Thread:Talk:Flow Portal/Basic information/User subscription and permissions/reply (8)

The user subscription example is just that: an example. I wrote it up by request from the Ombudsmen. The version that's out there is bizarrely more transparent than the initial one (which had all sorts of weird privacy-related events).

All discussions are public. Subscribing to a user just makes it easier to track them in a single place (instead of going to watchlist/contribs/etc.). The request was an exploration into the feasibility of openness regarding "followers". It clearly doesn't work when one is tracking a vandal, though, which is why I think it's doomed (I don't know if I wrote about that or not).

Either way: an exploration, nothing more.