I’d still like to know who is following me on micro.blog. I’m stubborn like that.

@blankbaby Not to disappoint you, but I am.

@blankbaby You could ask everyone who is following you to let you know. I'll go first. I'm following you! 😆 I'm conflicted on the matter. I would like to know who is following me, but I also see the benefits in not knowing. I can't quite make up my mind which is better.

@blankbaby Me. I'm an Incomparable member. I really enjoy Random Trek, Total Party Kill, and your book club episode opinions. Also, I found @foodinjars through you and am LOVING her Local Mouthful podcast and her cookbooks.

@blankbaby sammmeee. I don't need a count, but I would like to see. I think Manton's considering it.

@Lioncourt I like the present system where people can let you know whether they're following you if they want to. It reduces the likelihood of follow-for-follow swaps.

@blankbaby We are mulling this over. To play devil's advocate, on Twitter, I am "following" a LOT of people who I have in fact muted forever. They are all people I know and I don't want to "unfollow" because I don't want them to know I'm not following them. There are a lot of people who feel this way. On Micro.blog, you can follow and unfollow without creating an expectation or sending a message.

@macgenie I'll put my vote in as against. My reasoning's in an earlier post

@blankbaby I am, Scott. I am following you. And I agree. And I vote. I don't think that last one is necessarily related.

@donmacdonald I also like your analogy to cigarettes or sugar, i.e. it takes some getting used to when you first quit.

@blankbaby ... well .. you definitely have two followers 😄

// Developing an idea first suggested by @Lioncourt

@blankbaby @macgenie I'll go on record as against it. I’ve never had many followers on Twitter, and silly as it sounds, I wouldn’t engage with people who had thousands of followers because of a false sense of inadequacy. Here, the onus is on actual conversations and relationships. I used to have a similar jonesing to know who was following me but now that I'm used to it, I really prefer it.

@macgenie "...on Twitter, I am 'following' a LOT of people who I have in fact muted forever. They are all people I know and I don't want to 'unfollow' because I don't want them to know I'm not following them." I'm in the same situation and for that reason alone I'd vote to keep following lists from users here.

@artkavanagh I get the general idea, but I think not having a list of followers or follower count visible publicly still solves that problem. Follows have little value for swaps if no one knows they are there but the two parties involved.

@macgenie I don’t think I’ve ever had a notice that someone has unfollowed me, although I am sure some one must have.

@blankbaby well I can tell you that I am. Hope it helps!

@blankbaby 👋👋👋

@macgenie YES! I’m glad Micro.blog knows this and understands why we need not know. We never really knew who read our blogs unless they commented.

@Aleen @macgenie I think there's a social anxiety aspect to knowing who follow you. Since this is not an advertiser driven network its probably not as important. This wasy also avoids the "Why did you unfollow me?" issue. An anonymous "follower count" might be a good compromise

@vasta @macgenie @blankbaby I can understand why too but perhaps the ‘blog’ part in the name gives a hint 😊 I’m sure there are other Twitter clones out there.

@macgenie @blankbaby There are so many good points on both sides; The main thing I miss is discovering new people to follow from people who have followed me, since chances are your new follower shares interests with you. I've found many great new people on Twitter this way. Perhaps a list of just your top 10 most recent follows that you could check periodically would work, rather than a full follower list. Just throwing that idea out there.

@macgenie Sure, and someone who is stalking me can follow me on here and I'll never know! Though that's not my main concern.. it seems odd not to be able to know who is following you. I'd ask that each person can see who follows them, but others can't see who follows me.

@janwillem No way for me to follow people who follow me back. No way to know if I want to block someone from following me! Also, I don't care about the numbers on Twitter either. ;)

@Moltz And I didn't know that until just now (and now I'm following you! HAAHAHAHA!).

@macgenie Maybe for people who just started, give them a count of the first 5 followers, no names. After they hit 5 they get a award=button-thingy and the number disappears forever. This way at least somebody who just signed up but maybe isn't getting replies still knows somebody is following them. Just a thought.

@JohnPhilpin Hello! ;)

@cheesemaker I'm not suggesting displaying the number of followers, but it would be nice to know if someone is following me so I can follow them back (or block them if I don't care for them to see what I'm posting!).

@simon So I can find people to follow back! And I can imagine situations where someone might not want someone else to follow them for some reason... so being able to block folks would be good too.

@gabopagan Hey hey!

@blankbaby It helps to think of this timeline as an amalgamated RSS feed that facilitates comments and conversations for many many independent blogs, rather than a social network. You have to have a blog to be part of Micro.blog. And you don't know who exactly is reading your blog. So even if we knew a follower count, it would only apply to the timeline. People can follow your blog via RSS.

@macgenie But Micro.blog does know who is following me... and just doesn't tell me.

@blankbaby Fair point. (Just so you know, I have no way to tell who is following me either.)

@Lioncourt Yes, I see what you mean.

@blankbaby I am!

And I feel your "pain". But even though it is a bit odd feeling, I think I prefer it. I've been someone with thousands of followers and without. I've been the person that checks my site's stats every day too. And that wasn't healthy. I'm so glad to no longer have any follower counts or web stats that I follow. I've deleted them all. So I now do these things for me. :)

@blankbaby I’m not certain what utility blocking someone, simply so they couldn’t see your posts, would have; everything posted here (currently) is public, either on your own site or your hosted micro.blog account... (Blocking so they can’t engage is a separate matter.)

@vasta @macgenie @blankbaby @manton I think Sameer gets to the heart of it with his comment. Almost one year ago Manton wrote that "The entire web should be the social network." This issue will be resolved with a clear and unequivocal statement of a mission purpose for this site. And I think the clue to that is in the domain name itself. Manton bought microdotblog, he didn't buy microdotsocial, and I'm pretty sure the domain he bought was his first choice for a reason. In the Kickstarter he made it very clear that his purpose was to encourage blogging and it seemed like all the first people came here looking for an easy way to blog, not for a new social network.

@Lioncourt says "chances are your new follower shares interests with you." Agreed. And for the same reason, I think that same follower is likely to reply to one of your postings here. at which point you can engage directly with him/her and even follow him/her, so you don't lose touch. This is a place to participate, not a place to sit back and read silently and anonymously.

@Ron I don’t know a single soul here in person, so I love the curiosity I feel when someone new comments on something I’ve written here. It’s an invitation to see what we might have in common. If something resonates, I’m likely to follow — but nobody’s obligated to reciprocate.

@Ron @macgenie @manton I agree it comes down to purpose. If the purpose is to be a social network, then it is helpful to provide users with ways to connect with each other. If the purpose is to be a publishing platform, then you focus on publishing and not on the networking.

IMHO, likes and follower counts are the disease, not the cure.

@frankm I agree. Sure, I have wondered who is following me, but think I prefer things the way they are. I’m imagining what it would be like with followers and likes made visible; and I can’t help but feel that something important would be lost.

@frankm @herself Hear, hear

@gabopagan This is why I don't want a follower count--too many people obsess over the number they see. I want to know if people I've had issues with in the past are following me so that I can either be mindful of what I say or preemptively block/mute when that feature makes it here. Not every negative interaction is a CoC violation.

I've also found some cool people I didn't know were on a particular network until I saw they were following me :)

@blankbaby Hmm. Ok yeah that’s a little different. I’ll have to mull that over. I can see two sides to that. I understand why @manton is slow to roll this stuff out.

@blankbaby Ding Dong

@macgenie to quote a Richard Feynman title. “What do you care what other people think”.

@ddykstal I do. That's me. I care more about how people feel than how they think, even if I can't do anything about it. (Know anything about the Enneagram? I'm a 9 there, the Peacemaker. 😂)

@blankbaby This has been a good discussion! I think this is the kind of thing that is good to re-evaluate from time to time, to see if we're still achieving the original goals and not introducing new problems.

@blankbaby what if you think of it like this: IRL you only know if someone is interested in you if they respond to the things you say. I think not showing a count gives this space a more human feel.

@Bhjerstedt IRL we would never have known about each other in any way, shape, or form. Real life can be improved upon.

@blankbaby I will tip my hat to that. Valid point.

@macgenie never heard of it. Looks like a bit of woo, but fun. I’ll have to play with it.

@ddykstal Oh yes, it is woo. But weirdly apt. It is not the easiest categorization to assess, but once I realized my type, a lot of insight clicked into place.

@blankbaby yeah, not going to happen...:)