New Feature Request - Who am I Following in addition to Followers
Installation and Configuration
Strumelia:Yes, it was explained that the JR follow method also helps prevent possible hacking somehow...can't remember the details though.
It's less about hacking than spamming. If we (community moderators/site admins) make it impossible for members to send Private Notes to people who don't follow them then members are protected from that form of spam. They can still spam in comments but those are usually easily outed and I can take care of those as the moderator.
I've also had members ask me if I could make their profiles private as they were showing up in Google search results and they were worried about potential stalkers. This could not be done in Ning. However, in JR, here is a Global Privacy setting in each Profile which enables members to make their profile visible only to themselves and to their followers. I don't know if this keeps their profile from being indexed by search engines but it does mean that the profile content can't easily be viewed unless the profile owner accepts a follow (there's an "approve followers" option in the account tab) from someone. I have also limited the location data to a country (edited sidebar.tpl) whereas in Ning city and state were displayed which could be used to help locate someone. So that issue is at least addressed to some extent.
As community moderators I think we assume a lot of responsibility in making the community a safe place for our members. At least it's important to MY members. And I am happy that JR has some good tools to help me manage these important details for my community.
