I was reading an article about people who sign up and follow people

@mommaj (23155)
United States
May 5, 2010 7:52am CST
I was reading an article about people who sign up and follow people on writing sites, but they don't write articles and they don't leave comments. One lady found it spooky that someone would follow a particular group of people, mostly religious, home schooling moms, and parenting. I don't see a problem with that. They are not leaving comments that could be offensive, they don't comment. It's better that they show favorites instead of leaving everything blank. Then, you would have to wonder what they are doing. My question is do you think it is wrong for someone to do that?
2 people like this
5 responses
@Canellita (12029)
• United States
5 May 10
Well, I am not sure that I understand the question. These people are reading someone's articles and just not commenting or they sign on as followers and never read anything? I can care less if someone leaves comments on anything I have posted as long as I am getting my page views and payments.
1 person likes this
@mommaj (23155)
• United States
5 May 10
There is no proof as to whether this person is actually reading anything or not. They don't leave comments as far as I know. The question is would you be concerned since the person hasn't written any articles but he or she is a member?
1 person likes this
@mommaj (23155)
• United States
5 May 10
I think it is good to follow people. I will on some sites when I figure out how to. HAHAHA. I don't worry about the people who follow me unless I see them in my rear view mirror. If someone follows you, you know at least someone is interested in what you are doing. I would only be concerned if someone started leaving questionable comments.
1 person likes this
@Canellita (12029)
• United States
5 May 10
I am following people on Helium so that I can easily get back to their profiles in the future. That is because I am a channel steward and I want to follow their progress in my channel and has nothing to do with giving them page views or whatever. Of course at Helium you don't leave comments which is just fine. I have 1 follower on two of my blogs and I only care that this person wants to keep up with what I am writing about.
1 person likes this
@scheng1 (24650)
• Singapore
5 May 10
haha, spooky?! Maybe those are devils coming out to follow people around and spook you oh! I think if you have 100 such followers in Associated Content, you would have migrated to Clout 99 now! I think those are the ones with the desire but not the confidence to write. And by joining the sites, they can subscribe to the writers, and follow the writers faithfully.
1 person likes this
@mommaj (23155)
• United States
5 May 10
That's the way I look at it. They want to feel like they belong and maybe someday write. This other lady is saying to be careful of people like this because if they are targeting groups they may be coming after people. I personally think she has it backwards since this person has several different types of groups of people that he or she is following. I would hope if you are really worried about that that you wouldn't use your real name and you would use a pen name.
1 person likes this
@mommaj (23155)
• United States
5 May 10
Geez, using those pen names she would really get hate mail. LOL She is actually a religious writer and I was surprised she posted that article.
1 person likes this
@AnythngArt (3302)
• United States
5 May 10
I wouldn't worry at all. I guess it could be someone who might be interested in stealing your work, but there are a lot of people who read articles and never leave comments. How do I know? I started working with a new program on Gather called SocialWrite. We get paid based on page views. I have my normal Gather pals, who come and leave comments. Then I have the vast majority of viewers (from Twitter) who never say anything...or maybe rarely one will pop up. For example, last night I wrote an article on a dog surfing competition coming up in San Diego. This morning I had 250 page views and only about 3-4 comments. And, I have begun reading articles via Twitter now that more of the things and people I am interested in are coming across my page. I never leave messages when I read a blog posting or go on another site. Just my two cents. Tell those religious people to come on over and follow me!
• United States
5 May 10
I appreciate all your comments. I know, there is just not enough time to read, write, and comment. I feel overwhelmed sometimes. I enjoy Helium because I don't have to feel obligated to read when I don't have time. I can just do it when I want.
@mommaj (23155)
• United States
6 May 10
LOL. That is a good thing about Helium. The bad thing is it is so hard to find what you might want to read or to see if you want to follow anyone new. I liked way back when, AC had a rolling list of new articles for the day.
@mommaj (23155)
• United States
5 May 10
I can totally see that happening. I had a spike in page views the other day and no one commented. I guess that just shows that people are out there reading. I really hope the person is reading my stuff too. I need those pageviews. I would follow you if I had time. LOL I do leave comments, especially on AC but not on Helium.
@laydee (12798)
• Philippines
6 May 10
I think it's perfectly normal. I also do that whenever I see that the writer has a good sense of humor or is good at writing. You can't find these types of people often. But, there are also times that I'd just like to read what was written - no comment necessary. I do that too here in mylot. There are a lot of times when I only like to read what others have to say but I don't comment at all when I think that all has already been said plenty of times. As for spooky, I think it'll only be spooky when they leave something like comments that are generally referring to something personal - now that is spooky, or perhaps harassment.
@laydee (12798)
• Philippines
11 May 10
But I think it would be 'creepy' if the person seems to respond to a lot of my responses (take not: responses not discussions) which means that he/she is following and forming a fascination of what I'm doing in mylot. However, that's far from spooky. It'll be spooky if he/she suddenly tells me that he/she knows where I am living!
@greenace (123)
• Philippines
6 May 10
I agree with ladydee...anyway, no one can really point out if a person's being spooky (unless, if as ladydee says the person leaves a not so good comment and keeps on leaving negative comments usually to the same person even when a different topic has been opened for discussion by the same person. I actually like to read through some of the discussions and see where I could comment...if there's nothing relevant I could say, I'll just leave the page or the discussion after reading even without leaving any commnent.
1 person likes this
@mommaj (23155)
• United States
6 May 10
That's completely true. I usually do that a lot on mylot too. As you say there are a lot of people with the same opinion even if it is expressed in a different way. When that happens I might read all the comments, but skip the discussion. I don't think it is spooky for someone to follow others either. If the people started disappearing then I would get concerned.
1 person likes this
@iakulchen (615)
• Singapore
5 May 10
Being a writer who has had brushes with plagiarism, I can understand why there are people who would be unsettled by someone who doesn't leave comments, but follows a particular group of people. There's always the fear that this someone would be follwing the articles just to copy them and paste them on a similar themed site of their own. On the other hand, it's also quite possible that this someone joined to follow a friend, discovered some other writers along the way who wrote about topics he/she was interested in, and who happens to be comment-shy.
1 person likes this
@mommaj (23155)
• United States
5 May 10
I never thought about someone being comment-shy but I could see that happening. They may feel uncomfortable leaving comments because they don't know what to say or how to say it. I have that problem sometimes. Great insight.
1 person likes this