Following someone without being noticed of their postings?

Hi everybody

I searched the faq and forum but found nothing helpful so am asking here:

I am following some players to be noticed when they are online. But that means that on the left side of the main page I get notes when they do postings in the forum. Is there a way to stop getting these notes but still get the message they are online?

In case I am right and there is no possibity to choose not to be noticed of postings of followed players, should this be a feature request?

I am also curious if it would be possible to turn off notifications for some people I follow.
The major reason for that is that some of my contacts post enough to drown out everybody else.

That's currently not possible. Might make a good feature request though.

LinkedIn has separate concepts for "connecting" (establish relation, allow communication) and "following" (receive content updates). Connecting implies following, but following can be disabled. You can also follow someone without connecting.