Revisiting this old issue… I think this feature would make sense as an administrative tool, not as a site-wide feature.
Some possible (non-social) use cases
All of these are based on actual experiences I had.
The unconfirmed spammer:
So I’ve seen this kind of spammer before, they do this one post, then a few days later come back and do a post with some SEO link. BUT I can’t be 100% sure this isn’t a legitimate user. So I would like to subscribe to his posts so I would be immediately notified when he posts again.
The trainee:
I have a new moderator I am training and I want to ask to see all his posts to help him out as he goes along.
The person I’ve just warned:
So, suppose I have to give one of my dear community members a harsh warning. Then I’m nervous and fidgeting, will he repeat his behavior? Will he lash out with a really nasty post? I need to stay on top of that…
Some possible details about the feature
These are just ideas, I’m not even sure if they’re good ones…
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this could be an auto-subscribe feature: I’m an admin, I warn someone, then Discourse automatically notifies me “A person who was recently warned has posted”
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this could be an auto-expire feature: I can subscribe to user’s posts for a week, or a month, but not indefinitely.