Early on many players created Facebook accounts only for game purposes. Those who did aren’t really embarrassed by all the spam generated by Mafia Wars. Those who use a real life account for their games often go all out to hide game spam from those who don’t play. One way to do that is to make lists [1]. There are application settings on Facebook which allow you to pick which lists your requests are visible to. For some reason, Mafia Wars (and other Zynga game requests) are bypassing these settings and using the main setting instead. In order to use your lists, you need to add them to the main setting. To do this, simply make a post and change “Public” to the lists you want to use before publishing. Your games will now only publish request to these players. The only downside to this workaround is if you have something you want to say to all your Facebook friends, you will need to change it back to “Public” before making the post.
Thanks to Tamara Belvins for the tip and to Ohm Robinson for explaining what is going on. It seems that Zyngs is taking more dramatic measure to ensure more people see their game requests.
You don't need to actually make the post...
ReplyDeleteJust click in the status box and change the setting, then go to MW and click the 'beg' button, you should find it shows the list you just chose.
At least, that's how it works for me.
You my want to change that from "Public" to "Friends" or "friends of friends"
ReplyDeleteIt's also not just zynga games. It seems to be all games so this is a facebook issue and I have contacted them but that's like pouring molasses in a blizzard.
This is, you need to do this EVERYTIME YOU WANT TO POST SOMETHING. It does not remember your choice anymore. If only ... sigh
ReplyDeleteI noticed this yesterday. This is completely unacceptable. When I specify privacy and other settings for my overall Facebook account I expect it to be honored in the application. There is a setting specifically for Mafia Wars that is now being ignored. ZYNGA better fix this fast. I would think this is some kind of violation of facebook policy. I think the fact that you play Mafia Wars is now also being broadcast. I have a "real world" account that I did use for certain MW tasks. I stopped doing that. I do not want my real frinds to get that message saying "Teresa played Mafia Wars today" This could very well be the end.
ReplyDeleteI think FB changed something. If I go to Privacy Shortcuts (the padlock next to "Home" at top right), under Who can see my stuff, it says I changed the setting when I last posted
ReplyDeletehttp://prntscr.com/12dhgn
This has been happening from past the 2 weeks....
ReplyDeleteIf you don't allow the games to post for you, you can change that setting on the actual posts that are generated before you post them,,,there's a drop down box on each of the posts you generate that has the same list choices (if you use lists)...I play a couple of games and keep separate lists for each so I've been doing that since I noticed that it started showing as "friends" instead of whatI have specified in account settings....and I would put this on Facebook as well, and not Zynga
ReplyDeleteI don't allow autopost and this us the best solution I've heard of. Why didn't I think of that? Thanks. (Changing them after they've posted is a major pain. This still sucks, but is much more do-able.)
DeleteI'm simply not publishing many requests or rewards as before. It is pretty aggravating checking who is seeing each autopost on my timeline (cause the post preview doesn't always pop up before posting). I won't annoy my non MW friends with game posts - period.
ReplyDeleteI started playing MW casually several years ago, as I got more involved (and the game got spammier?) I started using the 'lists' feature to keep from bugging my non MW friends with game posts on their news feeds... I haven't had much problem with it except a couple of times, it seems to happen when Facebook make changes, so I also won't be putting the blame on Zynga for this one! I use the spockholm toolbar feature to disable auto posting which allows me to stay in control and check posts before they go out!
ReplyDeleteI'm with the other guy that said just don't allow MW to post on your behalf and then when you do post you can change the settings for that post. I wish everyone would stop MW from posting for them. Yes I know it doesn't publish your achievements and I say so what. I don't care if my mafia knows that I have the lasted warlord achievement, etc. and the up side is that your friends will not have to see every damn gift that you receive either.
ReplyDeleteI also believe it is a Facebook FUBAR.
ReplyDeleteIf you go to privacy settings, "who can see my future posts?"...that is what all the posts are doing, game/status/whatever.
If you change that to whomever you want to see MW posts, then you only have to change single messages if you post non-game stuff. This is obviously sucky if you play many games or have many statuses and such.
I'm having loading issues with the scripts since the ice event came out message has facebook API bull crap help I don't know where to go for the help
ReplyDeleteAny changes in sight to get this back to the way it was before (where you choose the lists the app posts to and it remembers it for each app)?
ReplyDelete