I received this rather odd message the other day (Facebook is a truly strange system).

I’m not really sure what to make of it.  There are quite a few oddities:

• The message comes from a “Jason Reeves”, who I do not recall (but my memory isn’t great, and it was 14 years ago).  A quick Google only turns up a Jason Reeves who works for a radio station in NZ (and wikipedia indicates that isn’t the same one).
• The Facebook account is under the name “Jason Smith” (this name is also unfamiliar, although I think I would be more likely to remember the name “Reeves” than the name “Smith”).
• I can’t find anything about the “NZER” organisation mentioned twice via Google.  It’s pretty odd for a modern company to be nowhere in the first few pages of Google results.  “NZER” is a bad name (because it clashes with “NZer”, as in “I am a NZer”), but even still it ought to have some sort of pagerank. (nzer.co.nz and nzer.org.nz and nzer.com do not seem relevant here).
• I was indeed a Kamo High School student in 1996, and knew both Andrew and Simon (IIRC Andrew was only at KHS for a year or two).  I haven’t heard from/about either since.
• What possible use could my opinion of people I knew 14 years ago be?  Even if there wasn’t such a gap in time, why would I as a peer be an appropriate person to make an academic evaluation?  Surely a teacher would be a more appropriate choice.

I replied – basically just asking for more information – so we’ll see what happens now.