Congrats from a not-follower?

[johnw]

Hi folks, a few days earlier I had found myself in a funny situation: someone I neither know nor follow had celebrated one of my successes in the friends section at Duolingo. Thanks so far, but afaik, only followers or people I follow can celebrate things like being in the top 3 of a league 5 times?!
The only clue I have is that this person is a follower of someone I follow.
How is that possible? Has anyone else encountered something similar?

[Saperlipopette!]

For the last three week I've noticed the news feed has opened up and I'm getting all sorts of opportunities to click on feats for people I don't know or don't follow. They might follow me. Another thing that's relevant to followers and followees is that you're automatically friends with all the people in a plan if you get a free trial for a week sponsored by one of your friends.

[John Little]

I followed a lot of people by mistake. I decided to follow back anyone who was following me. But the list I was looking at with all the people I was starting to follow was the friends list of one of my friends!

The point is, as soon as I started I began to pick up followers who I didn't know but who I assume were just in the same league as I was..

One of them who started at much the same time as I did was called "Never give up". He or she gave up after the first few weeks.

[johnw]

Thanks for the replies. Good to know about the (mistakenly?) sometimes open feeds. That would explain it.
No, I'm not in any super/family plans/invitations and have only few followers and follow only few, so I "know" them all. Just keeping it very basic.

[Saperlipopette!]

Duolingo is famous for botching turnovers and not understanding the unintended consequences of their turnovers. The report a bug facility can be used whenever "Duolingo isn't working the way you think it should work."

• Duolingo • Report a bug

Sometimes you have to keep following up with them.

[SansEspoir]

They also started to put people in my feed, as I discussed here: viewtopic.php?p=133967-random-people-in-feed#p133967
It's super annoying, and if it wasn't for duome needing my profile public to work, I would have gone private. I've blocked like 15 people already, because they're sharing sentences, cluttering the feed where I just want to see the progress of my friends (aka mutual follows).

[SweNedGuy]

My take on these congratulations is that they come from your followers. You are usually not informed about their accomplishments unless you follow them back. For DL they are then considered 'friends'. You may select upto five friends for 'friend streaks'. You are also paired with a friend for the weekly friend quest. By 'unfollowing' users, they cease to be 'friends', but they remain followers.

So far my only reason for 'unfollowing' users is that they cease to be regular learners. A friend quest with a user who is barely keeping his streak alive can be frustrating. I don't block anybody.

[MoniqueMaRie]

I'm private at the moment.
I wanted to go public again.
Reading this I will reconsider whether to go public again. Before I had already been flooded with new "friends" congratulating me.

[SansEspoir]

My take on these congratulations is that they come from your followers. You are usually not informed about their accomplishments unless you follow them back. For DL they are then considered 'friends'. You may select upto five friends for 'friend streaks'. You are also paired with a friend for the weekly friend quest. By 'unfollowing' users, they cease to be 'friends', but they remain followers.

Nope, since some time in late november/early december, they started showing people who follow you, and people that follow them in your feed. No respect for who I choose to follow on my own. And there's no way to delete these entries from your feed other than to block them.

[johnw]

My take on these congratulations is that they come from your followers. You are usually not informed about their accomplishments unless you follow them back. For DL they are then considered 'friends'.

Good to know the difference between followers and friends. I didn't take care of that little difference yet.
But I have only few followers/followees/friends. I can count the followers on a hand, hm hm, on two hands, and my friends according to this definition on one hand. So, I know for sure that it is neither a follower or a friend. Nevertheless, thank you very much for your answer, so I could learn about friends.

Nope, since some time in late november/early december, they started showing people who follow you, and people that follow them in your feed.

This seems to be the explanation. Obviously that person experienced the same like you, because it is a follower of one of my followers. Somehow scary, if one thinks about it. What if I don't like some followers of people I follow? Maybe I don't want them to see so easily what I've learnt, and when and how? (Most of us know about some other ways to do this, but the average Duolingo user doesn't.)
Just having learnt the difference of followers and friends, did you maybe take a look at if these annoying persons are followers or friends or if it doesn't matter? For me, it is indeed a friend of a friend.
Fortunately, nobody sends me sentences yet! What a dumb feature by Duolingo. Even from friends, sorry, I would not like to get sentences!

[SansEspoir]

Yes, I've looked. Pretty much everyone I follow, I have interacted with outside duolingo, so I know their usernames. Most of them, I think, follows me back,
But a lot of people have added me just from seeing me in the leagues or something, so I get a lot of "congratulations" on achievements from people I don't know who is, but since they've followed me for a while I recognise their usernames sometimes. They've not really showed up in my feed before, and if they have, it's been a bug.
Now I get a lot of random people in my feed that I'm supposed to cheer for, and when I click their profile to see "who is this and why are they in my feed?" it turns out that often they follow someone who follow me.

[SweNedGuy]

If a friend selects you for a family pack try-out, all members in the selected 'family group' are connected as friends. In this way you may end up with more friends than anticipated.

I distrust connecting my language level to Linked-in. More random people may be nosing around because of this. Logging on to DL using a Facebook profile is an even worse idea. That really opens the Metaverse pandora box.

A profile page mentions a few 'friend suggestions'. Below you find the number of common friends. Following those usually is a bad idea. These users show up in the friends suggestions list because they have tens of thousands of followers. But most often they only follow back a few tens or at most a few hundreds. It is a curse rather than a blessing to see your username in such 'friend suggestion list'. Your follower base may grow exponentially beyond your control.

For clarification: I use the website DL version. That is probably safer, since I don't experience a flurry of new followers. Moreover DL sends me an e-mail whenever a new follower shows up. That is an optional setting: the only one I kept active.
Just for the record: I have 73 followers and I follow 28 users, 27 of which are 'DL friends'.

[johnw]

Like I said, I keep it very basic. No try-outs, no family, no super, no max, no anything.
Not connecting to facebook, LinkedIn or anything, no logging in via facebook or anything.
Not keen on picking up a lot of followers I do not know.
Even no e-mail notifications at all.
I literally cut off any connection to social media (in fact, I never activated anything). It's almost as if its running in a sandbox, lol.

Nevertheless, DL found a way to baffle me, by (accidentally or intentionally) obviously showing my profil friends of my friends.

You're right about Pandora's box.

[lrai]

I went private a long time ago when I didn't want to be involved in the leagues which were a pain in the rear for me. I am fairly sure I have no followers, or friends...LOL. Pandora's box is a good analogy and once you are aware of it and don't join it life is simple. Here in China social media is SO not your friend. Because of some government rules if anyone on your social media screws up, you get dinged too. So if someone breaks a rule, and you are part of their social media circle, you are considered to have broken said rule and you get punished too. I don't have social media here or for that matter anywhere. No footprint so to speak. Long ago growing up my mother used to say; "Be careful of the friends you keep, you will be guilty by association." I took that advice to heart.

I participate off and on here in the forum, but it's a choice. Personally for me, I don't find the leagues helpful. I challenge myself, stick to my own personal goals and keep my head down to learn. I may not have AMAZING success but it's been slow and steady mostly. DL is a tool, nothing more. It's helpful to me because it fits how I want to learn. I mostly use the web version, and the app only on my tablet. Some days I so 3 lessons or maybe 4, other days I may do a few more if time permits. I try each day to finish the daily "goals" and now the "weekend goals" which I never asked for...LOL Last year I finally managed to complete ONE FULL year of daily goals, YIPPEE for ME, LOL

I can completely recommend going into private mode if you really don't want random people showing up. It's weird but I feel life was so much more less complicated when we didn't have media feeds constantly at our fingertips. Less stress, fewer wackos and more harmony for sure. Just my two cents.

[johnw]

Right now it's okay with me since they just sent me congratulations and no annoying sentences or anything like that.
I have to admit, I like staying in diamond league and get some congrats.
It was just so confusing that someone completely unknown came onto my profile and because I couldn't explain it to myself, I asked here.

[SansEspoir]

If a friend selects you for a family pack try-out, all members in the selected 'family group' are connected as friends. In this way you may end up with more friends than anticipated.

I've only ever been added to one family plan, and I know who the people it added automatically is. My friend at the time, her husband and a friend of theirs. That's it.
So I know their usernames, and thus am aware that I follow them. I have no issue with them showing up in my feed. I have an issue with people who follow them who were never in the family plan showing up in my feed, and it doesn't even say "follow back" on their profile.

[John Little]

I've been experimenting with my list of followers and those I follow mainly due to @Thali_16's topic about abuse:-
(viewtopic.php?t=42872-discussões-no-apl ... o-duolingo ).

@Thali_16 thought that the difference between those that accept comments as well as congratulations are the people who follow you back.

But. More in line with this thread, I noticed one person I congratulated didnt have a comments option so I checked to see who was following who and I was unable to find their name on either list!

So, I have congratulated a person who I neither follow or who follows me. How can that be?

Edit: I suppose its a bit like those friend suggestions on FB. The recommendations for people you've never heard of that come out of the blue. They are probably friends of friends and people "you may know" by association

[SansEspoir]

So, I have congratulated a person who I neither follow or who follows me. How can that be?

Edit: I suppose its a bit like those friend suggestions on FB. The recommendations for people you've never heard of that come out of the blue. They are probably friends of friends and people "you may know" by association

That's a good guess. Because like I said, most of the randoms showing up for me seems to follow someone who already follows me, regardless of if I follow them back or not.
And it's super annoying, makes me want to go private. But then, I will lose out on Duome stats.

[lrai]

Dear SansE:

You will not lose out on Duome stats, when you want your stats then go public and hit refresh and there are your stats, when you are done go back to private. I know because that is what I do.

[John Little]

Dear SansE:

You will not lose out on Duome stats, when you want your stats then go public and hit refresh and there are your stats, when you are done go back to private. I know because that is what I do.

Same here