In this article we'll cover:
- how to follow other learners
- being followed by other learners
- whether you can stop someone from following you
- searching for learners
- private or direct messaging
Following helps you find interesting comments
If you find someone's comment particularly interesting, you can 'follow' them to keep up with their posts. To do this, click 'follow' at the upper right of their comment as shown in the screenshot below:
Or go to their profile and click the pink 'follow' button under their profile picture, as shown in the screenshot below. (If you can't find the 'follow' button, try disabling AdBlock.)
[Image description: a green arrow points us to the Follow button in a pink box, below a learner's profile image which is the initials EL in an orange box]
Once you have followed someone, you can use the following filter above the comments on a step to find their comments. This is the leftmost 'Sort by' drop-down menu underneath the comment box, as shown in the screenshot below.
[Image description: the comment box is shown for our example learner, with the filter box below that showing the option for filtering comments under 'following']
You can also use the Conversations tab to find comments from people you are following across the whole course. In the Conversations page are four options (top to bottom): All comments; Bookmarked; Your Comments; and Following. Click on Following to find comments from people you follow, as shown in the screenshot below.
[Image description: we are in the conversations tab showing comments from all weeks of the course. We can also see the filter for comments in this time period has been selected as showing 'All comments', with the other options of 'Bookmarked', 'Your comments', and 'Following' also shown in the drop-down list of filters]
Tip: Read more about comment sorting and filters.
Other people can follow you too
Your followers will be able to see your name and location if you have included that in your profile.
If you don't want to share your location, you can remove it from your profile. It's not currently possible to block followers or stop people from following you, but we may change this in the future.
I don't want to be followed - can I stop someone from following me?
At the moment you can't stop a learner from following you. However, when a person follows you they won't have access to any more information than is already available in your comments or profile, and they won't get any notifications when you comment.
If you are worried about a learner's behaviour, you can report comments which you think break our Code of Conduct using the warning flag underneath each comment. You can find out more in our article about about moderation on FutureLearn.
Searching for learners
We don't have a way to search for another person.
If you know someone else who is taking a course and you'd like to follow them, the easiest thing is to ask for the address of their FutureLearn profile page, which will look something like this: https://www.futurelearn.com/profiles/123XXX
You can then follow them using the 'Follow' button on their profile page.
Private or direct messaging
It is not possible to send someone a direct or private message and this is not something we are currently planning to develop.
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