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Be aware that my above comment's original context was in response to an duplicate issue which was merged with this one. It was more directly a response to "Showing who favorited your work" by malware and may seem a bit strange in context of the merge.


That being said, it should be noted that topics and comments should be merged with caution as it can dangerously misconstrue the original intent and focus of the comment and in essence demote participation if people fear their words will be unintentionally twisted by an alogrithmic merging.

I would say this is a necessity before I would use any payment authentification system on this site.

To the one who posted this I applaud you. You may be "feeling bad" because it got negatives, and that it was posted as a joke, but I think it needed to be seen that a post can be declined and what an example of that looks like!


If the suggestion was a joke, don't feel bad that the suggestion was shot down. In fact it probably would have felt worse if your joke suggestion got approved when you didn't actually want it in the first place, no?

What is interesting here is that the original statement here says they fear "stalking" by individuals who favorite pieces of artwork anonymously. However, if someone were to be using the favorites button to stalk or harass a user, such a tactic would only be effective if the favorites were not anynomous.


Let's say I tell user StalkySlink to go away and stop bothering me. And, they don't want to so they favorite bomb your art. If you can see who's doing it you will see StalkySlink's name and become triggered that they're still harassing you. If you can't see names of those favoriting, it would be the equivilent of a tree falling in a forest with no one around. Sure it's happening. But the target of harassment is unaware and unbothered and all it does is waste StalkySlink's time. The only way they'd be able to stalk is by doing it openly through direct means; which is easier to police.


That and making favorites public can promote "stalking" in the other direction. As ShingekiSkunk

notes above:

As an artist, I'd prefer to know who favorites my work. If I notice a huge burst of favorites from someone, I could approach them to start a conversation with them.


I think there would be some who would not appreciate this kind of solicitation; particularly in an introvert community such as furry fandom. Some might consider it a bit stalker-ish in its own right, especially if they were unaware that the artist was getting their name every-time the added their work to their favorites. In the end that would mean that individuals such as that would save the artwork on their browser's bookmark then favorite it directly, resulting in less favorites for artists in this case.


So for the sake of both parties, I am respectfully thumbing this one down. I think adding this intel to favorites harms artists by making the favorite button a tool for subversive harassment (despite the irony that original posted wished to add it to prevent said subversive harassment) and it harms content consumers whom may not wish to be approached by artists just because they liked something they drew.