So recently I noticed that you can now see who follows you (names removed for privacy reasons)
I personally don’t find this a bad change as seeing that people start following me gives me somewhat motivation that there are actually people out there that are interested in my work, The only downside right now is that I can’t see a list of people whom follow me or even just a usercount that’s only viewable by the account owner.
I know the intend of not showing others who follow you is there for whichever reason this is, this was made very clear due to the fact that the network tab on other profiles are hidden. But for what reason shouldn’t the account holder be able to see their own followers?
I am aware that Roblox uses the Discourse Follow Plugin or a plugin alike to this one. This plugin has an option to view a list of your own followers and I don’t think it’s really necessary to disable that tab and just re-enable it for the account holder. It could be beneficial in multiple aspects including giving people motivation and potentially even expand their own network by engaging with their followers.
I do want to know what your view on this is too. Feel free to just use the poll, comment or use the poll and comment to clarify why you chose what you did or just to write out your thoughts.
Re-enabled the followers tab for the account holder to view
To be completely honest, im fine with either one. I don’t view my followers tab much. I think that it is cool to see people that are actually following you and that you can see their usernames, but I don’t check my followers tab, so im fine.
This is a forum; not a social media platform. You really don’t need to care about that. In my opinion, this feature wouldn’t promote high-quality discussions, but it would just result with people trying to farm followers.
Discourse has several optional plugins that can be modified. roblox uses discourse and uses the (community) created plugins that can be used for each discourse-used-forums seperately. This is the correct place nonetheless since roblox has control over how to use discourse exactly.
There isn’t anything to farm as people follow others already if they post content that seems appealing to them. making posts that don’t abide by the rules already get hidden and moderated. There’s literally no gain in farming since it’s hidden for anyone else.
hence the suggestion to only show it to the account holder themselves. actual networking in the developer community isn’t too easy in terms of the full community rather than 1 aspect.
I might’ve not properly clarified exactly what I meant with it, which Is my bad, but in terms of networking stuff can be a massive pain. This was more so meant as a suggestion to push forward people that aren’t seen as much despite having a high skill level in the sector they work in. A forum is per definition also a social media platform nonetheless.
The forums are a community where everyone helps each other out. The forums aren’t meant to be like twitter or Instagram or all the other social media platforms where people post whatever they want to gain followers. While I see how you can make a statement why viewing your followers could be useful in some situations such as motivation it would just cause more hate and follower races on third party sites. The concern here is that with people trying to gain more and more followers the quality of posts will get worse and worse
This plugin is only intended for utility. The fact that it now tells you when you are followed is not desired. Showing another useless number for people to compete with is an awful and unnecessary idea.
Is there any chance these can be forced? Even if through a plugin? To not notify when users follow you, and not notify other users when you follow them? The last 2 should definitely be configurable though
No. i’ve tried looking through my own Discourse that I’ve been working on and it seems there is no way to force it due to the user discretion. But, Roblox can remove the plugin, which will stop this.
It would be interesting to see how many people get notified by your posts, and how many people follow you.
I also think you overlooked the fact that the followers count would not be public. It would only be visible to the account holder. There would be no incentive to compete.
But… That’s pretty much exactly what the function is for. That’s why you follow people, to stay up-to-date on their activity. I follow a few people because I respect their thoughts and opinions and am interested in seeing their own replies/topics.
Unfortunately there would, as people would be sharing screenshots of their followers count and update it regularly to compete with others. The forum is not about farming stats. I personally follow a few staff members that regularly engage in certain topics so i can stay up to date without having to watch specific topics. but that is all I use it for.
Is there any functional use case apart from “giving motivation”? Feels like just another toxic internet number for people to compare and judge you by if they were to enable it.
There will always be competition about every stat. The point is, since it wouldn’t be a public stat (like others such as 's received). There’s just no incentive to do so. Sure, they can screenshot it and try to act braggy about it but really that just makes them look bad, let’s be honest here.
It’s an informative utility. I want to know who’s following me, and it allows me a rough idea of how many people would be notified by my posts on the forums. Being able to see ‘this user follows you’ on their profile would be a nice addition to this too.
Now I won’t say there’s no judgement based on public stats, this is definitely true but that’s why I think because the followers stat would not be displayed publicly, it’s also very easy to distuingish people who farm stats on the forums and try to compete with others. (Since they’d be the only ones showing off their stats, vs other people who just keep it to themselves and use it for what it’s intended; information.)
I feel like it isn’t a bad idea, it’s only going to be viewable by the account owner, so there’s no means to compete. And yes, there will be those that will post screenshots of the number, but I feel that the ones that have the most followers will most likely be the ones that contribute immensely to the forum in a helpful way to the community, making them the least likely to compete for followers.
Besides, there’s the “” function for all posts and topics. That’s viewable to the public, as well as to the account owner in a “total” tally. I dont see anyone competing in that nor drawing attention to how many they receive.
Seeing who’s following you is a good way to know that what you post may be making a difference and it helps in networking with people that do what you do, therefore gains experience for both parties.
's received). There’s just no incentive to do so. Sure, they can screenshot it and try to act braggy about it but really that just makes them look bad, let’s be honest here. 