"Followers" part of your profile

[irish_minx]

Hi,

What information can your "followers" actually see and can you delete or cancel your followers or disable that part of it all together?

I block quite a number of people on chat and have noticed tonight that they are "following me" I do not publish stories, no interest in publishing stories and whilst I would be open to having a "friend's list" I am not overly keen on having random people, potentially trolls and abusers "following" my actions on Lit.

Can we get some insight into it please and an understanding of what that part of your account means?

Thanks

 

[Britva415]

As far as I can tell, it doesn't do anything at all except for put the author in your 'favorite authors' list in the Stories part of the site.

You still have to go and actually look to follow whether they've published any new stories or not. It doesn't even notify you, as far as I can tell.

It doesn't appear to me to have anything at all to do with Forum activity.

 

[PastMaster]

I get notified when one of the authors I follow publishes a new story. But other than that - what you said Britva

 

[Britva415]

I get notified when one of the authors I follow publishes a new story. But other than that - what you said Britva

Maybe I'm not following enough people to have seen it yet, though I thought one of mine had new stuff which I didn't get pinged about. I found it accidentally.

How does this notification appear?

 

[PastMaster]

Usually an email. - Follow me - i have a new story posting tomorrow

 

[jaF0]

We've been asking for the ability to delete those for years. No response.

 

[billrokra]

If you follow people, you can see their activity on the forum in your News feed - though there's nothing there that isn't public anyway. You can also see when they are online. However, you can stop people viewing what you are doing, and displaying when you are online, by going into your Privacy settings. I'm not aware that following offers any other functionality. I think a politer system would be to allow a Follow request, which the recipient could accept or decline.

 

[ToPleaseHim]

If you follow people, you can see their activity on the forum in your News feed - though there's nothing there that isn't public anyway. You can also see when they are online. However, you can stop people viewing what you are doing, and displaying when you are online, by going into your Privacy settings. I'm not aware that following offers any other functionality. I think a politer system would be to allow a Follow request, which the recipient could accept or decline.

I really like that idea.

 

[jaF0]

That's the way it worked in the old VBulletin system as I recall.

 

[Britva415]

We've been asking for the ability to delete those for years. No response.

Delete what?

People following you?

 

[jaF0]

Yes, Followers.

 

[ToPleaseHim]

That's the way it worked in the old VBulletin system as I recall.

We didn’t have followers in the forum on the old system. We could create Buddy lists. People weren’t notified if you put them on your Buddy list and it didn’t appear on your profile or anything.

 

[jaF0]

I can't remember exactly how it was setup here, but I know on other VBulletin forums. I would get 'Friend requests' that you could either accept or reject. They may not have had that option turned on here.

It was separate from the story side though. Followers over there didn't carry over to the forum side. Part of the integration was to meld the two together and there were complaints here during the rollout of the new package.

.

 

[ToPleaseHim]

The follower feature on the forum is unpleasant for a lot of people. People cal follow someone that has them on ignore. If someone has harassed you, or even just generally bothers you, and then you get a notification that they are following you? Yeah, yikes.

 

[ElectricBlue]

Maybe I'm not following enough people to have seen it yet, though I thought one of mine had new stuff which I didn't get pinged about. I found it accidentally.

How does this notification appear?

On your Control Panel, for example:

TarnishedPenny's story has been published
Silk for St. Valentine's
01/16/2023

This is story side; I don't have a clue what goes on Forum side, other than the notifications at the top of these pages.

You can't block story side followers, to my knowledge.

 

[jsmiam]

There are two types of followers and they’re different.

Story followers helps readers follow authors. Mostly non controversial.

Forum following is what the OP is asking about. Follower blocking isn’t provided. The attitude of the software provider is that people are posting to a public forum. I don’t agree entirely, but here’s an example of their perspective: (xenforo is the software used for the forums) https://xenforo.com/community/threads/turn-off-followers.140346/

Also, for a more dedicated person, they could use google too, less easy, but still possible. Blocking here on the forums wouldn’t block savvy internet users.

We males can be a little dumb. On a site like this, any screenname implying the female gender will lead to a lot of extra attention of all kinds.

For everyone, they should be sure to possess and use a “burner” email address for any and all sordid deeds done on the internet, that is in no way connected to your “real” life. Including the email that your lit account is associated with.

 

[AlexaF]

Glad I found this subject. Was not happy that someone was following me after I had blocked them. Wish you could determine who can follow you

 

[ragal2]

Most followers are friendly and are interested in reading our stories when they are published.
However, some are creepy, especially those who criticize every story maliciously.
It's not the criticism or the negative view, but the fact that they do it ON EVERY STORY, and it's not constructive, including stories that are 'hot.'
If I hated somebody's stories, I'd read stories written by other authors and not bother wasting my time...

 

[JBoy1952]

Neither the FOLLOW or ALERT system on the Lit Forum side appears to work as anticipated, or expected.

I have not seen that FOLLOW does anything, other than accumulate a list of people I follow. I would expect to get an alert when someone on my follow list posts to a forum thread. NOT

I get alerts of some new posts to threads I frequent, but the again, more often than not, I don't get alerts. There's no rhyme or reason of why I get alerts to a thread but not at other times.

I also don't know why some Litsters are so paranoid because they get an alert of someone who FOLLOWS them. It seems to me that members want other members to react with an emoji or reply to their posts or pics. Those who seek to FOLLOW someone is someone who, I would perceive, enjoys their posts or pics.

 

[ToPleaseHim]

Some Lit folks have experienced harassment and other bad behavior at the hands of others here. And they add them to their ignore list so they cannot see them. Those folks can still “follow” them which is unfortunate. It is not “being paranoid” to be bothered by this. We would ideally be able to remove followers from our profile.

 

[jaF0]

^^^ And block from being added initially. Both here and on the Story side.

@Manu .... Follow Not, OK?