Prevent People From Following You

Racket

New member
I think an option should be put in place under "Privacy" settings to allow members to prevent others from following them.

I think this option is really needed as some members may not want to be followed by people they do not know.

1. Allow only friends to follow you.
2. Allow everyone to follow you.
3. Disable following completely.

Let me know what you think.

Thanks
 
Upvote 15
You cannot have friends yet, so this'll have to wait ^^

But, it is a good idea though. Although 'following you' just means that they see your status changes :P
 
As all a follower can see is the posts and changes you are making publicly anyway I don't see why it matters...

The privacy settings are currently
  1. Show to everyone
  2. Show to members only
  3. Show only to people (I) follow

As this covers your profile and personal details... and they wont be able to see your PC just the posts that anyone can see anyway so I have to so I would NOT want this.
 
As all a follower can see is the posts and changes you are making publicly anyway I don't see why it matters...

The privacy settings are currently
  1. Show to everyone
  2. Show to members only
  3. Show only to people (I) follow
As this covers your profile and personal details... and they wont be able to see your PC just the posts that anyone can see anyway so I have to so I would NOT want this.

My mistake, I did not know that these 3 option already existed.

Thanks for pointing this out.
 
I'm thinking on trolls or stalkers who want to comment all of my posts with crap or hijacking my threads. So I think such feature would make it harder for them.

If you're having that much trouble, indeed an ignore feature would work better. I've tossed such a request in the suggestion forum already, so just need to sit and wait. :)
 
I think it needs the ability to be turned off. I am sure when the software is available if there is not an off switch that someone can tell us how to disable it.

I think it is really cool but I can see how it might not be the best on some forums.
 
Agreed. Disallowing followers is pointless.

It is definitely not pointless. If you read "jonsidneyb" post above yours, you will see that he has a valid point. Also, if you do not mind we asking, how does it hurt anyone by adding the option to disable the follow option?
 
It is definitely not pointless. If you read "jonsidneyb" post above yours, you will see that he has a valid point. Also, if you do not mind we asking, how does it hurt anyone by adding the option to disable the follow option?

I didn't mean that disabling following as a whole is pointless. I meant, in response to your original suggestion, that blocking certain users from following you is pointless.
 
What you can easily tell out here is that the wants needs likes and dislikes are all over the place. The constant seems most people really enjoy how easy the forum software is to use and how fun it is.

It is a joy to post on it.

It seems it is in the details that we find differences and I can see how these details will be appreciated differently on different types of forums.

The fact that we have been told how easy this software will be to modify I think is a very strong selling point in that we can have this wonderful software but at the same time have it the way that suits our forums best.

We will not have to be cookie cutter around this. :)
 
I've read on the boards that there's currently no way to block someone from following you, but you can instead restrict their access to your profile. Unfortunately we have quite a few members who hate the fact that even if they set their preferences to restrict access to people who follow them ... they can still follow and see them in their followers box. In fact, we've lost a handful of long time members over this. They simply don't feel comfortable.

An easy solution would be to add one more preference:

------
People Who May...

Follow you:
-- Members
-- People you follow only
------

This would remove the "follow" option from the quick profile view, profile page and anywhere else of course.

I'd also add a quick option to remove followers when viewing them in the pop-up window and automatically remove them if you opt to ignore them. All of this would extend the privacy settings to a point where people feel that they actually work. If someone doesn't want someone to follow them ... it should simply happen IMO. You can block/remove followers and both Facebook and Twitter. People are used to it.

Hell. I'd pay to make this happen. Like right now.

Thanks for listening!

(PS - This was its own thread. Moved. Didn't see this one. Thanks.)
 
I agree Todd, I was also surprised there was no option either to prevent people following you, or removing them from following you after they have done it. It has been raised by my members too, as you say, some don't feel comfortable with, as an example, a competitor following them.
 
I'm thinking on trolls or stalkers who want to comment all of my posts with crap or hijacking my threads. So I think such feature would make it harder for them.

I agree Todd, I was also surprised there was no option either to prevent people following you, or removing them from following you after they have done it. It has been raised by my members too, as you say, some don't feel comfortable with, as an example, a competitor following them.

We have a very serious problem on our big board currently where a "hate" forum has been signing up sockpuppet accounts multiple times per day, trying to harass the staff and other members. One of their tactics is to "follow" members they want to harass and then either reply to their posts with crap, or send private conversations to them.

For me personally, even not as an admin, I dislike anyone "following" me. I don't need to be stalked either.

I see these features being helpful:
  • An option for a user to remove followers;
  • An option for users to approve each new follower;
  • An option for staff to remove followers from members who request it (or can someone give a database query to do so, which I can run manually for now?);
  • A privacy setting where users can choose to have followers or not;
  • A usergroup permission to enable or disable the "follow" system, so only "verified" members (who "earn" their extra privileges through participation--posts/likes/liking post) can be allowed to use it.
As it stands, a member can sign up and immediately start following members they want to harass. We have a two-step system currently that users have to get through, but they have even figured that out. (One part is that we require a handful of approved posts before they no longer get sent to the moderation queue...now they know enough to post harmlessly until they reach the bogey, then start attacking us again.)

No idea if there is an add-on: a cursory search turned up nothing, and I don't have free hours right now to dig through everything. I may check some of the "usual suspects" like Waindigo or DigitalPoint when I get a chance. ;)
 
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