Rahsheen ™

What do you mean "fake follow"? - Monique

I read that FriendFeed Beta allows you to Fake Follow somebody. They will think you subscribe to them, but you won't have to see any of their feed. Basically, so you can perpetrate like you're interested in their crap when you're really not. - Rahsheen ™

Where do you see that? - Chris Baskind

Oh: found it. - Chris Baskind

Is that in the list setup? - Helen Somethingorothersky

I haven't seen that, but you could do that anyway by hiding everything from that person. Though I don't much see the point... - Shannon Jiménez

no no, guys - basically you can add someone as a friend then essentially not have them in any of your lists. Or just create a list called "not interested" where you put people you add but are not interested in reading their shared content...THAT is fake following, it's going to happen a sh*t load no matter what anyway says...and yep, it's not good. - Zee.

Some people really feel that they will offend someone if they don't reciprocate every subscribe. Like it's Twitter or something - Rahsheen ™

Odd feature - Mo Kargas

Good grief. If me not subscribing to someone who subscribes to me is somehow offensive, then I have offended many, many people (no offense). - Akiva Moskovitz

interesting feature ... hmm this will be great for the elite A-Lister types. Now, they can appear to be interested in their "followers" but not have to pay the huge "noise" price associated with following a gazillion followers. This is really a streamlined "follow" feature that only associates the two users, no feed...hmm - Susan Beebe

is *that* what's going on? i wondered how i had so many followers who never commented on or liked anything i shared. that makes more sense ... - idnan

LOL. Every time someone starts following me, I am kind of shocked. I'm pretty picky myself and don't have any problem with the people I follow being equally picky and not following me. The idea of 'fake follow' is pretty horrible - kind of like RSVPing and then not showing up :). - mattpovey

Nope: it's new. But we're paying attention. :-) - Chris Baskind

Now that I think about it....I hope FriendFeed REMOVES this feature. I mean...WTF were they thinking? - Rahsheen ™

Seriously . . . I don't want fake follows. Just don't even bother. - Lindsey in Love

It's amazing what some people will do for numbers. Just like Myspace. :( - Helen Somethingorothersky

Agreed with 'Sheed... follow me if I'm worth your time, and don't bother otherwise. If I'm following you, it ain't just to make you feel good. - Roger Benningfield

wow is this confirmed? - Mona N. via fftogo

But that's not just beta right? You can already subscribe then just hide all of someone's feeds, right? - ·[▪_▪]·

You could do that before, so what is the difference, they just made it easier. It has crossed my mind when I thought rather than 'unsubscribe' that I could just hide that persons noise. - Roger Kondrat

Now it's just openly available for the masses, though. Most people wouldn't have thought to subscribe+hide. Although I still don't see the point of either method. - Rahsheen ™

Yeah Roger makes a good point - you could do it before. There's just another way to do it now. - Zee.

niecerobot and Roger - yes, you can already subscribe and then turn right around and hide all of that user's feed contents, so this new feature just shortcuts that process. I am not against this feature. I see value in being able to be associated with someone else and NOT see all their stuff. If we're associated in this way, then I can easily click on their profile and read their feed. Maybe I just want to slim down my friendfeed view. Think about it...this feature could be a good thing too. - Susan Beebe

@Rah, I think you are right, but as you pointed out there is a broader issue and that is FF's support of a behaviour that is very unethical. I am a little shocked. - Roger Kondrat

@Rah the bright side is when I am mad at you I can show you 'the hand' and blank you and you won't even know it! :) - Roger Kondrat

@Susan long before I would want to use this feature in even the most noblist (is that a word) of terms I would rather have the ability to filter. Has anyone seen if this is possible yet as I am dying to filter out the US election. - Roger Kondrat

@Susan, that's a good idea, but that's not how anyone is going to do it. I just heard that you can actually remove someone's feed from your main feed and view it in one of your categories/groups or whatever. So that still makes the association possible without a blanked hiding of their feed. - Rahsheen ™

Rahsheen - interesting... I need more time playing around with BETA in order to understand features fully, and the intented use behind them. Sometimes users create alternate purposes for a feature (sometimes good / bad). So, I am hoping we get more feedback from Paul and Bret on these features. - Susan Beebe

Yeah, I would definitely like to know a good reason for this "feature" - Rahsheen ™

To me this just encourages people to ungenuinely follow you. If you're not willing to listen to their posts, at least via skimming, why follow the person at all? If it must be there, why not just do a mutual fake follow by default for everyone? - Jesse Stay

This really takes me back to my days writing software applications for an internal IT dept of a big company - and the ingenious (and completely unintended ways) staff would find to use what they had to do things you hadn't planned for them to do. - Jonathan Beckett

Hmm... when I saw it my thought was that I could "move" people to other lists . So, for instance, I subscribe to some products like Evernote and IMified. I don't really need to see those posts in my main feed, but I have a new list where I have them... I'm still subscribed whether they're in my main feed or not... it didn't occur to me to use it for "fake following" until I saw this discussion. - FFundercats' Lin-ZAY

It's lists.. It can be as good or bad as you want it to be. It's managing people you know that are participants in social media. I mean, I can make a list named assholes and subscribe to people I don't agree with and stick em there. Or make another named 'Bacon Lovers'. You don't have to subscribe back if you don't want to. - Rodfather

There does not seem to be a way to hide rooms or move them to a list. Or is there? - Jauder Ho

Fake follow isn't a feature in itself. You can add people to lists and remove them from your main feed. This can be used for good (I can create a separate list for high-volume users, and check that list only once a day; this way I'll keep my home feed uncluttered) or for evil (fake follow). - Tudor Bosman

Personally, I don't care whether you subscribe to me or not. My feed is public; do what you will. If you find my posts interesting, subscribe; if not, don't. I'll do the same. - Tudor Bosman

my godness, where is there a patronizing in putting oyu in the box I think you belong in? maybe you just have content which is not relevant to me at the moment but highly relevant at another point. I am offended by the notion that just because at some point I might ive you attention I am bound to listen and be glued to you always and forever. - Nicole Simon

quick question for all the ones demanding attention like this: do all of you check every single comment you ever made on ff to find out if somebody answered to you? no? in case so, please stop fake commenting. - Nicole Simon

This thread was never about putting people on lists. It's about subscribing to people for the sake of reciprocating when they subscribe to you with the explicit intent of ignoring their feed entirely. It's fine to file people into lists if you so choose, but why subscribe if you never plan to view their content? - Rahsheen ™

(not reading Rahsheen's content) FAKE FOLLOW. - Monique