I think FOAF is one of the best features of FF. If you turn them off, it's possible you may be sealing yourself into the echo chamber. - Rahsheen ™, Coach Rah

+1 Rahsheen - Christian Anderson

I tend to agree Rahsheen, which is why I'm asking what others think. I generally like FOAF, as I've discovered some great new "friends" that way. I may give it a try just to see how much it reduces the noise. I'm currently subscribed to about 200 people with about 300 subscribed to me. Seems to be a decent balance for now. I get lots of great stuff coming through my river of noise. - Brian Daniel Eisenberg

+3 Rahsheen....who was a FOAF before he became a F - Jason Menayan

+4 Rahsheen...I have gone from FOAF to F with many people and vice versa. I like it. You can always hide the ones you don't want to look at anymore. - DO ANYBODY NO MONIQUE

+5 Rahsheen - Hutch Carpenter

From what I can tell the more "active" friends you have the less FOAF posts you see so FOAF posts are basically filler though without FF knowledgable confirmation I am not sure. - Brian Sullivan

+6.... - Steve Lynch from Alert Thingy

-1 vote for this idea. FOAF is unique and should be enabled. - Czar

I think of FOAF as a window into another world. For instance, you follow a bunch of tech people, but they may be following random people that have nothing to do with tech. They Like stuff, you see it, you have got a glimpse outside of your box. If you aren't seeing any FOAF, I think that means you are following people who are not Like'ing stuff - Rahsheen ™, Coach Rah

I kinda enjoy FOAF posts. What most people have to say is pretty neat. Although stuff does tend to speed by before I get to them, due to all the other stuff happening. - Arlan Koizumi

Brian, I recently did this http://friendfeed.com/e... - Mike Fruchter

For 5 months I have left the foaf feature on, but it has become a struggle to keep with the core set of members I originally set out to follow. Turning it off, at least for a little while, has been a positive experience thus far. - Mike Fruchter

FOAF is great, but when you start reaching double digits or more in followers, the river flows more ferociously. - Mike Fruchter

Mike - my post on this topic was prompted by your post the other day (linked above). Thanks for the opinions and perspectives everyone. I've decided that I can deal with the river of noise for now and will not turn off FOAF. As many have commented above, FOAF is a great way to discover new friends and may be the real magic behind Friendfeed and this awesome evolving community of friends. - Brian Daniel Eisenberg

I concur with Michael P. Williams and I say leave it on. Isn't this the whole point of having a social conversation? One topic and a potpourri of thoughts? Yes, you may get the odd stray thoughts being fed into your stream, but the overall flow of the conversation makes up for that. - Kevin Singarayar

+7 Rahsheen - Duncan Riley

+8 Rahsheen - AJ Kohn

FoaF is one of the more interesting features, but it's nice that you can choose to turn it off. - Ernie Oporto

@K Welch: why not just hide almost everything from that one person? Say they're prolific posters for everything but Flickr: hide 'em on everything but Flickr. That way you filter their noise (mostly), but you still see the FOAF. Oh, and I love FOAF (but I'm low on the follows too). - FFing Enigma (aka Tina)

Ah Brian very cool :-) - Mike Fruchter

The beauty is having the option to turn foaf on or off. - Mike Fruchter

Without FOAF posts I wouldn't have read this. - Benedikt Koehler

Me too @Benedikt Koehler - not sure I'd toggle that feature off. - TDavid

I wouldn't turn it off either. Gives colour, even if it a little noisey. - Roberto Bonini

I turned it off for a few users here who were noising up my ff-river with their like-whore-behavior. :). I think it is best to leave it on by default and only muting FOAF of the noisy ones. - Marcel Weiß