Damus doesn't, if it does I hope it is optional.

The notion of "following" is not intrinsic to #nostr. Certain clients implement the NIP-02 protocol as a way to implement twitter-like following; but that's just a client thing. More-speech, for example, has no concept of following. If you want to read someone's notes in more-speech, you add them to a tab. This does not involve NIP-02. Indeed, you can add all kinds of things to tabs, like threads, regular-expressions, and users. What's more, adding an author to a tab is not announced publicly.

More-speech uses NIP-02 for the concept of "Trust". If I trust that a certain npub is really who they say they are, then I can "trust" them and give them a pet name. This is then broadcast publicly in a NIP-02 contact list. There is a special tab in more-speech for trusted users. It contains all the notes sent by those users.

From: (fmar) at 07/16 07:23

> Which nostr clients are notifying that somebody follow/unfollowed you? I see primal.net webapp does this, but it is the first one I noticed. Amethyst certainly doesn't. Does damus or anyother in ios? nostr:npub1gcxzte5zlkncx26j68ez60fzkvtkm9e0vrwdcvsjakxf9mu9qewqlfnj5z nostr:npub1xtscya34g58tk0z605fvr788k263gsu6cy9x0mhnm87echrgufzsevkk5s nostr:npub16c0nh3dnadzqpm76uctf5hqhe2lny344zsmpm6feee9p5rdxaa9q586nvr

CC: #[4]

CC: #[5]

CC: #[6]

It's not impossible but it will take a good chunck of the user's data bandwidth to solve in a native nostr way. Also, there is no clear definitiom to what a follow is. The contact list is just a contact list. It doesn't necessarily mean people are following the contact list. And now with lists and other algorithmic feeds, the "follows" number is starting to make less and less sense.

That's very unfortunate; because I feel like follows and followers are a rough indicator of account activity and "trustable-ness". It is, by far, not solid or a perfect indicator. But for a rough estimate, it can be helpful.

Also, who doesn't like a number going up. x)