So social media websites allow people to "follow" each other. There are some people who post answers that are of considerable quality and its sometimes hard to keep track when there is a particularly good answer, is there any thought at stack exchange to give people the ability to "follow" each other?
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$\begingroup$ If so inclined, you could just look at their profiles periodically. $\endgroup$– Emilio PisantyFeb 15, 2013 at 17:20
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2 Answers
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Yes, this has been brought up many times on MSO and you can read there all about why it won't be implemented. Basically, Stack Exchange is a Q&A site, not a social network. (For the details you may have to read through the comments in the linked question.)
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3$\begingroup$ Thanks. Although its kind of silly logic to equate the ability to sort good posters and social networks. Its not a feature that is really solely for social purposes. But thanks for the link. $\endgroup$ Feb 13, 2013 at 1:36
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$\begingroup$ I suppose you could check on StackApps and see if someone has written an app or script that will let you follow people. $\endgroup$– David ZFeb 13, 2013 at 1:39
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$\begingroup$ Thanks, one can always work around user their browser to, but it would be nicer to have something you could link to your profile in case you couldn't get to your normal computer. $\endgroup$ Feb 13, 2013 at 1:42
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3$\begingroup$ Is it just me? Reading through those suggested comments made me want the feature, especially when seeing how most of the objections were logically unsound, equating "trusted user" with "facebook" for reasons I cannot understand. Typical MSO kneejerk reaction to change. ::grumble:: $\endgroup$– user10851Feb 14, 2013 at 8:59
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1$\begingroup$ @ChrisWhite exactly, on MSO they always react in such and similar declining ways to feature requests that would be very usefull for and appreciated by many users of the different sites. Conversely to suggestions about setting up new policies, rules, constraints, controll mechanisms, punishments, etc they never implement useful features common people ask for :-/ :: gruuuuuuumble ... :: $\endgroup$– DilatonFeb 14, 2013 at 13:15
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5$\begingroup$ @ChrisWhite the point is that Stack Exchange should be about the content, not about the people. Anything that leads people to focus more on the authors of posts than their content is pushing the site toward social-network territory, which should be avoided. $\endgroup$– David ZFeb 14, 2013 at 17:02
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1$\begingroup$ @David Z: why do we have nicknames then? Or even user numbers? Also, why do we have a profile page if not to make certain users look more expert than others in their field? $\endgroup$– WinstonMar 28, 2021 at 7:29
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I recommend getting or making a third party extension instead of asking Stackexchange to provide an additional feature. For example, I wanted to hide other peoples reputation and my own reputation when veiwing stackexchange/stackoverflow etc. and I solved this using a tampermonkey script. You might even ask someone to make you a script if you don't know how to make one, probably you could ask in stackoverflow or something. Enjoy!
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$\begingroup$ welcome! I decided to put it as an answer instead of a comment because it seemed more suited as an answer. I really recommend getting a third party extension (or just asking it on stackoverflow perhaps?) though I don't know if stackoverflow would reject that kind of question. Maybe you could ask it on stackoverflow chat or on superuser $\endgroup$– raindropFeb 20, 2013 at 1:12
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$\begingroup$ I honestly hadn't put that much thought into it. My feeling is that its something that should be pretty straightforward for them to implement, so I figured I'd ask, not realizing that it was such a source of debate. I could explore coding myself, but I have other coding priorities that would take precedence to be quite frank, so if I had the spare time I would probably not focus on this too much. I just thought it would be a nice feature. $\endgroup$ Feb 20, 2013 at 1:19
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1$\begingroup$ They don't want to clutter up the UI (user interface) by adding lots of additional things. as a side note, third party extensions are useful on many other websites like Facebook. In some sense you can get whatever you want from a website but instead of asking the website to change you need to make a third party extension that changes your user experience. $\endgroup$– raindropFeb 20, 2013 at 4:15
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