If Alice makes a followers-only post, and Bob replies to it, to whom should Bob's reply be visible?
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Your condescension is unearned.
@evan It isn't intended as condescension. The common saying of "you can't know until you know" applies. Until you run across what you can unsee or unthink it isn't a possibility.
The Kathy Sierra debacle that was the final push that got Twitter to have their private accounts in the manner the put in place (as a stop gap) was a brutal wake-up call for many. The frailty of that system also was problematic and those, like Kathy, ended up leaving in the tens of thousands.
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@evan I think both is a problem because if we keep going, the conversation will be among a very different public each time anyone answers. Same for "Bob's".
I put "something else", but I wish I put "Alice's".
@mdione yeah, keeping the audience pretty much the same as the conversation grows seems very natural to me, too.
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Your condescension is unearned.
@evan I was a little surprised by the flippant family doesn't complain, to be honest.
I am saying all of this to help. Please take it as that.
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@evan
Eve -
@evan No matter whether Bob replied as "followers only" or " everyone", Bob's followers should be able to see his reply. They shouldn't be able to scroll up and see Alice's orignal post unless they also follow Alice. But Alice's choice for her own post should not override Bob's choice for his.
@ZenHeathen @evan
Yes it should. It's Alice's conversation. Only Alice's followers if she marked it thusExcept Mastodon will show it to anyone mentioned by bob. Which is broken. Even if it was private to Alice and Bob.
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Your condescension is unearned.
@evan Oh, I could have worded it a bit better. My sinuses are ripped up and hurting, which is not a great time to be at keyboard attached to a social platform.
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@evan those following both Alice and Bob
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@panos oh, yeah, it's terribly dangerous and rude. It's a good idea for Fediverse software to hide or disable that option. But the protocol allows it. (So does email. You can add in other people or even a mailing list to a private email conversation at any time.)
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@evan Oh, I know. It makes keeping tabs on people wishing to be quiet or unseen more visible. It really breaks the "for followers only" intent a badly broken promise and rather dishonest at the worst and poorly (or not even) thought through at the lightest.
@vanderwal so, I think I see where we went askew here.
You said, "Most services get this wrong and make the replies visible to B's followers only."
I disagreed, "Most services get this *right* and make the replies visible to A's followers only."
I don't think we disagree about the right way to do it -- we disagree if services actually do it that way.
I am not sure why you think they don't. As far as I can tell, X, Instagram and Facebook all make replies visible to A's followers.
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@vanderwal so, I think I see where we went askew here.
You said, "Most services get this wrong and make the replies visible to B's followers only."
I disagreed, "Most services get this *right* and make the replies visible to A's followers only."
I don't think we disagree about the right way to do it -- we disagree if services actually do it that way.
I am not sure why you think they don't. As far as I can tell, X, Instagram and Facebook all make replies visible to A's followers.
@vanderwal I also agree that making B's responses visible to all of A's followers can be a problem.
Especially in families and friends groups, A might approve both B and C as followers, but B might not want anything to do with C. C might be an ex-lover or a racist uncle or whatever.
Unfortunately, when we sever connections, not all of our friends and family do, too.
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@vanderwal I also agree that making B's responses visible to all of A's followers can be a problem.
Especially in families and friends groups, A might approve both B and C as followers, but B might not want anything to do with C. C might be an ex-lover or a racist uncle or whatever.
Unfortunately, when we sever connections, not all of our friends and family do, too.
Respecting blocks fixes this, obviously. But sometimes there are cases where B doesn't know C follows A, and hasn't blocked them.
I think giving B some options for replies -- reply privately to A, reply to same audience -- makes sense.
I don't think making replies visible to B's followers only is the answer, though.
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@evan if "mutuals only" were a visibility option, then I'd be okay with reconsidering "followers only" visibility.
@mayintoronto @evan Yes, this! I know many people would love “mutuals only” posts. I would definitely use that more than “followers only”
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@evan those following both Alice and Bob
@flippac so, the conversation audience keeps getting smaller and smaller?
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@mayintoronto @evan Yes, this! I know many people would love “mutuals only” posts. I would definitely use that more than “followers only”
@stephaniepixie @mayintoronto I think "followers only" only makes sense if you manually approve followers.
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@vanderwal so, I think I see where we went askew here.
You said, "Most services get this wrong and make the replies visible to B's followers only."
I disagreed, "Most services get this *right* and make the replies visible to A's followers only."
I don't think we disagree about the right way to do it -- we disagree if services actually do it that way.
I am not sure why you think they don't. As far as I can tell, X, Instagram and Facebook all make replies visible to A's followers.
@evan Twitter / X have public replies from B visible to A's followers as they are open. But, B's followers can see the response, which is where things get to be problematic.
I wasn't intending to say only B's followers saw the reply, but that they could see the response to a private account.
Marketers, stalkers, and worse have easy pickings in that model.
What @dahukanna lays out in the venn diagram is the good approach.
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@flippac so, the conversation audience keeps getting smaller and smaller?
@evan this is what happens when people want to have a moderately private conversation, yeah: think of it like the pub/bar/café table filling up for a given subthread
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@stephaniepixie @mayintoronto I think "followers only" only makes sense if you manually approve followers.
@evan @mayintoronto I actually do manually approve but I’m not chatty with every single person who follows me. I don’t always follow back.
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Respecting blocks fixes this, obviously. But sometimes there are cases where B doesn't know C follows A, and hasn't blocked them.
I think giving B some options for replies -- reply privately to A, reply to same audience -- makes sense.
I don't think making replies visible to B's followers only is the answer, though.
@evan I’ve always leaned toward having A's wishes respected as a first order priority.
I've worked to help platforms work through options for B to respond in a manner (it was a two tiered response model) where the one to A is clear, but one that filters out A from the response (either as script to remove it, or giving B the option for a public version).
These options were never implimented.
I know Traction software (for enterprise and “secure" focussed organizations) did this really well.
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@evan if "mutuals only" were a visibility option, then I'd be okay with reconsidering "followers only" visibility.
@mayintoronto @evan Yes! I would commit crimes for mutuals only posts to be an option, here and on most other platforms I use. Followers only isn't always enough.
