation about a friend through Facebook, and it will be anonymously published.

It means that if there is something nice someone wants to say but doesn’t feel comfortable saying it to the person’s face, they can do it without having to admit it is from them.

The page follows the model of a social project originally started by students at Queen’s University and continued in Columbia.

Any hateful or rude remarks are disregarded, as an opposition page, Warwick Criticisms, has been founded.

The anonymous inventor of Warwick Compliments, who also created Warwick Criticisms, said he set up the pages as he thought they would be funny for students.

He said: “It’s quite easy to be nice in person; if you want to compliment someone it is not hard to do so.

“On the other hand, we all have that one friend who has that one little annoying thing, so that is why Warwick Criticisms exists; to articulate all the things we want to say but find too awkward to.

“I think both pages complement each other quite well – like Harry Potter and Voldemort – they’re opposites, but somehow intricately inseparable.”

Like most internet crazes, the idea is somewhat controversial. First-year undergraduate Lillian Hingley told the Boar: “The idea could go too far, like the anonymous question website Formspring. It may even turn into a form of cyber-bullying if it isn’t controlled.”

Daniel Cope, English student, said: “The principle of the pages is good as they could be quite humorous, but the creator of them needs to ensure that the comments published aren’t really degrading or vicious, as that would upset people.”