The Lemon Fool

I'm not an active Facebook user but I do have an account, created yonks ago to be able to look at occasional you-must-have-an-account-to-look-at pages of interest, and that's all I've ever used it for, so far.

Recently a long lost mate and I found each other (not through Facebook) and they said they were on Facebook and sent me a link to their pages there. So I go there and their Timeline showed lots of posts from them (and only them), mostly with photos of them and family and what they'd been up to over the years. Great, just what I wanted to see, and esp. as they're not an obsessive Facebook user, mostly posting only about more notable events, maybe a dozen or so a year.

Then I decided to "friend" them, which they accepted, but now their Timeline shows masses of posts from other people (their "friends" I guess) in between theirs, none of which I'm interested in and which, for me, are just clutter.

So, my how to question is, is there a way for me to tell Facebook that I only want to see my mate's posts in their Timeline, and not those of anyone else? I can't see anything obvious (other than unfriending them, I guess....)

Install FB purity.

https://www.fbpurity.com/faq.htm

supremetwo wrote:Install FB purity.

https://www.fbpurity.com/faq.htm

Well ok, installed, but jeez there's a zillion options and it looks like I might have to learn a pile of FB lingo to use it. Is there a simple way of just saying, I only want to see posts by MyMate?

If you unfollow them (but remain friends) then your main feed will be empty.
You can then click through to his actual profile (via your friends list) , and I think it will only show his posts - Facebook don't like to give you control of this stuff though, you are supposed to just allow the algorithms to decide what you are allowed to read.

Lanark wrote:If you unfollow them (but remain friends) then your main feed will be empty.
You can then click through to his actual profile (via your friends list) , and I think it will only show his posts - Facebook don't like to give you control of this stuff though, you are supposed to just allow the algorithms to decide what you are allowed to read.

I don't know what my "main feed" is, but if I go to my homepage, click on Friends, then hover over MyMate, click on Following and select Unfollow MyMate then Following changes to Follow, but if I then click on MyMate it still shows all the posts in their Timeline that aren't from them.

When you weren't a friend, you saw posts which he wants the general public to see. As a friend, you see posts which he wants friends to see. Your control is limited.

Unless you install filtering as described above, which I haven't investigated.

Remember, with social media you aren't the client, you're the product.

Scott.

mc2fool wrote:
Then I decided to "friend" them, which they accepted, but now their Timeline shows masses of posts from other people (their "friends" I guess) in between theirs, none of which I'm interested in and which, for me, are just clutter.

So, my how to question is, is there a way for me to tell Facebook that I only want to see my mate's posts in their Timeline, and not those of anyone else? I can't see anything obvious (other than unfriending them, I guess....)

Just an idea, but you could block his friends one by one (tedious, I know). That should at least stop you seeing their posts

torata

The only way I could see to get around that is if you could persuade your friend to post to you directly via FB messenger as well as generally on his FB timeline. I do it sometimes if I want a specific person to see something (people who aren't very active on FB for instance).
Another option would be to set up a closed FB group (I'm on a few), where the membership is controlled by an admin and you can control the type of alerts you get as a member. Even there I don't think you could limit alerts to one member, although if the friend was the admin you might be able to limit the alerts to just that.

swill453 wrote:When you weren't a friend, you saw posts which he wants the general public to see. As a friend, you see posts which he wants friends to see. Your control is limited.

and, I think, what his friends post that are public.

I think this may because you're not really using facebook like facebook expects you to use it. Rather than you going to his profile, if you "follow" your friend, you should see all of his posts on your newsfeed. So all you need to do is scroll through your news feed, and you should see his posts.

Infrasonic wrote:The only way I could see to get around that is if you could persuade your friend to post to you directly via FB messenger as well as generally on his FB timeline. I do it sometimes if I want a specific person to see something (people who aren't very active on FB for instance).
Another option would be to set up a closed FB group (I'm on a few), where the membership is controlled by an admin and you can control the type of alerts you get as a member. Even there I don't think you could limit alerts to one member, although if the friend was the admin you might be able to limit the alerts to just that.

That all sounds convoluted and actually I'm not sure it helps. I'm not concerned about "alerts" (whatever that means, I haven't had any that I know of) and it sounds like what you're talking about would be in effect for future posts.

What I want is really quite simple. My friend has 14 years of posts on their TimeLine, and I want to be able to scroll through their posts over the 14 years without having to drudge through the (far more voluminous) posts by others that intersperse them. I'm amazed this isn't catered for as it seems an obvious thing to want to do.

UncleIan wrote:I think this may because you're not really using facebook like facebook expects you to use it. Rather than you going to his profile, if you "follow" your friend, you should see all of his posts on your newsfeed. So all you need to do is scroll through your news feed, and you should see his posts.

You're not supposed to go to your friend's profile to see what your friend has posted?!?

I've discovered the News Feed (top left, below my name, on the Home page, right?) and re-followed my friend but there's nothing on the News Feed.

mc2fool wrote:What I want is really quite simple. My friend has 14 years of posts on their TimeLine, and I want to be able to scroll through their posts over the 14 years without having to drudge through the (far more voluminous) posts by others that intersperse them. I'm amazed this isn't catered for as it seems an obvious thing to want to do.

I think you're misunderstanding what you are/were actually seeing.

Before you were a friend, you saw the posts that your mate had chosen to make public. Many people choose not to make any posts public, save what Facebook forces to be public (mainly profile picture changes). Your mate, for whatever reason, seems to make some or all their posts public, so non-friends can see them.

I'd say this isn't typical. I think most people have their default privacy settings so that only friends can see posts, that's certainly what I do.

Now that you're a friend, you see posts in his/her timeline that are visible to friends, this obviously includes posts made by his/her friends where they've "tagged" him/her.

So before you were a friend, you were just "lucky" that you could see the posts because they were public. This wouldn't be the case for most potential friends.

So you think what you're asking for is obvious, but it's actually a bit of a niche case.

As mentioned by someone else, Facebook will put the posts it "thinks" you want to see in your own news feed.

Scott.

swill453 wrote:Before you were a friend, you saw the posts that your mate had chosen to make public. Many people choose not to make any posts public, save what Facebook forces to be public (mainly profile picture changes).

Hmmm....maybe you're right, on a quick flick through a little of it (well, actually a pretty slow one due to all the other stuff in their TimeLine) it looks like they've changed their profile pic with every significant event in their life (which is by and large just what they post about anyway), and it looks like, IIRC, it was those I was seeing.

swill453 wrote:So you think what you're asking for is obvious, but it's actually a bit of a niche case.

Seeing posts only by your friends and not masses of dross from people you don't know and don't care about is a niche case?!? You're right, I don't understand!

swill453 wrote:As mentioned by someone else, Facebook will put the posts it "thinks" you want to see in your own news feed.

Well, as I said above, I'm following my friend but there's nothing on the NewsFeed. Is that because it'll only put new posts (since I started following them) on the NewsFeed? Or if not, how can I get it to put all of my friend's historical posts there? (Even if that includes posts from others, as it looks like FB Purity might allow me to filter those out, if I can figure out the lingo and options....)

mc2fool wrote:Seeing posts only by your friends and not masses of dross from people you don't know and don't care about is a niche case?!? You're right, I don't understand!

You might be able to do what you want with "Friends Lists". It's near the bottom of the Explore section on the left in the browser version of Facebook. Try creating a list, adding your mate to it, then viewing the list.

I'm not sure if it'll show exactly what you want, but worth a try.

Scott.

Facebook are lousy at providing sensible content filters. This is a deliberate policy, as a firehose means you have to read more and more, interspersed with all those lovely ads. FB Purity gets rid of much of the cruft (just say hide to everything it suggests), but you will still have your friend's page polluted by their wittery friends who mention their name in posts. The worst is sensible posters who's partners share the fact they are eating a muffin with their beloved every few hours.

Golden rule, you don't need to read your friends' FB posts, just ask them what they are doing in the flesh.

swill453 wrote:

mc2fool wrote:Seeing posts only by your friends and not masses of dross from people you don't know and don't care about is a niche case?!? You're right, I don't understand!

You might be able to do what you want with "Friends Lists". It's near the bottom of the Explore section on the left in the browser version of Facebook. Try creating a list, adding your mate to it, then viewing the list.

Well that would seem to be the idea, as it says "Get started by adding friends. You'll see their videos, photos and posts here." but it shows nothing and still says that after I'd added my friend, so I'm wondering if it'll only show future posts, not historical ones. I dunno.....

JohnB wrote:Golden rule, you don't need to read your friends' FB posts, just ask them what they are doing in the flesh.

My (recently re=discovered long lost) friend is on another continent and we haven't seen each other in decades. We're both happy to communicate by email but it'd be a bit much to ask them to write about what they've been up to for the past 20 years when a good chunk of that is on their FB page...

Unfortunately you are a pre-Facebook person who is able to think. It's not really intended for us.