The Follow Questions and Answers feature is now live across the Network

Question

We are happy to announce that the previously announced follow question and answer feature is now live across the Network, including Stack Overflow, all Stack Exchange sites, and all Meta sites. (International Stack Overflow sites will have it turned on in a day or two once we have translations all set.)

You can follow any question or answer (that you did not author) by clicking on the [follow] button that is shown in the menu immediately below the post (alongside the [share] button):

After you have followed a post, you will get inbox notifications for all new answers (in the case where you followed a question), comments, edits, and notices. You will not receive notifications for any action that you performed. As was mentioned in the earlier post, we are not making changes at this point to the notifications received by a post owner, or due to @mentions.

The initial release had been planned to only include question following. Thanks to many folks who chipped in over the past few weeks, we are happy to release both question and answer following at the same time. These are available in both the regular and mobile views.

We are still planning on two more related releases:

1. Follows profile tab and question listing filter: A tab for follows will be added to your user profile activity page. Each user will be able to view this tab that will provide a listing of followed questions and answers, with standard sorts, and the ability to unfollow from the listing. Users (with the exception of moderators and authorized staff) will not be able to see this information about other users (nor will it be made public in the API, SEDE, or data dumps).
2. We will be renaming the Favorites feature to Bookmarks. As we mentioned in the preview post, the feature will be the same as Favorites, with the name and icon updated to more accurately represent user expectations and usage. And you will be able to both "bookmark" and "follow" a question.

We hope that this new feature will allow you to have better access to the content that you care about and want to keep tabs on.

Update (June 11, 2020): The user profile tab and the rename of Favorites to Bookmarks have been released.

Answer 1

feature-request

status-completed: Whether or not the popup is dismissed is saved on the local site account for performance reasons. Saving it on the network account provides an unacceptable performance hit. However, the popup is now hidden for users with 15 rep or higher (so it will only be showing for brand new users).

Make the dismissal of the pop-up network-wide.

This popup:

Shows up when you see a question and haven't dismissed it yet. However, currently, you need to dismiss it separately on every site on the network, and as some users use many sites, this will equate to many useless clicks.

Just like the banner, I'd like it if dismissing it would remove it from all sites, as the feature is the same for each site.

Answer 2

feature-request

status-completed: The "follow" button is now located after "share" and "edit".

---

Could you move this button to the right?

We are used to the share button on the left, and the "edit" button on the second-left. It's not very user-friendly to change the order of those buttons, and wastes users' time whenever they try to perform the action they were trying to do the first time. =/

Also, as Fabian Röling commented, this view is inconsistent when viewing one's own posts as opposed to others' posts, as the "share" button appears first on the former while "follow" appears first on the latter.

Answer 3

bug status-completed

Can we not get follow notifications for comments which reply to us (as that reply already creates it's own notification)?

At the moment if I comment on a question and then follow it, and get a reply I get two notifications for the same comment which seems unnecessary.

Answer 4

feature-request

The search operators should be updated:

• Add operators for following. Maybe following:y/following:n status-declined
• Add inbookmarks:mine as a synonym for infavorites:mine status-completed

Without search, it’s just too tedious to find a post when you’ve followed/bookmarked a non-trivial number of posts.

Answer 5

feature-request status-declined

When one follows a post, change the following wording to unfollow, to better convey that this is a toggle button, and keep the logic consistent with a verb/verb pair rather than a verb/gerund pair (plus the tooltip reads "unfollow").

Answer 6

bug status-completed

Strange behavior when trying to follow deleted answer.

1. Follow deleted message.
2. Text changed to following. And it's not clickable anymore.
3. After refreshing the page the text becomes follow again.

Answer 7

bug status-completed

There is a popup and a tooltip on the following button and together they read kind of strange:

• the popup says "follow this answer to receive notifications"... But if it's in following state, I'm already following it, am I not?
• a tooltip says clicking the button will unfollow the answer, this is contradictory to the above

Suggestion: as both the popup and the tooltip are supposed to read the same thing (at least I think so given what the follow popup/tooltip pair reads; see the screenshots here), just get rid of one of them, keeping whichever increases accessibility the most.

Answer 8

bugmoderator-tools status-completed

Members still receive notifications, even though the post was deleted and it can't be seen 'cause of low reputation.

1. Follow the post.
2. Author deletes the post.
3. Author of the original post leaves the comment (probable I can leave message under the deleted post because I'm a moderator).
4. Member receive notification. But when he click on it to open, he receives 404 error (if he has low reputation).

Answer 9

feature-request global-inbox status-completed

The links are now working (see below), but IMHO the 'followed question – answer' takes up too much vertical space, and there's a lot of unused whitespace on the right. Perhaps this can be used to make it more compact?

---

The updates are displayed in the global inbox but the links aren't working; they link to the inbox itself, not to the question or answer, as is the case for other notification types.

Also, the notification type is a generic "message" while the inbox dialog shows something like 'followed question – comment'.

Answer 10

discussion status-completed

Inconsistent use of English contractions:

You are no longer following this question

You’re following this question

Answer 11

feature-request status-deferred

Have the follow link as a icon button to the left of the post (Question & Answer) Similar to Timeline and the Favorites (soon to be Bookmark)

It would keep the links at the bottom of the post unchanged.

Would need to think about how it may clutter that left side, but it would be a reasonable action grouping in that location

Answer 12

feature-request status-deferred

Please standardise the use of pop-ups. This is a view of the "default" pop-up:

This is a view of the follow pop-up:

Answer 13

bug status-completed

The follow tooltip is displayed under very specific conditions, which are not "user natural".

---

Steps to reproduce (Windows 10, Firefox 74.0):

1. Pick a post you have never, ever followed

2. Hover over the follow button; this is what you should see (popup but no tooltip):

   

3. Follow the post by clicking the follow button; the text changes into following

4. Unfollow the post by clicking following

5. Repeat step 2, namely hover over the follow button; notice that now there's a tooltip:

   

This is already buggy behaviour, but you can take it further:

6. Reload the page (you're still not following the post)

7. Repeat step 2, namely hover over the follow button; the tooltip disappeared again:

   

Answer 14

feature-request

Please add the ability to follow deleted posts; from this comment it appears it was planned (the button appeared) but dropped:

The follow button is no longer available on deleted posts – Yaakov Ellis♦

There's a couple reasons why one may want to follow deleted posts: checking if the author revamped the post, to possibly cast an undelete vote on it, etc.

---

Related support question: if I follow a post that is later deleted, is it:

1. removed from my follow list, and

2. do I get a notification about it? I'm not sure if deletions are covered by the "notices":

   you will get inbox notifications for all new answers (in the case where you followed a question), comments, edits, and notices.

Answer 15

bug status-completed

On Google Chrome for Android, when not using the responsive design, the arrow does not point to follow. In the screenshot below it instead points to close:

Update 2020-04-01: the bug is still present, e.g on Is Traveling to France in September Safe Concerning the COVID-19 Pandemic?:

Update 2020-04-05: the bug is still present, e.g on Is Traveling to France in September Safe Concerning the COVID-19 Pandemic?

Answer 16

feature-request status-bydesign

I was following this answer, waiting for an update from Yaakov on a pending bug report's fix.

When the post was edited, I correctly received a notification. However, the wording of such notification seems to be specific to Stack Overflow posts, as it says "followed answer - code edited." Given there was no code to edit, that seems to be a bit off.

Here's a link to where it points me, if that's relevant at all.

Could this be changed to "body edited" or "post edited," so that the wording can apply across all networks?

Answer 17

feature-request status-declined

It looks like following a question only alerts you to activity on the question proper, but not activity on answers to the question. Thus if you truly want to completely follow a thread you would have to individually follow each answer in addition to following the question.

Can you make it that following the question automatically follows all answers that are (or will be) posted to that question? Or if there are people that might not want to follow every answer, can you make it a selectable option to follow all answers along with the question?

Answer 18

bug status-planned

When following fails and the server responds with an error, a non-existent variable is referenced, resulting in a JS error. As a result, the error message from the server is not displayed.

Easiest way to reproduce is to press the "Follow" button on a deleted answer. The server responds with "This post has been deleted; deleted posts can't be voted on", but this message doesn't get displayed in the UI.

In the follow function, there is:

submit({
    $target: $followBtn,
    postId: postId,
    voteTypeId: voteTypeIds.follow,
    undo: originalIsFollowing, // if it is currently following, that means that we now have to undo the vote
    success: function(clicked, pid, data) {
        if (!data.Success) {
            updateUI(originalIsFollowing); // <---------------------
            showErrorMessage($followBtn, data.Message);
        } else {

The problem is that there is no such variable named updateUI in scope, so the error visible in the console is

Uncaught ReferenceError: updateUI is not defined

(this is also one of the very few variables which didn't get minified - which makes sense, because there's no known identifier to minify)

This was probably meant to be a reference to updateFollowUI, which is a function in scope there, whose parameters are ($followBtn, isQuestion, isFollowing), so the line should probably be

if (!data.Success) {
    updateFollowUI($followBtn, isQuestion, originalIsFollowing);

Using the above code results in the error message from the server being displayed properly, and the follow button text reverts to Follow per updateFollowUI, as desired.

Could also remove the follow button entirely from deleted answers, as is currently done with questions.

Answer 19

bug status-completed

When a followed, deleted question is navigated to, updateFollowUI throws an error, resulting in most site Javascript failing to execute.

To reproduce:

• Have 10k+ reputation, so you can see deleted posts

• Follow a question that's very close to being deleted

• Wait until it's deleted (cast the 3rd vote yourself if you want)

• Reload the question page

You may notice that the page was generated without the Follow/Following link at the bottom. If you open the console, you will see an error.

If you try to interact with any of the Javascript on the page, it will not function. For example, clicking to expand a long comment chain will result in the <a class="js-show-link comments-link" href="#"> moving the viewport to the top of the page, and nothing else. Clicking on Reopen/Undelete/Flag has the same behavior. The topbar dropdowns (messages/reputation) don't appear either, they just become normal links.

The problem is due to the fact that the deleted question was generated without a Follow/Following link, and the updateFollowUI function has:

var updateFollowUI = function ($followBtn, isQuestion, isFollowing) {
    if (!$followBtn) {
        return;
    }
    // ...
    var currentGpsTrack = $followBtn.data('gps-track');
    var newGpsTrack = currentGpsTrack.replace(/item:[ ]?[\d]+/, "item: " + newTrackItemType);

The $followBtn parameter is expected to be something like $('.js-follow-post'), the Follow/Following button wrapped in jQuery. The if (!$followBtn) return checks to see if the parameter is truthy - but it's a jQuery collection, so it is truthy, even if no .js-follow-post elements matched the selector. If the collection has no elements, $followBtn.data('gps-track') returns undefined, so currentGpsTrack.replace throws.

The fix might be to replace

if (!$followBtn) {
    return;
}

with

if (!$followBtn.length) {
    return;
}

On my end, at least, if I do that, everything starts working again.

Could also be fixed by excluding Follow stats (VoteTypeId:21) from the votesCast passed to StackExchange.question.init when the question is deleted.

Answer 20

feature-request status-declined

Can we have a one-time option to follow all our bookmarks nées favourites, network-wide? It can be a time-limited offer, buried somewhere in the options, and a butt-ugly button.

I am asking because I would want to follow most of the questions I have favourited, but don’t want to go through all of them to manually follow them. I can still unfollow the exceptions when I ever get a notification due to this.

Answer 21

As one of the people who missed the announcement of this feature, I was baffled by the tooltip with the ringing bell graphic. I did not see the little triangle which points to the "follow" link. I interpreted it as a button. I clicked on it, and nothing appeared to happen.

Consider finding a way to visually emphasise the tooltip's relationship to the "follow" link more. Maybe make the triangle stand out better. Maybe even change the wording to mention the "follow" link.

Answer 22

feature-request

Feature request: please add some sort of preference so that when I follow a question I only get notified to answers and don't get notifications about comments.

Answer 23

feature-request status-completed

Add a Following tab in the user profile, perhaps next to Bookmarks that shows the list of questions you are following:

Answer 24

bug status-completed

When a question that is being followed is deleted, there's no apparent way to stop following it. For example, for me in the Math SE, there's the second entry below:

When I click on that entry to see the post, there's no indication anywhere on how I may possibly unfollow it:

If I instead click the "View More" link at the bottom of the "Followed Posts" section, I get a list of the followed posts, as shown below:

Unfortunately, clicking the red "Unfollow" link here gives the following error message:

This seems like a somewhat inappropriate error message as I'm not trying to "vote" on it.

I don't see anything else to try. Is there any current way to allow us to stop following a deleted post and, if not, are there any plans to add one (e.g., perhaps allow the "Unfollow" link to work for a deleted post)?

Update: A closely related question How do I unfollow a deleted question? has been updated to ask about this same issue.

Update #2: As stated in Cannot unfollow locked post from Following tab, this has now been fixed, as I've confirmed by clicking on "Unfollow" to get the following

with the entry disappearing when I refresh the list.

Answer 25

feature-request

Add the ability to unfollow one's own question or answer.

Answer 26

bug flag-dashboard

The 'follow' link is also visible when expanding a post in the moderator flag dashboard, but when I click it, I get the message you usually get when unfollowing a post, and I end up not following the post.

Answer 27

bug status-planned

Pluralisation issue in the "Following" tab:

This should read 1 answer, without the extra s, to be correct and consistent with what's written when you read the question:

Answer 28

feature-request network-profile status-review

Just like we have a list of all favorites bookmarks across the network in our network profile, can we have one for followed posts as well? Or would such a feature have severe performance problems? (I don't know how the account list and the bookmarks list work, whether you're querying those from a single database or (less likely) 170+ calls to each database.)

Answer 29

feature-request profile-page wording status-completed

When I'm following only questions, and filter on 'Answers only' in the following tab on my profile, it says

You are not following any posts.

Strictly speaking this isn't true; better would be to change that to "You are not following any answers."

Answer 30

feature-request status-completed

Make signage of "accepted answer", "non-accepted answer", "question with no accepted answer" and "question with an accepted answer" consistent between tabs.

For instance, this is how it's shown in the new "Following" tab:

This is how these same posts are seen from the "Newest posts" tab in the front user profile:

Sometimes the checkmark appears as an icon, sometimes it doesn't, in which case the Q or A logo is coloured in green, when it was still grey (for the Qs) in the Following tab... This is inconsistent (confusing?) signage.