I enjoy kibitzing, especially games of certain players whose games tend to become sharp.
In order to see whether these players are online, I have to search for them manually.
It would be nice to be able to follow a player, so that they appear on a list which shows who is online. I know that you can befriend someone, to see exactly that. But friend-requests have to be accepted, and I don’t know most of the players I am interested in watching. I also doubt that they have any interest in accepting friend-requests, as this would only clutter their list.
Maybe we can break the symmetric “x is friend of y” up into a directed relation “x follows y”?
Then, if needed, one can still define “x is friend of y if x follows y and y follows x”.
I think that this also would require the addition of an option to hide one’s online status (for those who might prefer having some privacy). In fact, that would be good to have even without having the option of “following” someone. Some people (such as myself) are sick and tired of being “naked” in the online world and value their privacy (even if it is just here on the OGS server).
Actually, even without being friends you could see if a player is online by opening the messaging box with said player. I use it sometimes to see if I can expect a response anytime soon in an exciting correspondence game, but it always feels a little bit like stalking…
I second the need for a privacy option.
I feel like it should be allowed to follow other players regardless of whether they want it or not, since it is already possible to make your games private (if unranked) and you could always just search for the nametag to find a player anyway.
Well, there should be a “set status to offline” option then.
But in general, I don’t mind the follow option, it’s been a nice addition to KGS.
That said, I usually only decline friend requests from people I don’t know and who haven’t introduced themselves, nor asked me whether they could add me.
