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I think I know why we cannot see who upvotes or downvotes our question. It might lead to unfavorable confrontations were people ask other people why they voted the way they did. It might also ward people away from voting, due to the lack of anonymity. But I don't see why we cannot see who favorites our questions? Now, I don't doubt there's a good reason, I just want to know.

Surely seeing who favorites a question or yours doesn't lead to bad confrontations. Or am i wrong?

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  • 3
    math.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/2739/…
    – MetaEd
    Jun 29, 2018 at 16:54
  • Thanks, your link does provide a way to find out who favorited my question, albeit in a difficult way. But do you know anything about why it is this way? @MetaEd
    – A. Kvåle
    Jun 29, 2018 at 17:44
  • 2
    @A.Kvåle You'll have to ask Stack Exchange staff, whose last word on that question stands at "There is no way to retrieve the same information on the site itself and that's currently by design."
    – choster
    Jun 29, 2018 at 20:04
  • Why would you want to know? What would you do with that info?
    – Mitch
    Jul 1, 2018 at 0:51
  • 1
    Presuming an actual deliberate design choice, Twitter has a view to see who favorited what, because it is intentionally a social media interface for knowing what people think. But for SE, it is a Q&A to establish knowledge, so authorship is public, but 'liking' (which is voting) comes under the current cultural norm of privacy. Favoriting (or really bookmarking) is even less public, it is only intended to aid an individual user's memory.
    – Mitch
    Aug 12, 2021 at 18:09
  • Good. The less we look like Twitter, the better.
    – John Lawler
    Oct 17, 2022 at 13:26

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
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When we had "bookmarks" (née "favorites"), it was possible to view a person's bookmarks via search, their profile, and most robustly the Data Explorer. For the minute details see the revision history of this post.

Now that we have "Saves", they are completely private. In fact, other than the badges that are awarded when enough people save a post, there's no way to tell how many people saved the post.

This was done due to the prevailing opinion that it was weird, unnecessary, and unexpected that it would be public.

It's also possible to "follow" a post, which allows you to get notifications for it. This is also private (and always has been).

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  • I for one just bookmark the question/answer/thing on my chrome browser.
    – NVZ Mod
    Jul 2, 2018 at 9:50
  • 2
    Laurel, on Twitter (no idea about Facebook), favorites made by a person are viewable everywhere, in addition to viewing all the people favoriting a given tweet. That is way more public than what I would assume is much more innocuous favoriting here in SE. I'm not judging any choice here (I get where you're coming from), but I don't think you need to be that paranoid about SE.
    – Mitch
    Jul 2, 2018 at 13:24
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    Wait...what kinds of things are you favoriting here? Just that you're paranoid is already enough to make you suspect. Stormtroopers deployed. Please stay away from windows.
    – Mitch
    Jul 2, 2018 at 13:26
  • 2
    Sorry. Couldn't resist.
    – Mitch
    Jul 2, 2018 at 13:27
  • 2
    No, really. I can't resist. Literally. They won't unlock the door. Pills through a slot. uncontrollable sobbing
    – Mitch
    Jul 2, 2018 at 13:28
  • 2
    I'll have to remember to come back and delete all this.
    – Mitch
    Jul 2, 2018 at 13:29
  • 2
    Even deleted comments are maintained in the database with just a 'deleted' flag.
    – Mitch
    Jul 2, 2018 at 13:29
  • 2
    ... just sayin'
    – Mitch
    Jul 2, 2018 at 13:30
  • Don't worry, apple/Microsoft/Google/Gmail/Facebook/Instagram/twitter/cookies know everything that there is to know about you.
    – Mari-Lou A
    Jul 3, 2018 at 7:40
  • 1
    You forgot to delete the comments @Mitch
    – A. Kvåle
    Jul 3, 2018 at 18:29
  • @A.Kvåle Thanks for the reminder. I'm on it.
    – Mitch
    Aug 10, 2021 at 2:46
  • @A.Kvåle I may be a bit slow though.
    – Mitch
    Aug 10, 2021 at 12:32
  • 1
    @Mitch Waiting-until-a-black-hole-deletes-every-piece-of-information-related-to-the existence-of-the-comments-slow?
    – A. Kvåle
    Aug 10, 2021 at 18:52

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