Excessive following? Surely not!

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   wildernessposted 11 years ago

   This morning I got an email showing a new follower; per my SOP I popped over to look.  A "new" hubber of 7 months with no hubs, but has followed a few others recently.  I scrolled down over the indications from 3,4,5 and 6 hours ago, but the list from 7 hours ago showed 156 "followings" before it reached the bottom of the page.  It was a little longer than the rest of the hours, but not too much.
   
   Someone is obviously using automatics to follow, but why?  This hubber has followed over 5800 people in their 7 months without writing a hub.  Anyone else concerned that they may be finding duplicate material out there all of a sudden?  I just can't quite wrap my head around why this would be done, or even how.

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      joanveronicaposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      This does sound worrying! I will follow and see what everybody else has to say, I really have very little experience! I think you have a valuable point here. Did you consider flagging the hubber in question and getting the moderators on the job?

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         wildernessposted 11 years agoin reply to this

         No TOS violation that I'm aware of, just a little odd.

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            Barbara Kayposted 11 years agoin reply to this

            This is odd. I never thought about someone doing that.

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      DeborahNeyensposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      I think the same person followed me this morning, but by the time I went to check out their profile, he/she had been banned.

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   kathleenkatposted 11 years ago

   Following doesn't have an effect on whether or not your Hub becomes duplicated material.
   
   In the days of yore, there were programs for adding friends on Myspace. One could add upwards of 1000 friends a day. It was used by bands to promote their music, because (I think), the number of friends pushed you higher in the search results on Myspace.
   
   Not sure why someone with no content would follow a lot of poeple, but perhaps they are trying to establish a "fanbase" prior to writing something.

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      jellygatorposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Either of those possibilities sounds bad.

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         kathleenkatposted 11 years agoin reply to this

         I don't know about "bad." Maybe a little sleazy, perhaps questionable, but I don't see how it would harm anyone. Its not like they would be getting page views at the expense of others. (Back on Myspace, you had to approve the friend request, anyway).

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            wildernessposted 11 years agoin reply to this

            That was pretty much my reaction.  Questionable and a little odd, but I don't understand how it might harm.  What can a follower get from my profile or hubs that others cannot?
            
            On the other hand, that person has now been banned, as Aficionada says.  Perhaps HP knows something I don't, or other activity was going on as well.

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   Aficionadaposted 11 years ago

   I just saw that the user has been banned.

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      wildernessposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      You're right.  I wonder what HP found to cause it.

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   TIMETRAVELER2posted 11 years ago

   I suggest you report this to the HP team so that they can take a look.  Something isn't right here!

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   Aficionadaposted 11 years ago

   All I have is speculation - first, how the staff came to notice the profile. 1) Maybe another Hubber who was followed today saw the same worrisome practice of excessive following and flagged that profile; 2) Maybe someone on staff saw the title of this thread and investigated it; 3) Maybe HP staff has some filter that recognizes that kind of excessive following and checked to see more about that Hubber.
   
   Wait! Doesn't there have to be some sort of detection device in place, regarding following? We already know that a Hubber who follows too many others at one time will lose points on their HubberScore. So, that must mean there is some program that detects that sort of behavior.
   
   Stranger, though, is why someone with zero Hubs would follow so many to start with! I suppose one purpose would be to receive notices of new Hubs by those 5800 Hubbers (!) to see whether they wanted to scrape them. Or, is there any way they would receive backlinks by following others? I can't see that helping, unless they had some links on their profile (and I'm still not sure that would help).  But is it possible that they had previously had some Hubs during those 7 months, and the Hubs had been unpublished before you saw the profile, wilderness?

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      wildernessposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Notification seems the most likely, and if so probably to scrape them. 
      
      Yes, it is certainly possible that older hubs were unpublished.  I thought that the email said there was one hub, but if so it was gone by the time I visited the profile and I can't find the email now (deleted too many today, I guess).

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   Southernmapartposted 11 years ago

   I have a possible answer to the question why a hubber, with no Hubs, might follow a large number of Hubs.  The mystery hubber is using hubs on certain subjects as source material.  I saw this.
   
   Just in the past few days a well-known message board had a thread "pinned" for responses on the subject of "shoplifting tricks."  The opening post had no information on shoplifting, but referred to a blogspot link about ways to stop shoplifting.  My senses pricked up with that link because I had seen a hubber note that there had been a number of comments and questions on his "shoplifting" Hub.
   
   Message boards are moderated and if a moderator is also a blogspotter, then if they pin a thread with a link to their blogspot during prime-time for the board, they will get many clicks on the link. 
   
   I've been on the internet for a number of years and wrote for a successful "Yahoo Groups" for five years.  I was never paid for writing, even after Yahoo started placing ads for local businesses on our Groups board.  I'm not complaining about that, just noting fact, which is the reason I've been looking around for a way to write on the internet and get paid.  That is why I joined Hub Pages.
   
   I comment on other Hubs but haven't written because I can't find a comfort zone.  Google has gone over the cliff and I see "stuff" here outside my comfort zone.  Still looking around.

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