Here (and elsewhere) I tend to only follow people who post things that are consistently interesting to me, or they make me think in some way... and I don't have to agree with their perspective. I guess it's partly linked to the idea that I look for things that seem "of value" both to me and to the greater community.

I just never was much into the "automatic followback" thing... perhaps a hangover from when I spent more time with twitter. If someone's content is of no interest to me, why the heck should I follow them, regardless of whether they followed me? I may be out in left field with this, but mindless mutual backscratching doesn't really add that much value to the greater picture.