Connect Following Not Working As Expected

[JeroenM]

Hello everyone,

One of my LG friends here on Connect that I follow, asked me if I had seen her post from last week. I frequently check my Follow page for posts by friends and her recent post was not in my “Follow Time-Line”. So the answer was “no”.

I clicked on the Followed Local Guides button and she is listed amongst all other people that I wish to follow on Connect. Could it be that there are technical problems with this feature?

Tagging @ErmesT as he should be able to decide if it is necessary to tag a Googler.

Warm regards,

JeroenM

[ErmesT]

The timeline works fine for me @JeroenM , as it is simply showing you a list of post, and the possibility to filter and order them by “All”, “Recent”, and “Trending”. In addition, in Connect we see what I can see. It means that, if your friend posted under SVTP, just to give you an example, you will not be able to see the post, as you don’t have an SVTP badge. In this case, the post will not be on your list.

Another reason can be that the post has been merged on another thread. In this case it will not appear as a post, and it will not be on the list.

If the post is accessible to you, written by a Local Guide Followed by you, and you cannot see the post in the list, a Google Moderator need to check.

Can you provide (if possible, and you don’t have a privacy concern) a link to the post?

[JeroenM]

Hi @ErmesT

It is time to tag a Googler, I think.
Here is the link to the post that does not show up in my Following timeline. Her two posts before that (both from January the 4th) also do not show on my following timeline.

I am following you too, and I can confirm that also none of your posts appear in my following timeline.

I haven’t checked everyone on my list, but if that is required, please let me know.

Yours,

JeroenM

[ErmesT]

Interesting @JeroenM

Yes, let me tag @KlaudiyaG for a check.

I can see her on my flow

[KlaudiyaG]

Hi @JeroenM and @ErmesT ,

Thank you so much for bringing this to my attention!

After testing this out with the team we couldn’t replicate what you are experiencing. Have you tried to check if you are seeing the posts of the Local Guides you follow from different devices? If so, are you still experiencing the same thing?

[JeroenM]

Thank you for looking into this @KlaudiyaG .

Yes, I can confirm that the same issue occurs on other devices. What I shall do now, is:

First, analyze my list and try to see a correlation to the ones that I see and don’t see. For example, I have been adding people to my Connect contact-list since early 2017. Maybe, some of the people that don’t show pre-date the following feature that used the original contact-list?

Although that makes no sense because Denise was someone I added to my “contact-follow” list after the launch and more recent than say JanVanHaver, whos posts do show up.

Another hypothesis would be that I have too many contacts and the more recent ones like Denise are not registering properly. I honestly don’t remember if @ErmesT was added later than say Jan… Since I probably have a lot of people from 2017 on my list who are no longer active on Connect. Thus, I shall clean up my list and see if this makes a difference.

Once I am done, I shall report back to you and hope that I can figure it out, without you having to go into the database that runs this platform to check if my contacts are corrupted somehow.

Cheers!

JeroenM

[JeroenM]

@KlaudiyaG @ErmesT

Update - Investigation Report:

Step #1
My sample is based on Connect posts from 31st December (included) until today.

I counted 40 people on my following list. The order in which the people were listed was alphabetical and thus not allowing me to recognize a cut-off time-wise since old and new people I follow are being mixed up.

21 out of the 40 people did not post during the sample period.

12 people that posted, did show up on my f**ollowing timeline.

7 people that did post did not show up!

Step #2

I cleaned up my list and removed 12 inactive persons (unfollowed).

All 7 missing people (based on sample period) now show up on my following timeline!

The assumption now is that 30 people might be the following limit…
Since I got this far with my testing, why not check this hypothesis.

Step #3
I added two people (active people with recent posts) to bring my cleaned list from 28 back to 30 people.

Strangely, from the two additional persons, only the last person I added shows up in the timeline, person #29 does not show up in my timeline. For later reference, I call this person X. So now I am wondering, is the limit 29 OR is the limit even lower, since 9 people of my current list have not posted during the sample period.

The figures, 9 and 29 lead me to suspect that the algorithm of Connect’s forum-application might only go up to 20 active people on one’s following timeline. That would explain why one of the two active people I just added did not show.

To test this hypothesis, I plan to remove 10 people to get to a list of 20 active persons that I follow.

Step #4
After deleting a further 4 inactive persons, I get a hunch that my line of thought might be flawed and that I should take smaller steps. I check my following timeline and find that I now have 21 active people showing! Person #29, added to the list, Mr. X is now showing.

So perhaps the maximum limit is 29 people after all?

Step #5
From my list of 30 I had omitted 4, so I needed to add 3 to get back to 29. On my wish-list were 3 more people of which one person was not active during the sample period. I added all three, making sure that the last person added is actively posting.

Only 22 active people are now showing from my list of 29 following (of which 23 active during sample period). Mr. X is missing again!

Remember, I added 3 people of which one was inactive. So, let’s take people away again, one by one this time.

Step #6
I start with removing the inactive people and the first person to be removed is the last inactive person (the one out of the last three) that I added.

I check, no Mr. X…

I remove a second inactive person. I check, no Mr. X.

I remove a third inactive person. Mr X is back!

Now I have 23 active people all showing from my total list of 26!

Okay, let’s remove the remaining 3 inactive persons and see how many more active people I can add…

Step #7
After removing the remaining 3 inactive persons, bring my list to 23 active people, I add one. This latest person and Mr X are still showing (for now, I am not going to verify all 24).

So let’s add active person 25… and I find this person and Mr. X showing.

The next person would bring back my list to 26, let’s see… This time I verified all 26 persons and person #26 (the last one I added) is the only one not showing!

Preliminary conclusion, could it be that the limit is 25 people one can follow on Connect?

Well, that was a few hours well spent, lol. Anyone, willing to confirm the 25 limit?

Yours, JeroenM

[KlaudiyaG]

Hi @JeroenM ,

Firstly, I would like to thank you for taking the initiative and time to do all these tests! I really appreciate it.

And for the second part of my message, I also did some tests on my end and so it appears that I could recreate what you are talking about. Normally there shouldn’t be any limitations, that’s all I can tell you right now. Nonetheless, I forwarded this anomaly to the appropriate team. The moment I have any news from them, I’ll be sure to let you know and of course to update the thread. So, stay tuned.

[JeroenM]

That’s great @KlaudiyaG and let’s see what they can do about this. Following 25 fellow Local Guides as a maximum does not seem very high to me. I would like to follow at least double that.

Thank you for keeping me updated.

JeroenM

[GermanLMaymo]

Hola a tod@s espero que esten bien! no se porque motivo no me avisa google cuando llega un mensaje, me gustaria contartar con gente LG de Tenerife!

@JeroenM un saludo!!

[JeroenM]

Hola @GermanLMaymo ,
Thank you for reaching out to me.
I am currently traveling in France and expect to be back home in Tenerife in October. Let’s organize a meet-up in Santa Cruz together this autumn!
Warm regards,
JeroenM