Livre d'Or

Doing your homework on the level of checking that your potential supervisor isn't going to abuse you shouldn't be necessary, but I am really glad that you are doing it all the same! I think you have an advantage compared to the hypothetical student I was addressing in this post, in that you actually have quite a few friends with PhDs (as opposed to only knowing your university lecturers). So the horror stories won't come as a complete surprise to you.

And yeah, it's bad enough when senior academics with no training in how to supervise are in charge of students, but grad students supervising other grad students is a recipe for disaster. Much sympathy to your poor friend. But I could tell you many many stories of PhD experiences at least as bad as its.