Permanently Remove Follower
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I regularly delete followers who are only trying to market a business or service. A few will re-follow, but soon get the message. However, there is one that I have removed several times in the past 48 hours, but they keep re-following. They seem to know immediately that they have been deleted. What good is the remove button if they can just keep following? Why can’t they be permanently deleted, or blocked? The offending site is:
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Hello there,
Many thanks for reaching out.
It’s not possible to block a follower on WordPress.com on a public blog.
Other than seeing them follow, I don’t see any activity by this individual – is there something in particular that is happening which is leading you to remove them from your follower list?
Many thanks in advance.
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I simply don’t like business or marketing blogs that promote themselves by “pasting” their gravatar across the web via comments or the Follow tab. That’s why I don’t display the followers widget on my blog. It’s free advertising for these people, and I don’t understand why WordPress doesn’t see this as a problem. I removed Wupples last night and they are back again this morning. They obviously are aggressive about monitoring their presence. What is the purpose of the Remove button if it can’t stop them from following?
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Hey there,
Ideally, someone who has been removed as a follower wouldn’t continue to re-follow and the feature was added so that it is an easy way for the owner to remove a user at their request – for example, if the owner is paring down their follower list as they are about to make their site private. As @aleone89 mentioned, there is no effective way to block subscribers as they could create a new account, username, or e-mail address and refollow the blog. Since IP addresses are dynamic, blocking the address would not work either. Also, other users who are currently on the same IP address might inadvertently be blocked as well.
However, I have a few recommendations: Make sure comment moderation is turned on Settings > Discussion so that all comments have to be approved. That way nothing will get through to the public side of your site without your approval.
Alternatively, you can set your site to private and then invite only those that you desire to view your site.
Feel free to let us know if you have any questions.
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I continue to play this game of Remove and Follow with Wupples so my solution, for what it’s worth, is to simply remove the Follow widget. This is an inconvenience for new visitors, but they will still be able to Follow by leaving a comment where Wupples can be blocked or moderated.
I have heard from other bloggers that this is a huge problem so the burden to police should not rest upon us. However, this is a workable solution that might actually spur discussion. I have seen other blogs that don’t have a Follow button nor do they allow Likes. If readers want to sincerely engage they are prompted to leave a comment where they then have the option to follow. If Wupples tries to comment they will simply be blocked. Problem solved.
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I seem to have been premature thinking that I had found a way to stop Wupples from following me. They are back again this morning. At this point, I feel like I’m being stalked and it’s kind of unnerving that I seemingly have no control over the situation.
This problem needs to be addressed by WordPress.
The Follow widget was removed and they did not request email notification via the comment section so I am at a complete loss as to how they were able to follow me.
And how do they seem to know almost immediately that they have been removed unless they are constantly monitoring my activity?
I want these people to leave me alone.
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Hi @topcat1953 – If a site on WordPress.com is set to “Public” (available to the public), anyone can follow it.
To block anyone from following a site on WordPress.com, the site owner would need to consider setting the site to “Private” and granting access to a select number of users with WordPress.com accounts.
In this case the Follow feature is working as designed. If you have any other questions about the Private vs Public setting for your site, let us know.
If a follower is involved in discussions that take place on your site and you would like to manage their commentary, refer to my colleague’s linked comment above to learn how. And we can answer any questions you have about that as well.
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Dean, I guess I don’t understand. What, then, is the point of the Follow widget if people can follow anyway?
What’s being missed here is that business and marketing blogs spam the internet with their Gravatars as a means of free advertising and promotion. Another blogger told me that he has to weed these people from his site every day.
The burden to police this should not rest upon us. Typically, offenders will stop following after a couple of attempts, but Wupples has been relentless over the past 48 hours. Certainly, that warrants some sort of strike against their account such as a temporary suspension at the very least.
Make no mistake, but this constitutes spam ever bit as much as unwanted comments.
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You bet, @topcat1953 :)
Sometimes companies really will follow sites, sincerely, and I could see someone wondering why the follow isn’t working and re-following.
Our TOS team should be able to suss out whether they’re being spammy, though.
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