Web Give the follow button a real purpose in life!

[Axyy]

Hio people, I'm back in the Feedback & Suggestions sub-forum with a rather small but in my opinion cool suggestion thread regarding the " FOLLOW " feature on the forums.

So yes, it's nice cool and all to have somebody to follow you, and thank them for doing so afterwards but does it really have a purpose other than seeing which of your followers are online?
The answer is NO, but I want to change that!


So there are a few features that could be added to give the follow button a real purpose in life.


STATUS NOTIFICATIONS
So the first idea is to automatically send out a notification to your followers whenever you've updated your profile status.

And yes, you are able to turn these notifications off!

+ When anyone you follow changes their status, you now get informed about it.
+ It could be another reason for you to follow people because you think their profile posts are cool .

- It may become spammy but once again, you are able to turn these off. Be careful who you follow!


THREAD NOTIFICATIONS
The second idea is to send out notifications to your followers whenever you post a new thread!

+ When anyone you follow decides to create a new fun, cool, amazing thread you might be the first one to see it.
+ It could be another reason for you to follow people because you like their threads.

- Same with the status notifications, it may become spammy but you can turn it off!


That's it really, I wanted to include Thread-Reply notifications but I decided not to because it didn't really seem like a great idea imo. And why would I suggest anything that I personally don't like? xD

If you've got any more ideas feel free to comment them down below and of course feedback on the suggestion is always welcome!

 

[ItzEnd3r]

something that might tie into this nicely is this suggestion by Greg

'Follows you' tag

Hello CubeCrafters! The suggestion is pretty simple: a tag to know that a person is following you. I know there's a list you can easily access on your profile but I think it would be nice to have this feature as well. What do you think about...

www.cubecraft.net

But yes i really want to see this do something because currently follows are pretty useless.

 

[CKelting]

This is a good Idea!

 

[ParkourCanadian]

This is a very nice post! I'm excited to see the outcome of it! It is very well written, and as @ItzEnd3r mentioned earlier, the current follow feature is kind of unused! I see no reason to not add this feature. Excited to see how this turns out! :D

 

[Technosword]

I agree! Great idea Axyy, I think following someone doesn’t provide any difference, besides them showing up in the news feed no one uses. +1

 

[MookyDoodle]

Ooooooh yes want
:)

 

[luv!]

Totally agree with you! Currently there isn’t much purpose aside from seeing if the people who follow you are online, etc. as you’ve stated. So a change would be great! +1

 

[Eli]

Hio people, I'm back in the Feedback & Suggestions sub-forum with a rather small but in my opinion cool suggestion thread regarding the " FOLLOW " feature on the forums.

So yes, it's nice cool and all to have somebody to follow you, and thank them for doing so afterwards but does it really have a purpose other than seeing which of your followers are online?
The answer is NO, but I want to change that!


So there are a few features that could be added to give the follow button a real purpose in life.


STATUS NOTIFICATIONS
So the first idea is to automatically send out a notification to your followers whenever you've updated your profile status.

And yes, you are able to turn these notifications off!

+ When anyone you follow changes their status, you now get informed about it.
+ It could be another reason for you to follow people because you think their profile posts are cool .

- It may become spammy but once again, you are able to turn these off. Be careful who you follow!


THREAD NOTIFICATIONS
The second idea is to send out notifications to your followers whenever you post a new thread!

+ When anyone you follow decides to create a new fun, cool, amazing thread you might be the first one to see it.
+ It could be another reason for you to follow people because you like their threads.

- Same with the status notifications, it may become spammy but you can turn it off!


That's it really, I wanted to include Thread-Reply notifications but I decided not to because it didn't really seem like a great idea imo. And why would I suggest anything that I personally don't like? xD

If you've got any more ideas feel free to comment them down below and of course feedback on the suggestion is always welcome!

Personally if I follow someone it's because I want to show them that I like them and I like what they do on the forums. I don't follow people so that I can live up to date 24/7 on everything they do.

With the proper set of notifications you can be aware of virtually everything that is going on in the forums. And I personally don't find any value in being notified of other people's statuses and threads - if anything, that would be a reason for me to unfollow them if I get annoyed by the amount of unnecessary notifications.

If you watch the subforums you like you will be notified of the threads and topics that you actually care about. You would be surprised by the amount of statuses people post every day, and it would be even more problematic when you follow a large amount of active forum users. I just see no point to this to be honest, there are much more interesting features that would actually bring improvements in functionality, this is just an annoying cosmetic.

The only thing worth implemeting related to follows is bringing back the "follows you" title that was in the old forums. Another thing, don't say my concerns can be solved by making this toggleable. Because what is the point of a feature if it's very likely many won't like it and end up disabling it.

 

[Quis]

This would give a follow much more meaning. Personally I always like the options to vote things off and on, so thanks for adding that to your suggestion. :))

I think I will have to unfollow a few people, because I would love the notifications when this gets implemented.

In short: great idea! +1

 

[TrueMike]

Great idea. The notifications just need a little tweaking..

 

[Markietjeeeee]

I kinda agree with this. Tbh the follow button doesn't really have any purpose rn.

 

[Hippir]

This would be really lovely

 

[Axyy]

Personally if I follow someone it's because I want to show them that I like them and I like what they do on the forums. I don't follow people so that I can live up to date 24/7 on everything they do.

But the feature is called "Follow" and not "Like"? On all big platforms when you decide to follow someone you will get notified when they post something. That's the whole idea behind following someone to be honest. If the follow button is only there to show appreciation, then it shouldn't be called follow button in my opinion.

If you watch the subforums you like you will be notified of the threads and topics that you actually care about.

I very much disagree, what if I'm only interested in getting notified about suggestion threads made by a certain player? I'd still get spammed by all the suggestion threads I'm not interested in.

Another thing, don't say my concerns can be solved by making this toggleable. Because what is the point of a feature if it's very likely many won't like it and end up disabling it.

What do you mean many people won't like it? I want it, I know other people want it. And why wouldn't your concers be solved if you were to disable it? If you decide to disable the feature then you won't even notice that it exists?

 

[Axyy]

It could be made so that it's disabled by default and you would have to turn it on if you're interested in getting notified

 

[ParkourCanadian]

But the feature is called "Follow" and not "Like"? On all big platforms when you decide to follow someone you will get notified when they post something. That's the whole idea behind following someone to be honest. If the follow button is only there to show appreciation, then it shouldn't be called follow button in my opinion.


I very much disagree, what if I'm only interested in getting notified about suggestion threads made by a certain player? I'd still get spammed by all the suggestion threads I'm not interested in.


What do you mean many people won't like it? I want it, I know other people want it. And why wouldn't your concers be solved if you were to disable it? If you decide to disable the feature then you won't even notice that it exists?

*whispering* "This is on of many debates currently ongoing here on the CubeCraft Games forums!"

 

[Axyy]

*whispering* "This is on of many debates currently ongoing here on the CubeCraft Games forums!"

Hehe, we just have different opinions on the suggestion which is totally normal. I totally respect his opinion, so no drama here!! >:D

 

[Gregeyy]

Totally agree with this suggestion. Following someone is useless at the moment, and implementing some of these cool features would fix this problem and give the follow botton some extra utilities. Hope to see both of them implemented in the future!

Also,

something that might tie into this nicely is this suggestion by Greg

'Follows you' tag

Hello CubeCrafters! The suggestion is pretty simple: a tag to know that a person is following you. I know there's a list you can easily access on your profile but I think it would be nice to have this feature as well. What do you think about...

www.cubecraft.net

Thanks for the mention @ItzEnd3r

 

[Gemmmmie]

I defiantly would love to see this feature, at the moment I have to check myself people's "Latest Activity" which can get time consuming. Overall, if you follow a lot of people it would give an extreme amount of notifications, however you could turn them off or enable a limiting choice if possible. Overall, I love this suggestion! :>

 

[Drakie❤]

Yes! Really brings some functionality to the follow button. I was thinking of something relatively similar but this is better!

 

[Katsia Stray]

Heres another request : People can see how many followers you have

The user might want to toggle this for others to not see how many followers they have, so that people dont follow just becuase you are popular

Just by seeing how many followers someone has, it quickly tells you how many people are interested in their threads/content

It also shows how well known someone is, especially if that person is new or inactive

I'd say it's a good idea, let me know what you think!