Hey guys! The topic of Follow 4 Follow has been a hot topic for a while- but I wanted to hear different opinions for this- why or why not should F4F not be allowed?

I think it should be allowed (although discouraged). It'd be insanely hard to moderate all those “F4F plz!?” comments. And, really, although F4F requests can be annoying to those who prefer not to accept them, they just boil down to users following each other. While I don't do F4F, I don't really see a problem with it.


Also, not to be rude, but this forum is for suggestions to the Scratch Team. You might want to post this in another forum…
edit: oh, guess it got moved (or maybe i mixed up QaS and Suggestions)

I believe F4F isn't such as bad thing unless someone spams it on your profile. You could just report the user.

Charles12310 wrote:

I believe F4F isn't such as bad thing unless someone spams it on your profile. You could just report the user.

I agree- that is a really good point! A lot of people complain about it when they are spammed with the message, but dont do anything about it.

I think it should be discouraged. Spam is already not allowed and F4F can be spam..
I also think it defeats the purpose of Scratch.
But here's what I think is an acceptable version of F4F;

Nice user: Hi!
Me: Hi!
Nice user: Wanna be friends?
Me: Sure.
(we both follow each other)

This is an unacceptable version of F4F..

Annoying user: f4f
Me: Sorry, I don't do F4F.
Annoying user: F4F!!!!!!!
Me: I already said I don't do F4F.
Annoying user: FOLLOW ME NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1!!!!11 OR IM REPORTING U!!!!!!!!!!!11111!!!!!
Me: Calm down. I just said I don't do F4F. That's not reportable.
Annoying user: (continues raging and threatening me to follow them and then reports me)

Personally, I think there is nothing wrong with F4F. I don't do it though, as I only follow Scratchers for a reason.

F4F is fine when it doesn't get out of hands. If you don't like F4F, there is no reason to make the Scratcher who asked feel bad about it.

Good Way of Declining F4F.

1. F4F?

2. Sorry, but I don't do F4F.

Bad Way:

1. F4F

2. No. I don't know why all of you Scratchers keep asking me to do this. Just stop it!

Following users is intended to be an action to show interest in one's projects and receive notifications about them. Follow for follows are perfectly legal/allowed on Scratch, however it eliminates the intended purpose of following, instead just benefiting the number of followers both users have.

Most users want to know that their followers are interested in their projects, so that's why many users decline “follow for follows.”

I strongly doubt the main concern is spam, however:

LionHeart70 wrote:

I think it should be discouraged. Spam is already not allowed and F4F can be spam.

Another thing is that this example below:

LionHeart70 wrote:

Annoying user: f4f
Me: Sorry, I don't do F4F.
Annoying user: F4F!!!!!!!
Me: I already said I don't do F4F.
Annoying user: FOLLOW ME NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1!!!!11 OR IM REPORTING U!!!!!!!!!!!11111!!!!!
Me: Calm down. I just said I don't do F4F. That's not reportable.
Annoying user: (continues raging and threatening me to follow them and then reports me)

Should just be reported, ignored, or both.

Following is just meant to allow the user DOING the following to see what the other person is doing, and get notified about it. In a way, they are the ones benefiting from this. However, if you're just F4F-ing, then it's really pointless and doesn't benefit anyone unless both users actually like each others' content. Really, all you're doing is just increasing two numbers by one… Which is quite pointless and not helping anyone.

It doesn't get you popular, either.

I'm not a fan of F4F because sometimes you can be tricked. Someone asks “F4F?” and then you follow them, they follow you, and then they unfollow you. There should be a *Username* unfollowed you message.

just follow them back -_- its not a big deal just give them what they want and they leave u alone (its magical) and u also get a new follow anyways, so yeah.

 [*.·] when senpai notices you [·.*] :: #FFCAE0 

I don't do f4f, and I also don't like it.
Scratch isn't about fame, and I think you should earn your followers by making great projects, and not by asking for them everywhere. The reason I don't do f4f is that I don't want to help people get followers in a way that I don't support.
Also, I think that in rare cases, there is a reason to agree to f4f, but in most of the times you should not agree to a f4f request, and almost never request one yourself.
That's why I think f4f is something we mostly need to avoid.

Actually someone followed me and then asked on my profile F4F very recently. My account was just new and I wanted a fresh start (I have an old account). I wanted to start new and earn every single follower. So, I said sorry I dont do F4F. You can check at my profile if you want. I thought that it wouldnt make sense for me to F4F for someone that will probably not look at my projects if they just want F4F, and if I agreed I probably wouldnt either. I want my relationships with my followers to not be “Oh, hey! I just followed you because you followed me!”

Music_Berry wrote:

Actually someone followed me and then asked on my profile F4F very recently. My account was just new and I wanted a fresh start (I have an old account). I wanted to start new and earn every single follower. So, I said sorry I dont do F4F. You can check at my profile if you want. I thought that it wouldnt make sense for me to F4F for someone that will probably not look at my projects if they just want F4F, and if I agreed I probably wouldnt either. I want my relationships with my followers to not be “Oh, hey! I just followed you because you followed me!”

That is also a reason. But if there is something which is worse than f4f, it's people that follow you, and then ask you to follow them, and it seems that they will get really angry or sad if you will not follow them, and you fear you might even lose a follow if you don't agree. At the one time this heppened to me, I agreed, but this will not be how I will act if this will heppen to me again. (You can see this deep in my profile comments).

That is also a reason. But if there is something which is worse than f4f, it's people that follow you, and then ask you to follow them, and it seems that they will get really angry or sad if you will not follow them, and you fear you might even lose a follow if you don't agree. At the one time this heppened to me, I agreed, but this will not be how I will act if this will heppen to me again. (You can see this deep in my profile comments).

That has happened to me on my old account! The person that asked for F4F on my profile has not responded, but I was worried they would unfollow me for not following them back. It makes sense if some people take it to offense when you dont follow them back, but I think there are better ways to gain followers

Music_Berry wrote:

That is also a reason. But if there is something which is worse than f4f, it's people that follow you, and then ask you to follow them, and it seems that they will get really angry or sad if you will not follow them, and you fear you might even lose a follow if you don't agree. At the one time this heppened to me, I agreed, but this will not be how I will act if this will heppen to me again. (You can see this deep in my profile comments).

That has happened to me on my old account! The person that asked for F4F on my profile has not responded, but I was worried they would unfollow me for not following them back. It makes sense if some people take it to offense when you dont follow them back, but I think there are better ways to gain followers

I also think that you shouldn't ask for followers in most cases.

I think that the whole F4F thing is mostly used by people that dont have a lot of followers. And I fear that this motivates these people to instead focus on making amazing art or coding projects, they subject themselves to asking people to follow for follow with them.

Music_Berry wrote:

I think that the whole F4F thing is mostly used by people that dont have a lot of followers. And I fear that this motivates these people to instead focus on making amazing art or coding projects, they subject themselves to asking people to follow for follow with them.

I agree with every word. f4f is a bad tool, used only by the ones who don't know what scratch is really about.

yzyzyz wrote:

Music_Berry wrote:

I think that the whole F4F thing is mostly used by people that dont have a lot of followers. And I fear that this motivates these people to instead focus on making amazing art or coding projects, they subject themselves to asking people to follow for follow with them.

I agree with every word. f4f is a bad tool, used only by the ones who don't know what scratch is really about.

I'm not sure who started F4F, but I am certain that it was not someone that had lots of followers. (not to be rude) But take griffpatch for example. The fact that I can say his username and mostly everyone will know him proves he has lots of followers. I think he is top 3 for scratchers. But I am 100% sure that he does not do F4F. The thought of him doing it is ridiculous. The whole point of scratch is to make code and get more followers for the great coding projects you make. However, some people that ask me for F4F have literally 3-0 projects shared. The whole thing motivates them to do the opposite of what Scratch was meant for. I totally agree!

Griffpatch is 1st place in terms of followers. He doesn't do f4f. The user with the most followers that also does f4f is a user named f4f…

yzyzyz wrote:

Griffpatch is 1st place in terms of followers. He doesn't do f4f. The user with the most followers that also does f4f is a user named f4f…

well that doesn't make sense to me. Why would someone name their account f4f? It contradicts the whole point of Scratch!