Hi. I've just noticed on my site that a Standard User cannot just follow another member and only have the option to "Add Friend" (For example in the People page). Moderators on the other hand get both "Follow" and "Add Friend" option. This doesn't sound normal.
It looks like a permissions issue but I can't see anything obvious with the permissions.
Any idea anyone?
Comments
Your looking for this
R
No, already checked this for Standard user type and it's already enabled (remember I said they see "Add Friend") but follow seems to be missing.
Perhaps maybe going to Studio > navigation > person cover and see if following is enabled?
Ok so i had asked to r00nster to go to navigation and see if the visibility was enabled for standard and it is visible for standard. I then asked if following was enabled and it was. r00nster also confirmed that on permissions befriend is also enabled. Anyone has any ideas? James Cherry ?
Baloo
R
Ok, working with Will Monte we've managed to figure this out...
In Edit Profile form..
If a member has "Visible to = Public"
Other members can Follow or Add Friend that member
If a member has "Visible to = Friends" (which for privacy reasons you would advise as a minimum)
Other members can only Add Friend that member and the option to Follow is removed from ALL pages/menus. Note, once you are accepted as a Friend you can then (and only whilst you are still Friends) UnFollow & Follow that person. Notice you Unfollow first as being a Friend you are by default following.
We've also proved this is the behaviour on the UNA.IO site also so this must be by design.
Can someone explain why as it seems backwards to most other Social Network??
First you want to allow people to follow people they do not know or are Friends with for instance you might value someones opinion but don't necessarily want to be friends (following).
Second I don't see the point of being able to unfollow/follow someone you are friends with (unfollow/follow doesn't effect Friends status as you have to unfriend separately)??
It seems like it's a bug?
J
I agree, follow should always remain an option unless one user blocks another, regardless of friendship status.
Sounds like something on your site though... I see the ability to follow without being friends on my site. Tim Burleigh have you come across this at all?
R
I don't think this is particular to my site as the UNA.IO site shows the same behaviour.
For instance if I look at your account/profile on UNA.IO I can only Add Friend. There is not option to Follow.
If your profile Visible to = Friends (or I assume anything higher than Public) then you cannot be followed only befriended by Standard Users of the site.
Note this does not effect Moderators/Administrators where Follow/Add Friend is as you would expect (which is why I never noticed).
Sorry I don't seem to have the privilege level to post images/links in discussions else I would add screenshots.
J
Ya, upgrading your profile here to premium allows you to post all that.
I am working right now and overlooked the part regarding the profile privacy setting.... I don't have an answer as to why it's that way, but I can tell you how I am setup that works for me:
Limit visibility of profiles, and all links to 'persons' within Navigation so Unauthenticated etc users cannot see, only standard + users. Then a members profile can be set to 'public' but still only be visible to site members.
I also "follow" for everyone. Maybe check this?
R
My site has this enabled and Visible to set to Anyone so not this also.
As I stated earlier I'm thinking this is a bug!
The main UNA.IO site has the same behaviour. If you have a Standard account on UNA.IO and view another member and see Access denied (because their Profile is not public) then there is no Follow only Add Friend.
If you see the profile details (their profile is Public) you see both Follow and Add Friend.
It's standard behaviour. To be able to follow member, the member should allow this, since user don't have separate privacy specifically to allow to disallow following, then the privacy for "following" is the same as for visibility. So if profile is public, the everyone can follow member, if profile is visible for friends only then only friends can follow this profile. I think it's logically correct.
It isn't exactly clear, could you please describe the problem in more details and how to reproduce it ?
R
IMHO this is not logical and not as per traditional Social Network sites and blows a hole through the whole privacy system. In a very large community run on UNA I could see it becoming very problematic!
You can't be followed unless you make your Profile public and for everyone to see (No Privacy) ?!
If you make yourself Private (e.g. Visible to = Friends) the only way someone can follow you is to become a friend (or sudo-friend as they're not really a friend in the traditional sense) whereby they can now see your profile information (No Privacy! made even worse as you accepted their friends request). You could just ignore Friend requests from strangers but then how do you build a community in the traditional Social Networking sense (unless you have true following of course!).
Hence if you want to build a following/community on UNA you have no control over your Profile privacy.
For instance I may follow the US President on Twitter but I doubt he'd accept a friend request from me ( but then again, he might 😂 )
This leads to my second point...
Second I don't see the point of being able to unfollow/follow someone you are friends with (unfollow/follow doesn't effect Friends status as you have to unfriend separately)??
It's not a problem. I just don't see the rational / logic of wanting to unfollow/follow someone you are a friend with? Doesn't make sense ? I'm their friend on the site but don't want to follow their posts? Surely I would just unfriend them ??
Hence if Following and Befriending could have separate visibility controls this would make more sense to me and make UNA an even better product it is today (UNA Rocks! btw). Maybe a feature request ??!
That is.... unless someone can point out the logic of the current UNA behaviour to me as maybe I'm missing something??
J
I see what Alex is saying and agree with it.
You're looking at it from a follower point of view, but look at it from the members point of view:
- If I want to allow any random person to be able to follow me, I would set my profile to 'Public.' As a Public profile I can control with each individual post who is allowed to see it (not great, need ability to select multiple visibility options), whether it be a public post, or limited to friends, etc. An Organization profile could also serve as a full-time Public profile, gain followers, etc, and the member have a private personal profile as well... Both are managed from the same login, like have a separate page on FB.
Secondly, Una is not the 'traditional Social Network.' The design and purpose is not to replace modern social media, but to allow niche communities, groups, schools, clubs, etc a place to come together with 'social media like' features.
Do you remember features of FB in 2008 when it was a couple years old? Pretty minimal. I'd say we have a good head start and a much better purpose.
r00nster you aren't quite right, I've just checked Facebook and Facebook don't allow to follow someone if you aren't friends by default
James Cherry thank you for the additional explanation
R
Alex.. According to FB you can Follow without being friends (maybe a security setting why you're seeing different).
From the Facebook help page...(sorry can't post links)
You automatically follow people who you're friends with. You can also follow Pages (example: businesses, organizations, brands) and people who aren't your friend on Facebook but allow everybody to follow them.
When you follow someone or a Page, you may see updates from that person or Page in your News Feed. If you like a Page, you'll automatically follow it.
Some Pages and well-known public figures with large followings are verified by Facebook and have a blue badge next to their names to help you know that they're who they claim to be.
Pretty much how I expect following to work
James..
I'm looking at it from the point of Privacy! I must make myself Public and basically switch-off the privacy system to enable members to follow but anyone can send a friend request.
Why does following seem to require you to turn of your privacy (I thought someone said they were linked)?
But all that said..
No one has still explained the logic in UNA of wanting to Unfollow/Follow a Friend. I don't get the thought behind first becoming a Friend and then second deciding if I want to follow or not??
I haven't found such setting in Facebook, also I can follow almost no one on Facebook without being friends.
UNA works the same way
UNA works the same way with Spaces
UNA works the same way - you can follow Public profiles, I think in Facebook it works the same way since I haven't found separate privacy setting to allow or disallow following.