@warpedpoetic, I think you have a valid point here. The whole followers thing on Steemit is a pointless part of it. It truly is meaningless because of the lack of interaction needed prior to following.
I do like your idea of friend requesting rather than just being able to follow someone.
I have been using the follow feature as a tool for curation. Meaning, I follow everyone I curate as a way of "checking the box" on their profile. If I am looking for a new person to curate, but I see that I am already following them then I know I have already curated their intro post.
I do write down each day's curation on paper, but sometimes this saves me from needing to sift through the papers to see if I have already featured a person's intro post. (It isn't unusual for a person to make multiple introduction posts, and I don't want to curate the same person twice on an intro post.)
So that't how I use the follow feature to my advantage. It must be noted that I never look at my feed-EVER. It's so full of you-know-what posted and resteemed by all the newbies I follow that it is less than worthless to me as a source of reading material.
That's why I started my Discord Server - I needed a place for people to bring me their best articles, and it is working beautifully for that. I have more great material than I can possible handle each day from people like yourself who take the time to drop articles that meet my guidelines. (Thanks, by the way!)
I have found that I have a few people I really enjoy reading, and when I have a few spare minutes I actually remember their usernames, and go to their blog page or on a Discord I know they drop links on, and see what they've been up to, especially if I have not heard from them in awhile.
I hope someone notices your idea, and makes some kind of change that deals with the stupidity of followers as they are now. (@theUXyeti maybe?)
I've upvoted and resteemed this article as one of my daily post promotions for the @mitneb Curation Trail Project. It will be featured in the @mitneb Curation Trail Project Daily Report for 07 MAR 2018.
Cheers!
That is the exact same thing i face. What i did was drop the username of blogs i like into @ginabot settings page, so i get notifications when they post. It saves me all the hassle.
When i first came on steemit, i followed so many folks whom i don't even know, thinking that they would follow back as is on facebook until i realised that many are not aware that i follow them! It was rather annoying.
I hope someone considers the friend request feature truly, it would make this platform a more friendly place. I can choose to follow you, or to be your friend...lol. We are friends already though, right?
Thanks for stopping by @mitneb, always a pleasure to read your comments.
Thanks for the heads up. Since asking to follow someone is too much to ask and creates a mechanic that although is personal but disrupts the organicness of content. I’m creating a tab titled favorites adding a way to add a person to the tab and then as you select favorites it has all the ppl you want to view for content as a side sorting method.
@theuxyeti, I thought that one of the changes you are working on would help with this issue in some way. And the number of followers remains a number which lacks any true meaningfulness other than to confuse newbies, and give them something to beg for.
Cheers!
Hmm... i appreciate the mention! Thanks for thinking of me.
I think my ui goal is to add additional personalization to the user.
The current ui is so generic and misleading to a new user.
By adding a way to favorite other users, would allow an alternate way to sort your followers.
I agree when following 200 users the way the followers list is treated needs some work. That is on my list to improve.
For a small win though i think if you just add a Star next to ppls name, content, and tags that allows for enough macro sorting to occur.
We gotta remember Steemit seems to be more of an information site with a social media aspect.
But where do you draw the line between aninimity and social presence.
Since my baseline of the ui leans more towards content and aninimity whereas extensions like dtube and discord open up the social mechanic i tend to steer with Steemit.
I feel the content space ever evolving allows discovery for interested reading by authors and in turn you could prioritize those authors in a way so a daily routine on Steemit could ensue.
At this time scaling in smaller sizes allow for improving bed user testing to identify how much more “like Facebook” you’d want to go.
Already i have a list of 30 ppl i follow in discord and those same ppl it’d be nice to follow daily on steemit or mine.
But agreed there should be a better treatment for “following” and how that works.
Favouriting some followers could help if those who are following use it. My concern is those being followed. The impression given is that your followers stand for your core readership base which is not true. There is no incentive for followers to actually read the blog they follow.
On facebook you have friends you may know. Can't steemit have something like blogs you may like, based on your search, from which you can pick who to follow?
I still feel that the friend request feature will greatly improve the lives of newbie blogs here on steemit.
Thanks @theuxyeti for your contribution. It is good to get the ideas of some one who is into developing a user friendly interface for steemit into this discussion. I have been to your blog and I see your efforts in bringing steemit to a better place. I hope @ned gives you opportunity with the developer team.
Thanks for stopping by. Peace
I’m working on a few mechanisms to improve content by author. My first pass at this platform it’s def not a social platform like fb but you might be into something. The platform is definitely lacking on authentic users and how to follow them