How to let just the friends playing mafia wars see your MW feeds

Ok, it's true. I have fallen off the Mafia Wars wagon and once again play the game. Things have changed in the game a lot since I first quit several months ago, but now that I'm playing once more, I've found easier ways to deal with some of the issues that took away a lot of the fun in the game.

There are several reasons to make your Mafia Wars posts and updates visible to only a certain group of people.

For one reason, a lot of family and friends on your list who do not play Mafia Wars will complain that they have to search through all of the "junk" post to find posts from friends.

There are also "vultures" (those people who do play the games, and sit there refreshing the home feed to click on and snatch up any freebie loot (such as the Secret Stash of 5 Snow Leopards someone just posted), while rarely contributing anything back to the player that posted the update. These people take and leave nothing for the friends that deserve the items, such as friends who send you daily gifts, are always the first to help out on jobs you post, etc.

It will depend on the reason(s) you have for selecting who see's your mafia wars feeds as to the action you will need to take.

If you simply wish to hide your Mafia Wars feeds from everyone who doesn't play the game as a consideration to them, then you will need to make a "list" (click on "Account", then "Edit Friends", then "All Connections", and finally "Create List".  In this list, select only friends who play Mafia Wars. Name it something like "Mafia Wars Players", etc) and when you're ready to post a Mafia Wars update, select that list as the only people to show it to.

If you only wish a certain 5 people to benefit from the Secret Stash updates, then you can either select only those 5 names, or better yet, select "only me" and then copy the link (instructions below) and message it to them. They can click on the link in the message and go straight to the "accept" screen.

The above image shows the update that pops up after finding a secret stash while doing jobs. Note that it has not been published to your feed yet.

To select only friends that you want to see the update, click on the little "lock" as shown and select "customize".

A second window will pop up (see images below) and from the drop down menu, select "specific People". This will allow you to type in the names of the people you only want to see the feed, or even people you do not want to see.

You can also type the name of a list, for example my list is named "MW" and by typing in MW, it selects that list. Now only the people on my MW list will be able to see this update when it posts.

Click "save setting" and the window will close and bring you back to the original "not published" screen. Click "publish".

There are times that you might want to let only a certain 5 people see these. I say 5 because there are only 5 loot items available and the first 5 people to click on them, gets the loot. Gun Drills (as shown in these examples) may not be the most sought after loot in the game, but some of the items are pretty nice like the Anacondas and Snow Leopards, etc.

You may want to reward Mafia members who are always helping you. Otherwise, the "vultures" will grab them before more deserving members have a chance to click.

You might also have some smaller level players in your mafia that you wish to help build up and want only them to have access to a particular update.  In these cases, I simply select "only me" from the drop down in the above instructions and post.  Now only I can see this update.

Go to your profile, right click on the image (the little black gift box on the left) and select "copy link location".  Paste this link into a private message and send it to the 5 people you want to share it with. I always message this link to make sure they see it. When they click on the link (and it will be a fairly long link) in the message, it will take them straight to the "accept" window in Mafia Wars.

I might add that this will work with any game played on Facebook. If you play FarmVille, you can do the same with it.  As a matter of fact, I tested this with FarmVille and found that the Gamer's Unite Snag Bar did not "See" the updates and was unable to "snag" any of the items that were posted to share with others.

Disclaimer: I am not insinuating that the Snag Bar is in any way cheating. I don't use it, nor do I currently play Farmville. I tested the Snag Bar several months ago and found no way to use it in Mafia Wars and to my best knowledge, found that it is a Farm Ville exclusive script before uninstalling it.