Is there any way for a individual to know who is "Following" him?

Nope. Not as far as I know. And neither can admins. Admins can see (but not change) what Notify Me options people have selected, but not who they're subscribed to - or conversely, who's subscribed to a particular member. Both those functions been requested several times over the years, but they're still somewhere on the mythical "Wish List".

It was decided some time ago that subscription information would remain private. So I doubt that is on a wish list.

Probably not. I can see how that might cause problems if the info was available to everyone. But for admins... it would be a valuable tool.

Have to disagree with you this time John. As I stated here and Brad agreed, admins having access to profile subscriptions would be a serious violation of privacy.

linkedin (a pretty successful LARGE site) tells you who has been looking at your profile. Is that an invasion of privacy?

Does FB knowing all the people you know and visit and gives you 'advice' an invasion of privacy?

Do the 'ads' that follow you from site to site (via Google's spy system) comprise an invasion of privacy?

Just showing that the argument given is now pretty thin considering the huge amount of non-privacy in sites much larger than CC.

IOW this would hardly be a serious violation of privacy compared to what is now common.

So does CC having access to profile subscriptions comprise a serious violation of privacy or is this just how one can manage a site?

If not, why is CC special? What if we actually ran our own website. Then we replace CC's function. And of course can find out anything stored in our DB.

The reason this is not clear is that nobody has described what exactly is invasion of privacy. Clearly we are surrounded by lack of 'privacy' from your bank to your ISP (who knows ALL the sites you visit).

Jack, I find unpersuasive the argument that because others are doing something it makes it ok for me to do so too.

Even though CC has access to all these data I doubt they are looking at it very closely if at all. In most cases it would be entirely meaningless. Just as it would mean nothing to me if I had all this information from your site.

My position remains that it would be an invasion of privacy if profile subscription information was available to either an admin of or a classmate on that site.

FC, I hear you. But... For admins, I don't see visibility of subscriptions as a privacy issue. For all members, yes, it would be a potential problem. As an admin though, I want to know or see anything that might help me understand how our site works. As far as "privacy", admins are trusted with visibility of members personal contact data, we are trusted with the ability to edit their comments, their personal information and profile data, etc. I don't see this as any different.

It just came up here yesterday when a classmate posted a video of a mini-reunion in her profile and then had second thoughts - asking me who would be notified. My answer was that while everyone would be able to see it, only those subscribed to her would be notified that it had been posted - which I had no way of knowing. So I copied the video to the message Forum where I CAN see who will get notified about a new post.

My point here is that admins are... well... admins. We have far more visibility and functionality than our classmates. I'd bet most of them know (or assume) that.

FC, Isn't the "norm" in context one rule by which something is evaluated? IOW, you essentially agreed that 'others are doing something'. That's how things change.

For example, to use FBCC one has to join FB. FB tracks you

So what is "invasion of privacy" here? That's the real question. People are posting details on their profiles for any member to read. An admins interest for one, helps guide how the site is working out.

CC for sure tracks the gross interactions of the sites. Brad has even said that's how some features are 'popular'. Is that a violation? (Some would say it is.)

As I already explained, if one ran their own website (CC is just a shortcut to that method), ALL this information would be available. It's called MARKETING analysis.

Btw, it just occurred to me that a reasonable person already presumes that WE (admins) can see everything they select.

That's what I assume for ANY site that I join (and why I said that CC knows all this and I doubt anyone would disagree that they assumed it is available to CC). That would include the options I select - which actually are at their root exactly the same sort of "privacy" being contested here.

A classmate has no idea that we can't see their follow choices. Nowhere does it explain what we can or can not see.

For example, why should an admin know if a member wants to receive messages and what type of messages? Why is that your business?

Does a classmate know that their name comes up on a list? Why does CC show us the names, why not just the option without the actual names?

I'm not really looking for answers here, just showing that all this is in exactly the same can. Yet nobody is objecting - for obvious reasons.

It's not nearly as cut and dried as assumed. I hope to convey the arbitrary nature so far of the argument.

I object, FC. You re-opened the issue that informs everyone that I am a Facebook stalker!!

On the same thread that FC referenced, Brad says "There's no way we can let anyone know who's profile somebody is subscribed to. That's personal stuff. ", so this feature IS NOT ON THE "TO BE IMPLEMENTED" FEATURE LIST. I doubt it will ever be implemented.

Sigh

Be nice to see this list

Kyle Erickson wrote:

I was going to mention that Kyle but thought you might not want that brought to everyone's attention even though it was one of the highlights in that thread.

You do realize that FB does exactly that with "Friends"

IOW, I can see everyone's "Friends" (personal stuff) even if I'm not a friend of theirs and so forth.

To truly emulate FB, that actually has to be implemented too.

Kyle Erickson wrote:

Kyle Erickson wrote:

Perhaps not. But Brad has always been open to reasoned discussions, and maybe it's time to take another look at this possibility.

For a variety of reasons I don't think it's a good idea for classmates to have access to who is following them. I haven't scrutinized all of the above, but are you now just asking for the ability for Admins to see who is following who?

Can somebody summarize for me:'

1) What is the value in an Admin knowing this information other than curiosity?

2) Is there something Admins are wanting to do here on behalf of classmates, such as assist somebody in following a particular classmate, or maybe going in there and unfollowing for classmates who has requested it?

3) If #2 is positive, is there a reason classmates can't simply do this themselves? Other than being disabled or something like that? In cases like this one could always provide an Admin a login/password.

This is a discussion that has surfaced here many times with folks on all sides of this issue. If somebody can provide me exactly what the request currently is, and why it is perceived to be necessary, that would be helpful.

FYI while of course Class Creator staff has access to this info, I think it's a pretty fair statement that we are disinterested parties, which is quite opposite of a classmate or Admin having this same info. We certainly have no time nor desire to look at stats like this anyway.

Rather than follow that line Brad, you do realize that FB's FRIENDS/follow stuff is essentially exactly what is being talked about. Different name, same thing.

Or to put it another way, why does FB allow/show that for ANYONE (not just admins)? And CC does want to emulate FB right? Isn't that the whole premise behind WN?

Clearly there is no harm in showing this info - who is following (also a FB term) or who is interested in or who is a friend. Look at it from the opposite direction is what I'm saying here.

Curiosity is the primary motive for Profiles. This needs to be recognized as the underlying premise for any interested in CC in the first place. This is not a privacy thing at all.

(Oh yeah, CC has to implement the same tools available on FB too. That's sort of obvious .. maybe.)

Ok thanks Jack. There certainly have been a lot of positions on this issue over time.

There have been various positions, but I think the issue arose out of misstating this as a privacy issue and the methodology used so far.

Expanding visibility is NOT privacy in the sense of 'invading'. There are too many sites (besides FB) where this is pretty normal. This is a fair exchange of knowing who is following who. IOW no voyeurism.

As I explained, nothing on the CC site purports to hide anything from the admins. I'm actually advocating FULL visibility for both classmates and admins. Always seemed odd to me that it is one-way. That one-way thing is actually the problem

There are additional tools required to allow better control - again just like FB does - for individuals to both know who their 'friends' are or to not participate at all.

Last but not least, this makes it conform better to FB standards that CC already promotes. IOW it makes the transition smoother since the 'rules' are more closely aligned,

While I could understand why a classmate might want to know who's following them, and on Facebook it's just part of the FB experience, I also see how general access to that information might be unwelcome to some in our environment. Then again, as Jack says, it's pretty common elsewhere and when you join or log into other web sites you should assume that the site administrator has access to any information you're asked to supply or how you chose to configure your experience there.

My post #8 above is a request for admin access to any and all information in our sites which might help us, and allow us to help our members. I included a current example of how it would have been helpful.

As I pointed out, members know we have access to personal private information that is not available to other members, and most know or assume that we can edit that information when asked to do so. I don't see this as anything different than the other administrative tools we have.

There are additional tools required to satisfy everyone.

Here's some simple starter ideas:

1. Provide an option to disallow anyone to follow you.

2. If 1 is enabled, you also can't follow anyone else (a flaw that exists right now for comments)

3. Implement a full 'friends' system instead of 1+2.

Or any other ideas that are more fair than the current system - which I consider very unfair in that it's really a secret stalker system if you think about it.