My browser / operating system: ChromeOS 14541.0.0, Chrome 129.0.0.0, No Flash versions detected
If you've been on Scratch since the November 1 maintenance (10:30 pm EDT) and looked at the followers section on someone's profile, you might've noticed that it now shows their first followers at the front. What I've gathered from community members and some forum posts, this is not a bug, but a feature. You might be about to ask “how is that supposed to help?” well it's supposed to speed up the servers. Say @griffpatch as an example, I've noticed he gets roughly 20-30 followers an hour, and every time a user is followed it sends a request to the server to update the page. Now that the followers are flipped, it doesn't have to update the page with the new follower's PFP and username, therefore giving the server less to do on top of everything else.

I will gladly correct anything incorrect here on request if something is inaccurate.

The_Real_Coderdash wrote:

(#1)
Say @griffpatch as an example, I've noticed he gets roughly 20-30 followers an hour, and every time a user is followed it sends a request to the server to update the page. Now that the followers are flipped, it doesn't have to update the page with the new follower's PFP and username, therefore giving the server less to do on top of everything else.

I'm pretty sure it actually works the other way around. I'll try to give a more accurate explanation based on info I could gather:
Every time a user visits someone's profile page, the server has to render the Following/Followers rows, and to do that it has to fetch the list of followers from the Scratch database.
The old “last follower first” order requires the database to sort the user's list of followers, which can be quite resource-intensive (especially since database resources are not cheap). The current “flipped” order is most likely actually an unsorted order, meaning the database doesn't have to sort it at all, which is faster.

CST1229 wrote:

The_Real_Coderdash wrote:

(#1)
Say @griffpatch as an example, I've noticed he gets roughly 20-30 followers an hour, and every time a user is followed it sends a request to the server to update the page. Now that the followers are flipped, it doesn't have to update the page with the new follower's PFP and username, therefore giving the server less to do on top of everything else.

I'm pretty sure it actually works the other way around. I'll try to give a more accurate explanation based on info I could gather:
Every time a user visits someone's profile page, the server has to render the Following/Followers rows, and to do that it has to fetch the list of followers from the Scratch database.
The old “last follower first” order requires the database to sort the user's list of followers, which can be quite resource-intensive (especially since database resources are not cheap). The current “flipped” order is most likely actually an unsorted order, meaning the database doesn't have to sort it at all, which is faster.

Yeah that's what I was trying to explain but I must've worded it wrong, thanks

Hello ST, I have found a bug on everyone’s account and my followers are flipped, please fix this before it is too late! I thought I was hacked!

-bear1876

bear1876 wrote:

Hello ST, I have found a bug on everyone’s account and my followers are flipped, please fix this before it is too late! I thought I was hacked!

-bear1876

read the posts before you reply

The_Real_Coderdash wrote:

bear1876 wrote:

Hello ST, I have found a bug on everyone’s account and my followers are flipped, please fix this before it is too late! I thought I was hacked!

-bear1876

read the posts before you reply

OHHHHHHHHHH OK THX!

Temp sticky, will pull down in about a month or so when the word is fully out.

{EDIT: Also did tiny tweak to the forum title so the topic is more clear}

cheddargirl wrote:

Temp sticky, will pull down in about a month or so when the word is fully out.

YO THANKS FOR STICKY

The_Real_Coderdash wrote:

My browser / operating system: ChromeOS 14541.0.0, Chrome 129.0.0.0, No Flash versions detected
If you've been on Scratch since the November 1 maintenance (10:30 pm EDT) and looked at the followers section on someone's profile, you might've noticed that it now shows their first followers at the front. What I've gathered from community members and some forum posts, this is not a bug, but a feature. You might be about to ask “how is that supposed to help?” well it's supposed to speed up the servers. Say @griffpatch as an example, I've noticed he gets roughly 20-30 followers an hour, and every time a user is followed it sends a request to the server to update the page. Now that the followers are flipped, it doesn't have to update the page with the new follower's PFP and username, therefore giving the server less to do on top of everything else.

I will gladly correct anything incorrect here on request if something is inaccurate.

Finally

The_Real_Coderdash wrote:

My browser / operating system: ChromeOS 14541.0.0, Chrome 129.0.0.0, No Flash versions detected
If you've been on Scratch since the November 1 maintenance (10:30 pm EDT) and looked at the followers section on someone's profile, you might've noticed that it now shows their first followers at the front. What I've gathered from community members and some forum posts, this is not a bug, but a feature. You might be about to ask “how is that supposed to help?” well it's supposed to speed up the servers. Say @griffpatch as an example, I've noticed he gets roughly 20-30 followers an hour, and every time a user is followed it sends a request to the server to update the page. Now that the followers are flipped, it doesn't have to update the page with the new follower's PFP and username, therefore giving the server less to do on top of everything else.

I will gladly correct anything incorrect here on request if something is inaccurate.

better question? why is the following thing based on account age?

galaxii_protogen wrote:

The_Real_Coderdash wrote:

My browser / operating system: ChromeOS 14541.0.0, Chrome 129.0.0.0, No Flash versions detected
If you've been on Scratch since the November 1 maintenance (10:30 pm EDT) and looked at the followers section on someone's profile, you might've noticed that it now shows their first followers at the front. What I've gathered from community members and some forum posts, this is not a bug, but a feature. You might be about to ask “how is that supposed to help?” well it's supposed to speed up the servers. Say @griffpatch as an example, I've noticed he gets roughly 20-30 followers an hour, and every time a user is followed it sends a request to the server to update the page. Now that the followers are flipped, it doesn't have to update the page with the new follower's PFP and username, therefore giving the server less to do on top of everything else.

I will gladly correct anything incorrect here on request if something is inaccurate.

better question? why is the following thing based on account age?

I actually don't know.

galaxii_protogen wrote:

(#10)

better question? why is the following thing based on account age?

The Following row seems to be ordered based on account ID. I assume this is also some unsorted order, but not based on the order you followed the user because of some weird database quirks?

CST1229 wrote:

The_Real_Coderdash wrote:

(#1)
Say @griffpatch as an example, I've noticed he gets roughly 20-30 followers an hour, and every time a user is followed it sends a request to the server to update the page. Now that the followers are flipped, it doesn't have to update the page with the new follower's PFP and username, therefore giving the server less to do on top of everything else.

I'm pretty sure it actually works the other way around. I'll try to give a more accurate explanation based on info I could gather:
Every time a user visits someone's profile page, the server has to render the Following/Followers rows, and to do that it has to fetch the list of followers from the Scratch database.
The old “last follower first” order requires the database to sort the user's list of followers, which can be quite resource-intensive (especially since database resources are not cheap). The current “flipped” order is most likely actually an unsorted order, meaning the database doesn't have to sort it at all, which is faster.

Scratch might use some type of caching for those rows. If Scratch does use caching, it wont update the cache if something changes, only if something changes and somebody visits it. Caching might even allow it to be out of date by a bit, too.

If it does not use caching, it might have to sort every time. That makes sense. However, they could make it so the list is stored in the correct error, too. Or if they know it is backwards, they could just read from it backwards.

CST1229 wrote:

The_Real_Coderdash wrote:

(#1)
Say @griffpatch as an example, I've noticed he gets roughly 20-30 followers an hour, and every time a user is followed it sends a request to the server to update the page. Now that the followers are flipped, it doesn't have to update the page with the new follower's PFP and username, therefore giving the server less to do on top of everything else.

I'm pretty sure it actually works the other way around. I'll try to give a more accurate explanation based on info I could gather:
Every time a user visits someone's profile page, the server has to render the Following/Followers rows, and to do that it has to fetch the list of followers from the Scratch database.
The old “last follower first” order requires the database to sort the user's list of followers, which can be quite resource-intensive (especially since database resources are not cheap). The current “flipped” order is most likely actually an unsorted order, meaning the database doesn't have to sort it at all, which is faster.

If they are unsorted, how they can be sorted completly inversed ? That sounds not really logic.

i like it this way

The_Real_Coderdash wrote:

My browser / operating system: ChromeOS 14541.0.0, Chrome 129.0.0.0, No Flash versions detected
If you've been on Scratch since the November 1 maintenance (10:30 pm EDT) and looked at the followers section on someone's profile, you might've noticed that it now shows their first followers at the front. What I've gathered from community members and some forum posts, this is not a bug, but a feature. You might be about to ask “how is that supposed to help?” well it's supposed to speed up the servers. Say @griffpatch as an example, I've noticed he gets roughly 20-30 followers an hour, and every time a user is followed it sends a request to the server to update the page. Now that the followers are flipped, it doesn't have to update the page with the new follower's PFP and username, therefore giving the server less to do on top of everything else.

I will gladly correct anything incorrect here on request if something is inaccurate.

Thanks for the information!!! now i know why my followers/following is upside-down

SCLF-Xingshu wrote:

(#14)
If they are unsorted, how they can be sorted completly inversed ? That sounds not really logic.

When the followers are unsorted, what it really means is “ordered in the order the follower relation (or account in the case of Following) was added to Scratch's database”, which is oldest first (for (hopefully) obvious reasons).

don't mean to go off-topic, but for some of the time it was happening to my shared projects row, but now it's fixed

PIXEL_BY_PIXEL_ERROR wrote:

don't mean to go off-topic, but for some of the time it was happening to my shared projects row, but now it's fixed

Yeah there's currently a thing where the server is prioritizing updating other things before profiles, which may take your profile a while to update with the recently shared project.

The_Real_Coderdash wrote:

My browser / operating system: ChromeOS 14541.0.0, Chrome 129.0.0.0, No Flash versions detected
If you've been on Scratch since the November 1 maintenance (10:30 pm EDT) and looked at the followers section on someone's profile, you might've noticed that it now shows their first followers at the front. …

So close… Wait, no, actually, just not close.