Ideas
Follow someone privately
It'd be nice to be able to follow an account privately (so they wouldn't show up in your "Following" list when viewed by anyone else). That way people can follow nsfw artists, etc, without it being public or having to create an alt character.
Answer
If you guys really want to stand out and provide something that hasn't been done well on other sites, give some focus to privacy and being able to like/follow NSFW stuff without it showing up on the user's profile.
The problem with this is that, while it promotes privacy, it can also enable stalking. It's a double-edged blade that can cause problems both sides.
I can't say I don't support the privacy side, but I also can't truly support the other option on this one. Perhaps someone could suggest an alternative that could stop stalkers while allowing users to remain semi-private with their follows?
That's always a legitimate concern. Don't want users abusing/harassing/stalking/etc other users.
I'd imagine that the user being followed would still be able to see that an account is following them (and thus be able to block them, etc). It's just that the follower wouldn't appear in their "followers" list to other users, and that account won't appear in the "following" list.
Also, YouTube already has something a bit similar, albeit an "all-or-nothing" kind of deal -- if a user makes their subscriptions private, they won't appear in that channel's subscribers list.
Seems fair. Maybe the person being Follow'd can check their Followers list and see absolutely everyone, and the ones who are private will have something like an asterisk to signify "By the way this one is private and can only be seen by you". Which means the artist in question is the only one who will know you're Following them. It seems like a fair way to handle it to avoid stalking. Might want to tack on some kind of rule/suggestion of "It would be nice if you didn't blurt out the names of your private Followers since they must want privacy"
Pixiv actually does allow you to watch people publicly and privately, the only setback to the latter is that they won't appear on your "New artwork" feed so you'd have to go out of your way to click each profile to see if they've updated. At that point, you may as well just keep bookmarks instead of follow them. I'd be down with seeing a more refined version of that feature here.
Would be fine, so long as at least the person in question followed is able to see/is notified they were followed; otherwise, its a big no from me, personally
Currently, users are able to create a separate character; this separate character is not publicly associated with other characters on the same account, and this allows users to keep SFW characters separated from NSFW activities. While privacy is important, users have a right to know who is following them, and this is not something that should disappear if they didn't look at a notification. We're going to stick with having alternate characters for the purpose of anonymity.
Customer support service by UserEcho
Currently, users are able to create a separate character; this separate character is not publicly associated with other characters on the same account, and this allows users to keep SFW characters separated from NSFW activities. While privacy is important, users have a right to know who is following them, and this is not something that should disappear if they didn't look at a notification. We're going to stick with having alternate characters for the purpose of anonymity.