Smule Unfollow: How to beat the Follow to Unfollow tactics by spammers

[[Member sdr…]]

On 4/1/2022 at 7:00 PM, sdr said:

 

Just found out that there is an easy way to filter out singers who do not follow back. By using a file difference checker. I used 

https://www.diffchecker.com/

Use it on your laptop. Go to smule.com and copy your Followers to the Changed Text box (right) and Followings to Original Text box. Press Find Difference at the bottom and a beautiful color-coded result is displayed for you. The singers in red background in the left side are the ones not following you back. 

This can be used for finding out who unfollowed recently also. For this set up diffchecker by entering current Followers into both the boxes. Then use the option to save your diff with a name such as "Followers on September 29". Open diffchecker when you want to find out who unfollowed you and copy current Followers to the Original Text (right) box and press Find Difference. The recently unfollowed singers will be highlighted in red in the left box.

Hope this helps to streamline your followings.😁

Edited September 30, 2022 by sdr
.

[[Member Nath…]]

On 9/30/2022 at 5:39 PM, sdr said:

Use it on your laptop. Go to smule.com and copy your Followers to the Changed Text box (right) and Followings to Original Text box.

[---]

This can be used for finding out who unfollowed recently also. For this set up diffchecker by entering current Followers into both the boxes. Then use the option to save your diff with a name such as "Followers on September 29". Open diffchecker when you want to find out who unfollowed you and copy current Followers to the Original Text (right) box and press Find Difference. The recently unfollowed singers will be highlighted in red in the left box.

Hope this helps to streamline your followings.😁

Thanks! 😀 Very creative, and thanks for sharing! This can be used for for other purposes as well. There's an Excel add-in called Inquire that I use very often at work, and it would also do the trick, but it's not readily available to me unless I'm at work--and using the work computer for something that isn't actually work 😬😅 I noticed that the lists have to be sorted for this to work, but that's achievable with e.g. Google Spreadsheet. Neat! 

I don't know if you're aware of it, but there's a newly implemented service available here (on SingSalon) with the specific purpose of showing you who follows back and who doesn't: https://sing.salon/who-is-following-me-back-on-smule/. I tried it right away and it's beautiful! It doesn't (yet) have the feature of highlighting who has recently unfollowed you, but otherwise it's simpler than using DiffChecker. I really appreciate your sharing DiffChecker with us nevertheless. I bet I'll use that site for something pretty soon/often, if not for Smule related stuff. 

[[Member sdr…]]

6 hours ago, Nathan D said:

I don't know if you're aware of it, but there's a newly implemented service available here

The starting message on this thread is about such a feature by myself. @opentype's version is an improvement of the same idea with smule login activated to access complete followings and followers. Mine works without login but only useful if the Following/Followers count is under 500. @Bhavs suggests a method using Excel sheets which also includes copying the complete Followings/Followers lists.

After finding out the way to see the recently unfollowed singers using diffchecker, it has become the better reason for using it. Because that was what I was looking for really. Knowing who unfollowed me lately allows me to recollect my activities/inactivites with that singer which prompted that singer to unfollow me. 

Edited October 3, 2022 by sdr
.

[[Member Duet…]]

Wow! Thanks to everyone who has added to this thread, and especially to @opentypefor adding this feature on Sing.Salon. Now I just have to hope that people don’t use it to find out I’m not following them 😂 I try to follow non vips who are still active and join my songs, or who I’ve joined in the past when they had vip. But I sometimes unfollow vip users when they don’t listen to their joins, and there are several I would like to unfollow but don’t because they would be the ones who would check.

[[Member sdr…]]

23 hours ago, DuetWithAlli said:

I try to follow non vips who are still active and join my songs, or who I’ve joined in the past when they had vip.

I don't check the vip status when following singers but only whether they are genuine and good. But I instantly unfollow singers if they unfollow me unless I consider them too good to part company.😁

 

23 hours ago, DuetWithAlli said:

but don’t because they would be the ones who would check.

Rarely anyone checks, I guess. Primarily because the unfollow is not notified and again many just do not care. Checking on others happens when there is an interaction like a join, like or comment. So you should be safe on your unfollow spree.😁

[[Member Duet…]]

12 hours ago, sdr said:

I don't check the vip status when following singers but only whether they are genuine and good. But I instantly unfollow singers if they unfollow me unless I consider them too good to part company.😁

 

Rarely anyone checks, I guess. Primarily because the unfollow is not notified and again many just do not care. Checking on others happens when there is an interaction like a join, like or comment. So you should be safe on your unfollow spree.😁

If I unfollow someone, it means I don’t want to sing with that person anymore. It’s usually for a good reason, so I’ll be totally OK with it if they return the favor.

I don’t check either, because most people I sing with, I’ve been singing with for years and I don’t expect them to unfollow me. That’s the same reason I don’t unfollow them. I just try to make mental notes of which ones I don’t want to join anymore. And if someone who doesn’t sing with me anyway unfollows me, it makes no difference to me.

 

[[Member Nath…]]

On 10/3/2022 at 3:11 AM, sdr said:

The starting message on this thread is about such a feature by myself. @opentype's version is an improvement of the same idea with smule login activated to access complete followings and followers.

[---]

After finding out the way to see the recently unfollowed singers using diffchecker, it has become the better reason for using it. Because that was what I was looking for really. Knowing who unfollowed me lately allows me to recollect my activities/inactivites with that singer which prompted that singer to unfollow me. 

Aha, thanks for clarifying! 😀 As you might've guessed, I lost track of the thread history and didn't even think of going back to reread the messages. Sorry about that! 

For me also, learning who unfollowed me recently is the most interesting thing. I've now gone through my whole list and unfollowed the ones I don't want to follow anymore, and from now on I'm naturally only interesed in any "new developments". 

[[Member musi…]]

Are you guys able to see the list of followers in web browser anymore? Looks like with the latest update, that option is gone as the user interface has changed in the browser. If anyone found an alternate way, please post. 

[[Member duoj…]]

11 minutes ago, music8 said:

Are you guys able to see the list of followers in web browser anymore? Looks like with the latest update, that option is gone as the user interface has changed in the browser. If anyone found an alternate way, please post. 

You still can - it's the bolded text under the user name that says "XX Recordings XX Following XX Followers". If you click on Following or Followers, it'll pop out a separate module.

[[Member musi…]]

7 hours ago, duojet24 said:

You still can - it's the bolded text under the user name that says "XX Recordings XX Following XX Followers". If you click on Following or Followers, it'll pop out a separate module.

Yeah, but that's not showing in the descending order (new followers first) like before. So there is no way to find out who's newly following you, unless you monitor your feed carefully. There is also no way to copy/paste the list anymore.

[[Member sdr…]]

28 minutes ago, music8 said:

Yeah, but that's not showing in the descending order (new followers first) like before. So there is no way to find out who's newly following you, unless you monitor your feed carefully. There is also no way to copy/paste the list anymore.

Looks like they have started "working" on the website also. Wait with your hands crossed.😜

[[Member My2C…]]

1 hour ago, sdr said:

Looks like they have started "working" on the website also. Wait with your hands crossed.😜

Yeah I've noticed the web version  has changed somewhat- not bad I'd say!

[[Member sdr…]]

On 10/7/2022 at 4:13 PM, music8 said:

Yeah, but that's not showing in the descending order (new followers first) like before. So there is no way to find out who's newly following you, unless you monitor your feed carefully. There is also no way to copy/paste the list anymore.

The Followers/Following list is completely messed up now with no apparent order for the entries. 

You have to resort to json now to get the results. If you are interested try the following steps.

Go to:

smule.com/yourname/followers/json

Copy the json and go to:

jqplay.org

Paste the json in the JSON box and enter

.list[].handle

in the Filter box ([] - left and right square brackets). Select Raw Output check box on top row. The names will be listed in the Result box. Copy and continue.

Edited October 12, 2022 by sdr
.

[[Member sdr…]]

10 minutes ago, sdr said:

The Followers/Following list is completely messed up now with no apparent order for the entries. 

You have to resort to json now to get the results. If you are interested try the following steps.

Go to:

smule.com/yourname/followers/json

Copy the json and go to:

jqplay.org

Paste the json in the JSON box and enter

.list[].handle

in the Filter box ([] - left and right square brackets). Select Raw Output check box on top row. The names will be listed in the Result box. Copy and continue.

An advantage is that with the json you can do all the processing on your phone itself. No need of laptop.👍

[[Member musi…]]

8 hours ago, sdr said:

The Followers/Following list is completely messed up now with no apparent order for the entries. 

You have to resort to json now to get the results. If you are interested try the following steps.

Go to:

smule.com/yourname/followers/json

Copy the json and go to:

jqplay.org

Paste the json in the JSON box and enter

.list[].handle

in the Filter box ([] - left and right square brackets). Select Raw Output check box on top row. The names will be listed in the Result box. Copy and continue.

Thank you so much! I just tried, is it limiting only to 500 followers though? Is there a way to get all followers?

[[Member open…]]

No. The public data is limited to 500 entries. For more, the content has to be called in batches of 25 entries, which isn’t really feasible for manual processing. That’s why I created the online service to automate the entire process.  

[[Member Duet…]]

Ugh someone noticed and sent me a nasty email, to which I explained why I unfollowed him (because he never joined my songs even though I joined his, so I thought that he was being fake nice to me and didn’t actually like me, NOT that I think I’m some kind of American Idol or whatever he said in his tirade), thanked him for going off on me, and told him not to respond because I was blocking him. 

Anyway, the reason I came here is to inform you that the followers/following numbers are not correct. I followed everyone who is following me (even those I hadn’t followed previously), and it says I have 364 followers, but I’m only following 358. There is no one in my following list that I don’t have checkmarked as following. So don’t put too much stock in the numbers, accuracy of followers and following lists, or anything on Smule.

Edited October 16, 2022 by DuetWithAlli

[[Member sdr…]]

On 10/12/2022 at 4:42 PM, music8 said:

Thank you so much! I just tried, is it limiting only to 500 followers though? Is there a way to get all followers?

Now they have destroyed the json endpoints also. Now only performances endpoint is working. These people seem to be working with a vengeance to kill any joy that users derive from their services!🙄😔

[[Member open…]]

Oh, great. So days of coding the Who-is-following-back service were for nothing. 

[[Member sdr…]]

1 hour ago, opentype said:

So days of coding the Who-is-following-back service were for nothing

It was a shaky foundation to begin with anyway. But it was there ever since I looked for such a thing two years ago out of mere programmer's curiosity. 

Luckily I have a copy of my followers saved up at diffchecker. It's only that I have to manually compare it with Followers in the app every time I see a decrease in the number of followers.😔😁

[[Member gda_…]]

Hi everybody.  ^^

I'm disappointed too... Just see that they have effectly destroyed the json... I'm developer too like opentype and had the project to make a lovely android app to make a "Who-is-following-back" in app version. I arrived here in searching informations about json disappearance and I've got my answer... 😅

What a pity that Smule never had developed some API's !

[[Member Duet…]]

I added this feature recently to duets.fm. It shows which singers you follow are not following you back (up to 10K). Please try it and let me know what you think. 
 

Edited December 29, 2023 by Ram Venkat