Um Nope, not to my understanding of how this carnival works.

Nope. However, I think it's possible if you watched someone years ago who then deleted their account someone else may have gotten the name since then.

Nope. I'm not watching That many to begin with, and teh names and art are entierly unfamiliar.

I'm going to guess that it's a glitch, as no one should be able to add themselves you your list. Have you reported this glitch, yet?

Nope. new and unknown names and art.

I've had the same happen, seeing people's art on my watch list and I have no memory of actually watching them. But they're on my watch list... so far nothing bad or horrific has turned up...

I've been watching my watch list for 6 years. I've never found a change that wasn't something I did, either watching or un-watching people. I started copying my list into an excel document and checking for changes every few months since about 2011 or so.

I've had the same sort of "WTF is THAT????" moments though, when artists started drawing content that I disagreed with and had to drop them, but they were probably into that all along, just didn't feature it in their artwork often...

Nope, new and unfamiliar art and name. Only noticed it this last week.

It can be impossible to know who's watching us. Maybe even Vladimir Putin? I'm closing on 3,000 watchers, and obviously I have no idea who most of them are, and most cannot possible be watching me closely or I'd spend all day checking them as "commented" or "favored" -- and that plainly isn't the case. My guess is that most of those 3,000 only logged in for a limited while, and have never looked me up again. Maybe they never looked at FA again, period! Many watchers may well be inactive members.

Not people watching =him=. People he's watching. I don't think it's possible to force your way into a watch list, though.

Yeah ... I was just saying that Steve likely cannot know who's watching him unless he actually checked his watch list. I suspect it would be too much trouble ... it would be for me.

Not talking about who's watching me, but that I'm suddenly seeing art from someone I don't know and didn't choose to watch.

That is someone watching you, then, isn't it, even if you don't know it. Unless whoever it is who appears to be watching you doesn't appear on a list of people watching you. At which pint it's time for me to change the channel watch a movie.

Ferchist sake, why do you persist in being such an obtuse little time wasting fuck??

You might be a little more polite on those occasions that you allow your temper to get the better of you, but I've had enough of it already.

I dunno. Your constant intrusions into conversations here and on FB which seem to be no more than you wanting to hear your own voice are more than a little vexing. You might think you're clever, witty, or funny, with your crap, but you're not. You're simply a noisy intrusion, like a little kid who tries to jump into an adult conversation, not to contribute, just to get in and get noticed.

And a little background for the rest of you. I've known Taral for over thirty years, and he's always been just a bit full of himself. But well within the level of anyone who's gotten some level of notoriety in the various fandoms. We all get egos and can get a bit unsufferable at times. But these last years he seems to be loosing his touch, spouting out inanities, often without context. Like I said, as though he's desperate to get into conversations, but doesn't actually have anything useful to contribute, so just spouts off.

And with that abusive comment you just lost me as a watcher.

It's possible you watched them a long time ago and forgot about it. Sometimes people go a very long time without posting, and then suddenly start again and you're surprised to see their work appear. But in any event, it's real easy to stop watching someone.

Nope. New names and art entirely unfamiliar. Yeah, unwatching is easy enough, but is odd that they show up in the first place. Only began happening about a week ago.

Does anyone else have access to your computer? Or did you sign in to your account from anywhere else and maybe forget to log out? If it keeps happening, then yeah, changing the password would be a prudent thing to do.

i THINK what happens is, someone you've forgot you were watching could change their identity on their account.
at least i THINK that's where my experience of that comes from.

all the probabilities are low, but that's the least low as far as i can tell, of the several.
(i know that sounds unlikely when you don't recognize their art either, but people do change that too,
or maybe their little brother or sister started doing stuff)

i believe it happens alright, because i've seen it myself,
(and to tell the truth i'm not even complaining, just damd curious)

always more people learning how to do more things all the time.
things that might not have been supposed to have been possible.

just the ways of time and the universe,
there will always be more, and i've never been a genius about it.
just take it as a given that there's always more.

i've never unwatched any of them.
only time i ever unwatch anyone is if they block me.

my feeling is, could be my own mind, or not, but either way,
if i don't like their stuff its just another thing to delete.
i don't feel like they've done any real harm.

and if its some national or quasi national spook shop doing it,
maybe my examples will have some kind of positive back influence.

either way, other then curiosity value, i don't see it as any big deal.

Nominally, it should not be possible. That said, after a quarter-century in the Confuser Science business, I refuse to accept that someone can't force their ident into your watch list. Weird $#!+ happens all the time, and people are always finding new exploits, by accident or on purpose. Gaming the system, as it were.

It's not outside the realm of possibility, though, that some clown has figured out your access information. You might want to change your password, just in case.

Yeah, I'd say change your passsword and such, as the bear says. As far as I know, the only way someone could add to your watchlist would be to access the account.

I can think of a few possibilities. The most likely is that you accidentally hit the watch button on someone without realizing it. This can happen when a page is still in the process of loading, and you click on something an instant before it jumps to a different location on the screen.

I'll assume that you aren't letting other people use your computer.

It is possible, though unlikely, that someone got access to the session cookie that you were logged in with, if you access sites through public wi-fi locations. Go to FA -> Account Management -> Account Settings, and set your Account Security Level to Full Security Mode. Now go to My FA -> Site Security -> Active Sessions, and kill any sessions that you are not using. This should make it nearly impossible for anyone mess with your account.

Another possibility is that someone simply guessed your password. The simple fix for that is to change your password, and don't use anything that someone could possibly guess. I recommend passwords of at least 12 characters that contain a mix of numbers, letters and symbols, but not actual words.

I suspect that FA's handling of watchlists is somewhat flaky. Over the years I've had a number of people whose accounts I have watched, simply disappear from my watchlist, requiring me to re-add them once I realized they'd gone missing. If the system can randomly delete people from my watchlist, then it wouldn't surprise me to learn that the system was also screwing up in a way that added random people to your own watchlist.

But, it's a free service, so I just kinda roll with it.

Must be a site bug.

I've had people disappear from my watchlist, so why not the other way around. :P

I suspect I've also had people disappear from my watch list, though I've yet to keep a list to confirm that suspicion.
I'll also throw my hat in with it being a good idea to change password just in case somebody else has gained access to add these watches.

I've had my watch list drop people I'm certain I didn't drop, I'd wager that the opposite can happen.

'Course, it could just me blindly clicking on stuff when I don't have my glasses on :)

But yah, the watch list seems to have some odd random voodoo behaviour to it.

you know, i've had this happen to me, someone i'd never watch, with art i'd never EVER like, and i don't recall ever watching them. I think it's maybe i accidentally clicked watch? Or maybe it is a glitch but it's happened several times. :c

Maybe Erma took control of your computer and browsed around?

Did you check the dates on recent submissions to see if it was someone who was inactive for years?

Well, duh. These tend to be newish accounts, but again, of artists I don't know and would not follow if I did know them.