Customer service email
- “how am i able to see who these subscribers are? it wont let me see who they are? im curious to know who my subscribers are.hope to hear from u”
- “Why can’t we see who is subscribed to us? I really want to know in case I have friends on here that I don’t know about. How can I see this list?”
- “I can see that 6 people are subscribed to me but cannot see who they are – could you let me know why that is please and also how I can find out who they are?”
- “I just started subscribing/friending other 43ers, and have noticed that 4 people have subscribed/friended me. But while I can see the names of those I subscribed to I cannot see who has subscirbed to my list. Why is that, and how can I find out who subscribed to my list.”
From our Facebook Page
The Robot Co-op 
Ugh, no, I don’t want to know who’s subscribed to me! I know it’s tempting and seems like a good idea, but knowing how nasty it can get when someone “unfriends” someone else on Facebook, I think it’s much more circumspect (and more fun) to keep it private. If you want to know who your subscribers are, you can ask – then people can disclose if they want to, and not if they don’t.
That’s been the Robots position for a long time too Absnasm, but we are being won over by the hundreds of requests we get each year to change this feature. From the day we released subscriptions, folks have asked for the ability to know who subscribes to them. And for 5+ years we told folks “that’s how it works and we aren’t changing it”. And over the years the volume of requests to make subscribers public have grown. It is by far the #1 feature request we get, and we hear it from old timers and new users too.
Still, like you, we liked how subscriptions work. And for years we’ve ignored the requests to change it. I think two things have changed our outlook: Fear & Change.
Fear: When someone tells us they don’t feel safe using 43 Things it really gets our attention. We’ve built the world’s largest goal setting community. Tens of thousands use the site to go public with their goals. It should be a place where people feel supported and encouraged. Not a place where people feel afraid. And one of the top reasons folks say that feel afraid on 43 Things is because of anonymous subscriptions and fear of being stalked. The site makes it easy to block people who harass you. But you can’t block the subscriber you don’t know is reading your every word. When someone in fear asks “why can’t I know who is subscribed to me?” – “Because that’s how we built it” is a pretty weak answer. It’s enough to make us listen with an open mind to people asking that subscriptions be public.
Change: Running a site like 43 Things for 7 years demands ability to change. But change is hard. We haven’t changed subscriptions for this long, because it is a big change and that means hard work and hard for a large community to adapt to. But in the 7 years we’ve been operating there has been a lot of change. We loved how we built subscriptions originally and we spent five years telling folks we weren’t going to change it, but peoples expectations on the web have change. When we built Subscriptions we modeled it after an RSS reader. No one knows what you subscribe to (we even let you fold in any old RSS feed). Today, when people think of subscribing to content, the dominant model has changed. It might be tumblr or flickr or Pinterest or Twitter and the model is generally who you follow and who follows you. And now, almost every day, we hear from people demanding to know who is subscribed to them because they expect a transparent system of seeing and being seen, rather than the secret subscriber system. Anyway, changing subscriptions isn’t a change we consider for the sake of change. We are working on the change because people’s expectations have changed and our 5 year old subscription system now generates more complaints than praise.
Sorry if this has become long and wordy, but the topic is important and the issues deeply touch 43 Things. What we end up doing with subscriptions is not yet decided. If the primary concern is some users of 43 Things don’t want to know who their subscribers are – we can design things so you don’t have to look if you don’t want to. But if the concern is that some users want to subscribe to folks without that subscription being visible – well I think that is the sort of “secret subscriber system” that we are considering trading in for more “daylight and transparency” around who is following whom.
When we have some decisions we’ll communicate them. We understand not everyone is happy with subscriptions now, and not everyone will be happy with changes, but we promise to listen to the feedback and keep using the sorts of thinking that have gone into the building of 43Things since 2004. Lastly, we understand, no matter how the subscriptions feature works, some folks will be unhappy with the result. We appreciate the concerns you are bringing up Absnasm, and we’ll try to incorporate them into how the feature works. But we also have a responsibility to follow our best judgment as the creators and stewards of 43Things.
Look, I don’t want to delete my account every time 50 subscribers refuse to tell me that they are subscribed to me.
It’s unhealthy to conceal a social connection with the person your choosing to connect with. Mature your nattering inclinations to gossip over bruised egos and let us see who is subscribing to us. At the very least, allow a setting to deny subscribing to a person.
Please don’t do this! I think it could cause all sorts of tensions, issues and upsets. I’d rather not know; some people make it obvious through their interactions and cheering…the rest…well, let them remain anonymous.
If you’re considering changes around subscribers…how about making it impossible for someone that you’ve blocked to continue to be subscribed to you or to read your posts under that account? THAT would be useful and desirable!
x
Lady Grinning Soul – I just checked the bug you report regarding blocked users staying subscribed. We couldn’t reproduce the error you are seeing.
When I was subscribed to someone and I block them, they are removed from my subscriptions. When I was subscribed to someone and they block me, they are removed from my subscriptions. When someone was subscribed to me and they blocked me, we both fell out of each others subscriptions.
There are a number of conditions to test and it’s hard to know who is subscribed to who when the data isn’t visible – I think that fear/confusion is behind many users wanting to know who is watching them. We get a new user email on this topic a few times a week.
If you’ve got an example of blocking not effecting subscriptions please send it to bugs@43things.com but at this point, we can’t reproduce the error.
Lastly, if users who prefer not knowing who is subscribed to them, I don’t imagine we’d force you to look. You can always not pay attention to that information, as you wish. But we are listening to the user requests from those who do want to know who is subscribed to them. Many people don’t want secret subscribers. We should be able to accommodate those who don’t want to know who subscribes, but not at the expense of those who do want to know their audience.
Thanks Josh…it was a misunderstanding on my part rather than a bug in your system.
As for the subscribers…really, all I can do is repeat what others have said; you can be stalked even if someone isn’t a member of 43T, I don’t see what difference it would make to know who is subscribed to you.
Also, I do appreciate this being up for discussion, rather than being presented as a fait accompli.
Noooooooo!
::deep breath::
Okay.
This is change I can adapt to.
It will be okay.
(((thank you SOOOOOO much for letting us know in advance!! I think I will actually like it better once I adjust… it’s just a big change from “the way things always have been”– you’ll be telling us all the cheer formula next!!)))
Thanks for the levity smartstuff! And the praise. We robots want to be good. We just aren’t always good at it.
We have weeks to talk this through and hopefully have a formulation that works – but I hope those (like us) who like subscriptions as it is, will hear their fellow 43 Thing’ers and work out solutions, not just opposition.
Again, the proposal at this point isn’t to force everyone to know who their subscribes are. It’s to let the subscription data be viewable by those who want to look.
Huzzah! This was one of my requests back in the days of ideas.43things.com. Right now there are a number of people subscribed to me that I know I’m not subscribed to because I don’t know they are subscribed to me. I can make assumptions based on who cheers me and who comments on my comments, but that isn’t fool-proof. I’ve wanted this kind of transparency since the initial days of subscriptions, so count me as a yes for this.
My concern about this is the current limitations that I (and others) encountered during the last change to the subscription feature. Back when it first launched it didn’t matter how many people you were subscribed to, your subscription pages showed them all and your recent entries by subscriptions pages worked. Then a change was made that broke the recent entries page because it was too much volume for the server to return an answerset. Additionally only the first 254 subscription icons showed up regardless of how many subscriptions you had. I hope that as you all are working on this you’ll figure out how to remove this limit because the other “social media” sites don’t break down at this low level of subscriptions.
Anyway thanks for letting us know that we may finally get this feature after years of asking. I’d be more than willing to help you test it out.
Todd. That’s pretty much what we get in customer service email. You folks have slowly worn us down.
Thanks for putting this out there for us to consider & comment on before it happens.
Personally, I believe that making our subscribers transparent would lead to various problems amongst members, including envy, competitiveness and feelings of being ‘less popular’ than others, which will then breed bad blood in the community – which is not what we’re all about here.
If going ahead with this is a must, perhaps you could find a way to make the subscriber info available ONLY to the member & not to everyone to view? That could possibly avoid some tensions.
I think starting with just the subscribee makes sense. Do you think treating subscriber data as transparent would be worse than having cheer data transparent? Do people feel unpopular or jealous when they see they are cheered less than others? Or get fewer comment?
Again, we have kept it as it is because we thought it worked OK. What do you think we should tell a fellow user when they say they it doesn’t?
Thanks for weighing in.
I have mixed feelings about this one. My knee-jerk reaction was no, I don’t want to know – in six years I’ve never felt the need to know who subscribes to me. Knowing there are some people out there who think I’m worth reading is a good feeling; worrying about who they are wouldn’t be. And plenty of people (though I’m not usually one of them) get a little hurt just seeing the number go down when they lose subscribers, and I can imagine it feeling worse if you can see exactly who it was.
Having said that, I do agree with the user comment about “friends that you don’t know about” – seeing who’s subscribed might be a good way of connecting with new people.
I also do hear what you said about safety, but I have to admit I’m having a very hard time reconciling that with some of the things you said during Buttongate – that people shouldn’t be posting things they don’t want others to read, and that anyone on the net can read what you post whether they’re a 43T user or not. I’m not sure how knowing whether someone is subscribed to you can protect you from a stalker, when your posts can be read by anyone who’s not logged in, or shared on social networking sites. But I don’t mean to drag that whole issue up again – just to point out that knowing someone’s *not* subscribed to you doesn’t mean they’re not still reading your every word.
If you do decide to make subscribers visible I would strongly urge you to have it hidden in some way, and also to avoid (or at least make opt-out-able) any kind of notification when someone subs or unsubs. That way you would have to actively choose to check if you notice your numbers have changed, rather than having it rubbed in your face.
One more thought, which is probably looking too far ahead, but I want to mention it while I think of it: if you do make subscribers visible, it seems a small step from there to people wanting to control whether someone *can* subscribe to them or not – like having to accept a friend request – which I think would be a real shame.
I really appreciate the advance warning on this, and the opportunity to give feedback before any change is implemented. Thank you! 🙂
When we explain that we don’t tell you who subscribes to you, we always say “the site is public. Anyone can read what you write already”. The follow up is typically, “I know, but subscriptions makes it easier to track my posts and why won’t you tell me.”
No plans to even consider “accepting” subscribers or any unsub notifications. Agreed these seem like bad ideas.
We are looking at this because we get so many requests for it. We built it how we thought it should work, so no one needs to convince us we got it right! But we don’t know what we should we tell the users who write in asking to know who subscribes to them, just like they know who comments and cheers.
Perhaps, when someone wants to know why they can’t see who’s subscribed, you can tell them it’s done that way to avoid any sense of a popularity contest?
I already don’t like seeing when “someone” unsubscribed as it makes me (briefly) feel like I did something wrong. Seeing who’s subscribed can make you feel obligated to reciprocate. If you are going to make it freely open, I’d rather you moved the info to somewhere you’d have to access on purpose, so while it is accessible info, it’s not something you see everytime you go to look at new entries.
We won’t make anyone look at who subscribes to them if they don’t want to.
If people are afraid of being stalked, they should keep in mind that anyone, ANYONE, can read all their posts at any time, without being subscribed to them. It is naive to think that your public posts are restricted to your subscribers. If that’s the driving reason for doing this, then you are giving them a false sense of security and privacy by revealing who their subscribers are.
I realize that you can never please everybody, but bear in mind that for all the complaints you may get, there are many people NOT complaining because they like the subscriptions just they way they are. My concern is the bad feelings that will be generated if people who subscribe to you find you’re not subscribed to them… then it becomes more of a social obligation to start subscribing to others’s posts, because you don’t want to offend them, rather than because you want to follow their content.
I personally don’t want 43T to be too transparent. Next, we’ll be hearing that we have to use our real names instead of usernames, because people are afraid of who might be hiding behind a user name!
We tell folks that there content is already public, but some people still want to know their subscibers. And no doubt subscriptions make it easier to follow people. Thats why we built the feature in the first place.
Comments and cheers are transparent but we’ve neve had people complain about the resulting social dynamics. But we hear all the comments on social pressure here and will take them into account.
I don’t know what to say about the prediction that youll have do something in the future that will make you like using 43 Things less. We are so focused on getting the present work done right we can’t even imagine all the things we might do wrong in the future. But it’s a good thing we weren’t total idits in the past or 43 Things wouldn’t be here to debate about.
Cool. Now I feel like a creep for being subscribed to people I’ve never talked to, and pressured to subscribe to people who are subscribed to me, lest they be offended. Thanks for turning 43T into every other social networking site.
Go Sarcasm!
You go ahead and feel like a pressured creep then. Others will continue to use the internet how it was intended…to connect people with others and with information. If you have no interest in making this public and sharing with others, go write it down on a scratch pad and post it on your fridge.
I don’t know how I feel about this, but thanks for telling us before you made the change. = )
Thanks Mindy.
I love the system as it is now… no need to change what is working.
Perhaps it could be possible to vote on this to see how many people really want the change?
We love it too. The only reason we are talking about a change is because it is he #1 reason write in and request a change to the site. We understand that many folks thin it ain’t broke, but try to understand others feel like it is not working.
That’s why we brought it up.
I’m sorry Josh, I really don’t get this…it seems you’re saying that because over time lots of people have said they don’t like the anonymity of the current subscription system then you are looking at changing it…but what about all the lots and lots of people who like it fine the way it is? Are you saying that we should regularly mail you to tell you about all the features we like in order to prevent them being changed?
Or, does this mean that if you do change this, if enough of us, over time, message you saying we hate it then you will change it back?
This may come across as me being snotty or something, but it’s not intended to…I genuinely don’t understand…
x
We didn’t build the site based on polling users about what they want and we don’t manage the site based on polling either. I have said that since we launched subscriptions years ago, requests to make subscriptions transparent, like cheers and comments, has been continuous. We listen to all requests and they influence our plans and we’ve ignored this request hundreds of times. And now we are considering it. I tried to address the 2 biggest reasons we are bringing up the idea of the change: it really creeps people out that anonymous users watch their every post, automatically, through our software, and two, peoples expectation about knowing their audience has changed. In the age of the RSS reader (when we created subscriptions) people accepted having an automatic anonymous audience. Today, many of people want to know who is there for lots of reasons: to say thanks, to find like minds, and simple because “they want to know”.
I think regular mail telling us how much you appreciate certain features would get our attention. We pretty much never get that sort of mail. The same is true for sending us mail about features you want changed. We definitely pay attention to mail that proposes new features or changes. We don’t get enough of those. But it has become pretty predictable that whenever we change the site some folks will say “don’t change the site”. We listen to the protests, the demands and the heartfelt pleas, but “no change” isn’t really a workable plan for our future. When “no change” comes with suggestions for making the site better, that is helpful.
Of those “two biggest reasons”, the first is something that, by your own admission, you can’t and don’t want to do anything about. You’ve said repeatedly that you want everything to be public. So there’ll never be any way to *stop* someone reading your posts anonymously – they don’t need to subscribe, all they have to do is bookmark your “Recent Activity” page, and you’ll never know they’re there. I know that you know this, so I don’t understand how that first reason has any bearing on the issue of subscriber visibility.
I’m baffled by the apparent inconsistencies in all this. You said here that you love the subscription system as it is, but you told me in the thread on 43T that your ideal is to have everything public except account data and messages. You said during Buttongate that since everything on the net is public it shouldn’t matter to us if our content was posted elsewhere without our knowledge, but you’re saying now that people’s fear of being read anonymously is important to you.
Please, help me understand.
If the problem is just that you have no ready explanation to give folks who wonder why they can’t see who’s subscribed, we can help with that. As I said earlier, it avoids the “popularity contest” vibe. As Tarrador and Abs said, it encourages you to work on and write about your goals naturally, without tailoring for an audience. It’s a mark of the difference between 43T and the typical shallow networking site. It’s just one tool out of many ways people use to keep up with their friends, so it doesn’t give an accurate representation of who’s reading you. Others can no doubt think of plenty more reasons.
Let me reiterate, since the above reads as if I’m strongly anti-visibility, that I can see both sides and I do believe that if you go ahead with it we will adjust. What concerns me much more is the us-against-them attitude that seems to be in danger of emerging, where 43Ters reflexively resist every change and the robots are dismissive of their users’ opinions and we’re all suspicious of each other’s motives. It shouldn’t be like that and I’d really like to find ways to work together better.
I notice that the 4 requests above are from your facebook page. I think that says something. I’m not sure if I’m a fan of this. There are people I follow that I’m not subscribed to and I would hate for them to be offended. Some people I subscribe to are people I rarely ever run into on the site because we don’t usually run in the same circle… I like to almost bookmark them…. I hope this doesn’t cause hurt feelings and problems in the community….
– The big image is from Twitter.
– The four text lines I cut and pasted from customer service emails
– The last image is from Facebook
They are labeled on the post. What does it say if people are asking for the change, publicly on twitter and Facebook and privately in email? I don’t get your point. But I hear you on the social dynamics.
Oh I am sorry. I wasn’t being clear. And let me first preface by saying that I know your job is not an easy one cyphering through so much opposing feedback! A lot of people on 43t are not on facebook and twitter because of certain dynamics… dynamics that cause “hurt egos” like the ones I listed above. I felt bad if I didn’t accept someone’s friend request on FB. Before I deleted facebook, I had people private message me asking me why I wasn’t accepting their friend request, not once, but twice and three times… ugh! Because I haven’t talked to you in 15 years… for a good reason! I know we don’t request friends here but the whole subscriber change will change the dynamic and I’m not sure it will in a positive way. The same type of ego driven behavior can occur here… I subscribe to you, why don’t you subscribe to me? Twitter and Facebook are very oddly ego driven places… friends and followers… popularity and fame..lol . I know we can see how many subscribers we have but it’s just some anonymous, faceless number. The type of ego based interactions loaded with guilt and hurt feelings are the things I think most people here are trying to avoid. I think that can easily start to happen here on this site…. or maybe not because there are so many more normal “cool” people here, hence why I’ve gravitated back here so heavily in the past 3 months! But I will say… with the last issue with sharing… a good number of the cool kids left… it was disappointing. Is this going to make me leave? Absolutely not. (The share buttons were about to.) I’m just reflecting on the potential bad that can come of it… so what’s the good that can come of it?? I know who is subscribed to me? OK. I guess if people aren’t feeling safe then that of course should take first priority. Safety vs egos? No question which is more important. But do a lot of people really not feel safe? Thanks for taking the time to read and listen to my response and I appreciate your feedback.
I don’t want this change. I don’t want to care about who is subscribed to me, and I don’t want to check. Sometimes I’m curious, but I don’t want to spend time looking at it or wondering, it’s not the purpose of the site FOR ME. I guess others want this, I definitely totally don’t.
I think it’s okay. There are people who really want/need this, and those of us who don’t. I’m definitely in the latter category, but I’ll just not look…:-)
Thanks for the heads up, much preferred. Mine is a big vote against, but not going to affect how I use the site.
We aren’t taking a vote but thanks for sharing your opinion. We won’t make anyone look at their subscribers but if that is the only concern we should be able to let those who want to know find out. The trouble is with users who want to subscribe anonymously. We probably won’t go forward with that.
To be clear 95% of requests we get come through CS mail. I included the tweet and the fb post because it struck me that people were making public appeals for the change (and also becaus I could point to them, while I can’t reprint private email). I do think many oeople who use those services think 43 things is broken or the link is hidden because they can’t imagine why we built it that way.
The good! The good for us iis from hearing people ask for something, listening, recognizing why things change, and keeping up with those requests. We don’t want to say “this is how it’s always been” if change could improve the site. The good for the requestor? Todd says why he wants it up above. I think most people “just want to know” and it bugs them we won’t tell them. So there’s some trust goodness the site could gain. Also depending on what gets designed, features could be built that helps people find people to follow based on the subscriber data. That could be discovery goodness for users who aren’t connected.
This may very closely resemble having a friend list like facebook except without a request and a denial process, yes? Will other people be able to see how many subscribers we have and who they are? Then it’s really going to be like facebook.
What if we don’t “like” who is following us… can we delete them? Or what do we do, block them? I’m lucky here I’ve never had to block anyone… how awkward if it’s someone I just don’t agree with politcally, or socially, or religiously or whatever, is following me and reading what I’m writing… I wonder if I’ll now feel the need to censor what I’m writing for my audience… right now, I don’t know who my audience is so it’s very freeing to just write. I guess I don’t ever have to look at the subscriber list but well… it’s like trying not to picture a white elephant… what are you picturing now?
Ok, forgive me, but I’m calling Bullshit on this one fellas.
“Fear: When someone tells us they don’t feel safe using 43 Things it really gets our attention.”
Really? Does it? See, I know it sounds good to say, but come on now, who are we fooling? You’re NUMBER 1 complaint over the years, is that there is NO privacy here. Lack of Privacy leads to people being *afraid* to post. Yet somehow that one always seems to fall on deaf ears, and is typically met with a rather smug “Well we never *said* this site was private, you’re using the site the WRONG way.”
Now, it’s your site, run it anyway you like, I won’t argue that. But spare me (us) this patronizing bullshit about this move being about your concern for your users fears.
Now, lets go over your numbers here a bit, shall we? You tout time and again the many tens of thousands of users you have on here. In fact, scroll up a little bit and theres this comment “Tens of thousands use the site to go public with their goals” Tens of thousands. Being conservative that means you have at least 20,000 users. Now, lets look at this comment… “we are being won over by the hundreds of requests we get each year”
Um…hundreds? Really? Out of tens of thousands, you have *hundreds* complain, each year..? Lets be generous, and say you get 500 complaints on this a year (cause you know if you were anywhere NEAR a thousand you’d have said “We get almost 1000 complaints each year…”)
Sooo, that breaks down to, what? .025% of your userbase? Mind you, thats not 25%, thats 2.5.
I’d be willing to bet you’ll get a higher percentage rate of complaints against this on this one thread alone than that.
But hey, like I said, it’s your website, do with it what you will. We’ve all seen how well that worked for our friend “Tom”:http://www.myspace.com/tom
You created a website called 43things. Your users created the CULTURE
Charming as usual Joey. We didn’t create the culture of obscenity, insult or sarcasm. But you are one user who did with this unhelpful take on a conversation about a proposed change. Lots of folks have shown some gratitude for having an open dialogue on the topic.
A couple facts. 50% of the co-op are women. Calling females “fellas” is inaccurate & uncool. We have more than 3 million accounts and more than 50K visitors a day. So you can add some zeros to your %. But you are wrong if you don’t think that is the #1 user request and you are wrong if you believe your assertion that people ask us often to make a public site about goals into a private discussion area. But you’ve already called us out as bullshitters, so why listen to liars?
Ok, listen , if you’re going to feign (I know, tough word, right? here’s a “link”:http://www.thefreedictionary.com/feign) offense to my oh-so-obscene language, don’t use it in your own reply. I find your doing so to be offensive and obscene.
Next, if you’d like, I’d be more than happy to add a few zero’s to my number.
0.000025% sound about right then?
Now, for the fun. Your argument about this being about fear has been discredited several times by the fact that anyone can bookmark a users recent activity page. Yet you’ve *completely* avoided answering that.
Your claim that this is about the sheer velocity of requests for it (in light of you correcting my math…) just seems silly now, doesn’t it? (It does.)
Your claim that this is an open discussion has been discredited by you personally, when you opted to insult your users who’s views differed from your own, rather than address their concerns (see Evie, Sylive, beauty, newsurfergirl, sky, etc…)
I will however concede _this_ statement to be true “We didn’t create the culture of obscenity, insult or sarcasm.”
You’re right on that one, there was no _we_ behind it. That one was all you big guy, and I’d hate for the rest of the bots to get unfairly included in that (because as you’ve pointed out, they’re clearly an EXTREMELY sensitive bunch, who are offended when people are unable to determine their gender from the androgynous [hope you saved the link from above!] title they give themselves, “bots” , and instead call them the most heinous, sexist, bigoted world in the _world_… “fella’s”)
Lastly, I may be wrong about the number one complaint you _receive_, cause I’m not a bot. I don’t get your email. But I am a _user_. And as a user, time and again I come across post after post lamenting the lack of security here. And I know, you’re going to ask where are all these posts, that you don’t see them anywhere. I know. I wouldn’t expect you to, you’re not a 43t’er. (I’d tell you use the search function, but we all know how well _That_ algorithm works, right? )
But hey, you’ve already proven we’re just a product, so why listen to users..?
Just because you CAN, does not mean you SHOULD!
Just stick with things the way they were. Opening up this kind of info will unavoidably trigger unpleasantness in many forms. The bad will outweigh the good – plus, FB will end up losing a pile more members.
Wouldn’t fewer fb users be good?
Yay! There’s a picture of my eyeball :).
I personally don’t see why it would be a big issue to know who your subscribers are, unless of course you’re one of those people that anonymously like to stalk others. If you’re one of those people then you could always bookmark a persons page and stalk them later, since profiles on 43things can be publicly viewed whether you actually are a user on the site or not. I’m just curious to see who my “fans” are. It feels nice to know that people find you interesting enough to follow, maybe they’re just as interesting and you could become friends from knowing them and their goals. Who knows, it just makes it a little less creepy.
Thanks for claiming your eyeball and flushing out your request.
At the moment, I’m undecided how I feel about this though I very much appreciate being asked about it beforehand- thanks! 🙂
On one hand, I would like to know who is subscribed to me, so that I can subscribe to them. However, I can see the envy/jealousy/competition issues it would create. While we’re all supposed to be “adults”, it doesn’t mean everyone is mature. Even the most mature and self assured person can be hurt when someone who’s subscribed to them ditches and they know exactly who that person is. They may go and unsubscribe from that person, even though they wanted to be subscribed to them, purely because they revoked their subscription. (Which would hurt the whole community aspect of 43things, in my opinion)
For those who aren’t mature enough to handle it, it might cause more harassment/stalking issues for those who want to “punish” the person who no longer wants to be subscribed to them.
While I’m sure it’s not something that would be done by all, or even a majority, of your users…it’s something that’s worth bearing in mind I think. Especially, seeing as the bots are often called on to deal with harassment issues. It might answer one ‘problem’ (lots of requests for this feature) but it might cause more irritating issues down the line.
(Again, just something to keep in mind)
Just out of curiosity… (tangentially related)
While we know that 43things is a public site, privacy issues have come up again and again. Whether it’s about stalkers, or harassment, etc.
If we now know who our subscribers are…in the future, will we have the option to pick and choose our subscribers? (Right now we can block a person and they then can’t be a subscriber, but would we be able to say ‘no’ to a subscribee without blocking them entirely?…You may wonder what the difference is as they can see our content anyways, but I think there’s a big difference between someone being able to see my content if they actively search for it vs. being subscribed to it and having it be in their feeds)
Might we, someday, see an option to tag our entries as “for subscribers only” or “for my eyes only”?
(Just curious)
Thanks again for the heads up
(Although, is there a way to get the blog updates e-mailed to us? I think a lot of us would like to ‘subscribe’ (pun intended) to that)
Thanks for the thoughtful reply and suggestions.
We would keep blocking as it is and I don’t think we’d ever have any sort of “OK” the subscriber.
We’ve actually heard from old-timers (one is saying they don’t want this now) who have asked us to tell them who was subscribed because they were concerned about being “followed” by an alias account of a blocked user. (Confusing right?) This would be a self-service issue if they could have handled on their own and the “stalker” might not be willing to subscribe in the first place if they knew they’d just get blocked. So from a harassment issue, getting rid of secret subscribers ought to help out – but thanks for pointing out the risks.
Discussing proposed changes is awesome when commenters make suggestions and engage in dialogue. It’s terrible when it is just “No” and worse when that is followed by insults. So thanks for your post.
Oh No!!!!
Just what are you guys trying to do. First ‘buttongate’, and now this. The social implications of this have been voiced above and I for one think it is a Very Bad Idea. Since ‘buttongate’ I have reduced my use of 43T as the heart and soul have been ripped away and it is just so fast becoming just another social networking site.
The things that always made 43T so different and so special are gradually being winkled away, and I’m only a gnat’s whisker form being out of here.
Next up I guess you’ll tell us how cheers work !! Or we get as many cheers as we can use.
Silvie
Well, you can hardly expect us to give a lot of weight to someone with only a gnat’s whisker level of commitment to 43 Things but thanks for stopping by. It’s always funny to me when someone threatens to delete their account if they don’t get their way. Who wants to cater to people who care so little about the site they delete their account. Seriously, if you think the heart and soul of the site have been removed from 43 Things, why are you still here.
Constructive suggestions are great. Insults and drama can exit through the side door.
PS I’ve sent you the cheers algorithm privately, just to mess with you. Kidding!
What would you tell a user who ask for this info? “I dont want to know. So you can’t know either?”
You guys aren’t big on P.R. in this blog, are you? I can appreciate that you prefer to get positive and constructive feedback, but I would ask you to bear in mind that people who comment here are those who care enough to comment. Perhaps sometimes people’s reactions are more knee-jerk reaction when they right, and express the depth of their emotions on the subject. But part of public relations is to respond to user comments with tact and diplomacy. Obviously, there are people with strong feelings on both side of this subscriber question, and both are entitled to express their opinions and feelings, are they not? If you’re not going to “give a lot of weight” to someone who is expressing a high level of unhappiness with the direction the changes on 43T are taking, then why bother letting people comment here? If you find some of the comments here to be not to your liking, I must say I find your responses to be even more so!
Ok, so maybe I should have made myself more clear. Check my account and you’ll see that up to buttongate I was a very avid user and lover of your site, it has given me a lot of joy and I have made a lot of friends – so I am very grateful for that. But that all seems to be in the past now. It is why I CARE SO MUCH FOR THE SITE that I posted here. You may not be aware of the effect this has had – people are not now posting as they were, the community has changed along with the changes to the site. I am not against change, but it seems to me that you were not aware of what you had, and seem determined to make changes that move you towards being some sort of FB clone and away from the rather special niche market you had. I understand that niche markets do not make so much money and maybe you need to chase the $$ to survive but it all seems so sad that it is at the loss of something that used to be so much more.
It was not a threat to delete…I know that carries no weight with you, mine is just one account after all, within many…I was just stating how I feel. So I apologise for the rant. The dust is still settling after button gate, we still feel sore.
Silvie
Dear joshp100,
Long-term users are here because they have invested so much of their time and soul and are bound by friendships they have developed. You can choose to preserve the environment that would encourage users to stay, or you can lose them by treating them as insignificant numbers… “one in 3,000,000, who cares?” I find that, quite frankly, insulting. My opinion may not matter to you, that’s fine with me… but for what it’s worth, I think you should apologize to Silvie.
I’m sorry it has come to this. I really am. But after this series of how site-owners have treated users, I don’t feel like contributing anymore. It’s not a threat, mind you… it’s more my loss than yours. So long.
Nooo! I really would prefer that this change not take place. It’s been a fun goal for many of us for a long time now [i.e.: find out who is subscribed to me.] If you make this available, this goal immediately disappears. I agree with many of the aforementioned comments in regards that this change will alter the site to feel like Facebook or any of the other social networking sites. The great appeal of 43things in the first place, is that it has always been different. Please consider not making this change!!!
***Joey, you’re post is fabulous, by the way 😉 Haha.
If you like Joey’s form of dialogue, ’nuff said. I guess I should insert obscenities and slanders to make it emphatic.
You could always change the goal to “Find out who’s subscribed to me without looking”.
Wouldn’t that defeat the purpose? I don’t want to change my goals. That’s the sites intent, no?
Hiya! I’m on the undecided list, not that it really matters – just thought I’d put it out there. I may have missed it in your entry explaining the issue, sorry if that’s the case, but my subscription list would be visible only to me, is that correct?
As others have said, thank-you for the heads up. Appreciated.
Why I welcome this change: There has been someone who has stalked me on this site. It was a very creepy thing. If she had an account, I did not know about it. It is possible she did create an account, and never remarked on any of my entries. Through the creation of an account, she would then be able to subscribe to my feed. I believe we ought to know who is following us. And be able to block someone who is unwelcome. I believe that a blocked person should not be able to view us, as they can now. Just my opinion.
I have to say that I would not like for subscribers to be revealed. People can stalk you and read your posts whether they are subscribed to you or not. I read posts alot of people I am not subscribed too. Knowing who is subscribed to you is not going to keep someone from pulling up your name and reading your entries anyway.
I know that I am not subscribed to every one who is subscrbed to me (becasue the numbers are not equal) and if you start revealing names, peoples feelings are going to start gettin hurt. (Hippiechick doesn’t think I am interesting enough to subscribe too etc)
Also, people are complaining about lack of privacy and loss of anomity are going to have even less privacy if it is revealed who we are all subscribing too. I really love 43T just the way it is. I actually hate Facebook and feel that subscriber revelation takes us one step closer to being Facebook. Frankly I pretty much already know who is subscribed to me based on who cheers me and who comments on my entries.
Pleae reconsider. I really do treasure 43T and don’t see myself leaving over something like this, but I sure would like it a lot less. 43T is pretty perfect just the way it is.
I favor the “secret subscriber” format that used now. It relieves me of some pressures of expectation to slant my posts towards a certain audience. Making it a numbers thing vs a “collection of friends” might even help me remain more fixed on my goals instead of catering to like-minded goals based upon who is subscribed to me. To that degree, a RSS-theme like you have now makes sense.
However, I can see how people would want to know who their subscribers are. I have XX number of subscribes, and that far outnumbers the number of people I am personally subscribed to. I sometimes wonder if I accidentally ignore a faithful follower of my posts. Also, it enhances the sense of community, knowing who is following you, and could help create and build friendships. (And I’m sure on my behalf there will be no hiding subscibers in the closet, never looking to see who is subscribed. I know I will check it out if it is available.)
Of course the converse it true, too. If I drop a subscription to someone right now they don’t know who dropped or why. With subscribers being visible, it could cause the kind of hurt feelings and misunderstandings that mirror the Facebook “friend and un-friend” situation that I see many people take very personally. Or, why does someone subscribe to me, but never cheers me? Should I subscribe back to them the minute they subscribe to me? How motivational is it so have 50 subscribes, all of whom I can see are inactive? Is is creepy to be spotted subscribing to someone after they post a sex-theme article? A visible subscriber list somehow makes me fee more beholden to those subscribers, as opposed to people who just cheer or comment.
Since I am not worried about stalkers or miscreants following me, I don’t have the same security concerns others here might. But frankly I can effectively “subscribe” to folks anyway, just by searching for their names and threads, without ever officially subscribing. I can follow them every bit as effectively, and comment as well, never letting them know they are being “watched”. This is the same basic argument as the “Like and Share” business we experienced here a few months ago. I don’t need to subscribe to follow you, and you will never know I am following you unless I subscribe. But if I do subscribe, knowing you can see me, it comes across as more of an affirmation of you and your goals, and more supportive, I would hope.
The best thing about the annonymous subscribers is the sense of mystery that comes with writing insular thoughts for an unidentified audience. That can be a bit thrilling, I think.
Right on the money. I completely agree with this post. 🙂
P.S. Also agreeing with what Madam Ish said above on diplomacy (reply option on that is missing). Snark for snark is never a good look and doesn’t help turn the tide in your favor if your overall goal is to nix the Us vs Them vibe you have going at current.
Great entry, Tarrador, you make some really good points here, particularly about the pressure to write for an audience and how having an unknown audience creates an atmosphere of freedom which promotes honesty in writing.
You also make a great point about subscribing to people who write NSFW-themed articles. I’m not sure if they’re planning on making other people’s subscription details visible, or if it’s going to be a personal thing (only I can see who subs to me), but I would not open up the contents of my Google Reader to the rest of the world, and similarly who I follow on 43T is no business of the rest of the site either.
Good point Abs. There are people who do make NSFW entries that I’m subscribed to and I would not want their stuff to be seen by people who aren’t into that stuff. From what Josh has shared though I don’t believe the subscribers will be visible to anyone but the person subscribed to them. I remember when cheers first were opened up on the profile page where everyone could now see who you cheered and who has cheered you. Some of us actually were just typing in the URLs of other people’s cheer pages before this in order to see it. When I go to subscriber pages using URLs it will only give me my own, and that’s the way it should remain. Having the ability to look at other people’s subscriptions would create bad blood and animosity where some people would wonder why someone is subbed to someone else and not them or comparing my sub list is bigger than your sub list when we all know it’s the motion in the ocean that matters.
And for the record, I’ve been subbed to you since 2006.
Random thoughts:
I am subscribed to a small number of people, and the people to whom I’m subscribed to are often not regulars at all. I’ll subscribe to newbies with goals I’m interested in, or others who are on the site only a couple times a year. People who are big site users I’ll see around anyway; no need to subscribe to those people.
If my subscriber list becomes visible to the general public, my instinct will be to unsubscribe to those few who are regular users, just to make it clear that I’m only subscribing to the relatively obscure.
Another thought – there have been people who I subscribed to, and then quit, many because it was like drinking from the firehose. When page after page after page of messages are from just one person who you’re subscribed to, all the other posts are sort of lost in the flood. You tend to not look at your subscriptions at all – or, unsubscribe to those people. I would imagine that these are also the people who’d be offended that you unsubscribed from them.
I will say now: I hope no one would be unhappy that I am not subscribed to them, and probably will continue not to subscribe to them. I’ll still read your entries and comments – just not through subscription. Just like I do now.
Why I’d like to see the list of subscribers – while it’s been a long time since I’ve looked at my number of subscribers, the last time I did, I think I had about twice as many subscribers as subscriptions. I suspect that a lot of my subscriptions are from dormant accounts. It would be interesting to me to verify that.
I see this goal all the time, so it does seem that people want to know. On the other hand, I can understand the benefits to it being secret (no pressure to reciprocate, no pressure to gear your posts to a certain audience).
On the other hand, we can just *decide* not to be offended if someone doesn’t reciprocate on a subscription, and we can just *decide* to speak our minds as we always have done without catering to anyone. If my posts don’t resonate with you, why would I *want* you to follow me? So I can annoy you and bore you? So for the record, peeps, if I subscribe to you and you don’t subscribe back, I won’t be offended!
You can add me to the “undecided” list (if you’re even taking notes, that is, LOL!). I don’t feel as strongly about this as I did about the buttons, though I see that many do and don’t want to invalidate their concerns.
I keep looking for a cheer button for these comments :o) Cheer for “deciding not to be offended”.
LOL! I kept looking for cheer buttons, too!
Dear Robots,
I would prefer that you didn’t make subscriptions visible.
But if you’re going to make a change, I do appreciate your mentioning it to us in advance.
=CCC=
It seems funny to me that if you are receiving so many requests for this feature, that the majority of reponses here are against it and really in support of the way the subscribers system already works. (Which you say you prefer) I understand both points of view but personally I prefer it the way it is. I don’t want to worry about offending people I enjoy reading and I would probably be affected more if I knew someone who was subscribed to me unsubscribed was someone I had read alot of. I also don’t always subscribe to people but keep up with their entries through various methods like Ziegiest, cheers and comments, sometimes I will search for them if I haven’t seen them in a while.
Your comments about listening to concerns when people mention fear also seemed a bit ironic to me also because many people had raised their fears about the “buttons” being added to the site but this did not stop you from adding them. Yes I appreciate that you did make changes to the way they were going to be displayed (and I much prefer the way they are now) but you did still add them to the site despite these fears being raised.
As for the change thing yes change can be difficult but we are all changing each and everyday we come here and post about our goals and the things that are important to us. Will knowing our subscribers change the way we post, for some no, for others possibly, for many yes. Is this a good thing for 43things? Considering how many friends we lost during the button fiasco I am not sure it is. Do what you have to do but please don’t make it possible for others to see who we subscribe to and who subscribes to us, just make it between the subscribee and the subscriber.
I hope you are coming to realize that the users of this site like this site because it is different to other sites out there and that is why they are so passionate about these things. I love this site and it has helped me grow and change in so many positive ways I would hate to see that change due to all the adjustments that keep happening. Thank you for letting us give you feedback prior to the introduction of these changes. I hope that whatever you decide it doesn’t change the magic of this site too much more.
Re. Why there are lots of “don’t change the site” comments on here? Most are from folks on the “post random questions” goal and their subscribers, so let’s not be too confused about who is here. It’s pretty much the same crowd from buttongate, right? How many of the commentators do you “know”? I’m not saying that discounts the validity of the comments, but lets not pretend like most of us on this comment thread haven’t met before and all those other people who aren’t here don’t exist. The birthday list is a pretty exclusive club in the scheme of 3 million accounts.
It’s “pretty much the same crowd from buttongate” because we are the people who care. For the record, I personally don’t interact regularly with close to three-quarters of the above commenters, and there are a couple of names I don’t even recognise. I fail to see what any goal that some of them may have in common has to do with the current issue, and I’m offended at the suggestion that this is a clique thing.
Daring to raise my head here again. Thick skinned fool that I am…
The people posting on here (and button gate) are the people who regularly use the site on a day to day basis and interact regularly on the site. And as Evie points out – the people who care. Don’t forget the 80.20 rule – 80% of the posts will be made by 20% of the users, and they are your main customers you should be listening to, and I would reckon are the ones posting here.
I too am offended by the ‘clique’ argument. Out of all the people who have posted here only one is on my subscribee list. (Of course I have no idea now many are on my subscriber list ;))
Just so you know, Josh… I don’t know a ton of people on this list here and I also don’t play in the random question game. This is a valid concern not a group of regulars as you seem to hint although, the one thing that does indeed bring this group here is concern for the integrity of the site! We love this site! I think maybe I “know” or subscribe to one or two people on this list here from prior to this post. I was also vocal when you were considering changing the share options.
What’s the birthday list???
I really really get so much from this website. I want to continue enjoying this social networking site for what it is!!! I don’t want it to resemble any other site…. I’m here because of it’s good nature… I’m afraid of it turning sour.
I’ve said my peace. I know I have no vote in this matter anyway.
One thing that struck me about Buttongate was the fact that there were so many names I did not even recognize, and I’m a regular user. It was not limited to one “exclusive club.” Let’s not be too confused about *that*.
As for the “same crowd” responding to this, from 43Things blog in response to Buttongate:
“Many of these ideas on the list come from the requests we get from users of 43Things, others are our own ideas. We’ll update the blog before we make a major change to the site. We’ll listen to any feedback about the ideas, or the features as they get implemented, but I don’t want to give anyone the impression that we can always produce a change to 43Things that will please everyone. But as before, we do promise to listen and make changes based on feedback. And in the immortal words of Feargal Sharkey: “Here comes the summer!””
I suppose many of the people who read that interpreted it as an invitation to give feedback… Lest you think that feedback is only offered when it’s negative, I will point out that I, for one, recently went out of my way to offer positive feedback on one of the changes.
Regardless of the unfortunate tone it sometimes takes (on both sides), I do appreciate that there is actual response from real people on 43 Things, something that is almost impossible to get on other websites.
(For the record, birthdays are celebrated whenever someone notices the date on someone’s About Me section. There’s no list or exclusivity involved.)
I am not one of the “folks on the post random questions goal” and never once have I had my birthday celebrated here. In answer to the question about how many of the people do I know, very few actually. I don’t usually jump on the bandwagon about things but I did with the facebook thing because it was something I felt strongly about. I also felt strongly enough about this issue too. I feel strongly about this issue because I love the site and the way it works now. I have not complained about other changes because I felt they would be good for the site and the way it works. I do appreciate the work you all put into the site (which is why I have sent cards during the holiday exchange to you all) but I don’t appreciate the attitude that is being shown towards the users when they disagree with what you have to say, especially when you say you are opening it up for discussion. If that is how you feel about the people who use the site I am not sure it is still the right place for me. By the way thanks for the response.
Hi Josh,
I’m one of the few that wouldn’t mind seeing who is subscribed. Curiosity, ego, potential friendships, whatever, let’s just say I’m nosey. I also wouldn’t mind if it stayed as it is.
I would hope that folks would not get their feelings hurt if I subscribed and later “un”. I’m just busy with a job, a business and a man. If I subscribed to everyone that I found interesting, here, it would take most of my day, reading it. Nothing would get done. So, I bounce around a bunch and assume others do the same. I would not slant my ramblings to a certain audience. I would assume that they are subscribed because I am who I am. I have no fear of stalkers because…..well… I’m a lunatic. Popularity is not an issue for me.
Thank you for posting this and listening to the feedback. I’m happy with your Buttongate compromise. I appreciate your efforts to please everybody. It takes a lot of work and it also takes a lot of patience to deal with the “pita”s WE all know WE can be. The only complaint I have now is that blasted cheer fairy.
If it ain’t broke…I suppose you’ve got to break it so you can fix it. I’ll change the way I subscribe when you do this and I suspect some of my subscribers will, too. So it goes. For the record, I prefer the availability of anonymity in both directions.
Me personally (replying form my Mizunogirl word press account- It’s Trauma_Junkie!)
I don’t care who my subscribers are (though I do love them!). I seem to have a lot( 272 people.) I have an idea who some of them are, and then others are a complete mystery. I personally love it. and I like when people have the goal of finding out who their subscribers are, though it will never be one of my goals.
BUT, I suppose in the interest of fairness, it does seem to drive tons of people crazy not to know, so I can get over it.
I do find it funny that 272 people are subbed to me and I have managed to sub to errr, 9.
I do miss the fun I had way back when on 43things, but the times are changing.
I have recently been using 43things to document my recovery from Hip surgery which has been horrible, and I’ve really been reminded that at the core, it is still pretty much the same.
Thanks for letting us in on things Robots, if you are ever in Florida, I’ll buy you a cup of coffee, and a Donut King Donut.