yes

I join peoples steam-stream notification groups with the understanding that I will be spammed by the promise of reasonably interesting content. It's the same as signing up for an academic listserv.

http://scr.hu/0obn/ttu4t

You can turn off the emails. All you're doing is showing support for a person who streams comp TF2. I personally turn off the emails and use the JTV broadcaster app for google chrome to find out who is streaming at any particular moment.

I got the idea from the minecraft community. Apparently everyone follows anyone who streams minecraft, and they're very supportive of each other. I thought it's pretty cool. Granted, as truktruk pointed out it's not a permanent solution for any stream to remain sustainable, but it's progress for everyone whether they have 5,000 followers or 50.

Steam groups on the other hand are iffy and aren't really seen by the public. Typically only the true fans who want the notifications are in the steam groups.

Steam groups are pretty much pointless honestly, as someone who made one, i stopped using it because people kept messaging me to stop spamming them.

That being said, there is absolutely no reason not to follow every streamer. Every time I find a new tf2 streamer I follow them. What people don't seem to get is you can turn off email notifications, so you aren't being spammed. Let me say that again in bold print so that people actually read it because it was in Slin's OP at the bottom and posted by other people, and yet there are still people who don't get it. YOU CAN TURN OFF EMAIL NOTIFICATIONS FROM TWITCH AND YOU WON'T GET SPAMMED and then nothing happens to you and all a follow does is helps a streamer out. That's it. You are in no way affected. I honestly don't even remember half the people i follow, but when they pop up on my twitch page, I usually tune in to check it out.

So please, just turn off email notification, and you're life won't be changed in the slightest.

on the other hand if you follow only the people you are actually interested in watching then the email notifications are fine to leave enabled. You get an email when someone you like watching is streaming, and can maybe catch their stream a little more often than otherwise.

What i dont get is this obsession with # of followers, since what actually matters is viewers. Subscriptions are supposed to drive viewer numbers, and asking people to disable the features that help them watch your stream more just so they can follow literally everybody simply doesnt make sense. If you want to know your stream is appreciated, then get more viewers, not more subscribers.

Wanted to throw this out there: Twitch has a pretty nice iOS (and maybe Android?) app that pushes you a notification when someone goes live so you don't have to get spammed in your email anymore!

wait how do u get emails to see who is following u??

ps. Followed every1 EXCEPT SLIN
p.s.s:
slin u a sellout bro? its so obvious ur using twitch.tv to dictate us , all u want is power by given shirtless men its really not cool. And ur takin pplz stuff at will too!! i have to unfollow now cuz i dont want u u to take all of alt accounts and ban tehm. this is bullshit cosmo. i cant believe u would go on a power trip like this man why do u gotta do this to us. i used to like ur streams but then this shit happen. Ur streams not even that good anymore and now u want to take our stuff man ur such a greedy bitch. UNFOLLOWED.

I sorta want them to earn me as a follower

LOL

I only follow the streams I want to be notified about because I hate TF2.

Everyone gets them. They show up in the email you registered your twitch account to.

You realize there is an option where you can select who you want to get alerts from, right?

Yes, I would like an invite please :]

twitch.tv/deep40k

You are right and i didnt realize this. I still think that asking people to blindly subscribe to everyone is silly tho.

Mile you're totally right. The followers number in actuality is kind of meaningless and dumb but so are in game achievements and virtual hats.

As of right now every person on that list just got like 150 more followers which for the new streamers is awesome! A lot of people are saying that seeing that number jump up just made their day which is pretty cool.

Truktruk is adding new people to the list all the time so don't forget to check back on the compTF2 list every so often to see who is new.

I'd like to be added :3

http://www.twitch.tv/pharaoh__

Same

http://www.twitch.tv/sezco

Having more followers doesn't mean more viewers. Dead subs are dead subs so having 300 followers but 3 viewers doesn't seem much better to me

Thanks for the 3 billion new emails gang.

aka no one is following shrugger

kurt pls add me http://www.twitch.tv/ghos7ayama

twitch.tv/alosec

thanks kurt

Awesome thread Slin - you have no idea how much this is appreciated

160 new subs on twitch in the last 15 hours!

the followers are kind of meaningless if people ignore the notifications and don't actually watch the streams.

kurt if you could add masonarium i would appreciate it

True that defiance, but people are far more likely to stay when you first go live if you have a large sub/view count

It can help, but it's also encouraging to see a larger number of followers. Before today, my only follower was myself (my old channel).

IMO it's discouraging to see a number (doesn't really matter how many) and <know> you're not going to get as many viewers

I'm not saying it's a bad idea since it is important to show that TF2 does have a viewership.