If Alice makes a followers-only post, and Bob replies to it, to whom should Bob's reply be visible?

[vanderwal@mastodon.social]

@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.

[flippac@types.pl]

@evan those following both Alice and Bob

[flippac@types.pl]

@evan @panos there's a reason LJ-and-successor users had "my journal, my rules" as a saying though

[evan@cosocial.ca]

@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@cosocial.ca]

@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.

[evan@cosocial.ca]

@vanderwal

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.

[stephaniepixie@fandom.garden]

@mayintoronto @evan Yes, this! I know many people would love “mutuals only” posts. I would definitely use that more than “followers only”

[evan@cosocial.ca]

@flippac so, the conversation audience keeps getting smaller and smaller?

[evan@cosocial.ca]

@stephaniepixie @mayintoronto I think "followers only" only makes sense if you manually approve followers.

[vanderwal@mastodon.social]

@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.

[flippac@types.pl]

@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

[stephaniepixie@fandom.garden]

@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.

[vanderwal@mastodon.social]

@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.

[greengaybles@sunny.garden]

@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.

[evan@cosocial.ca]

@maj does this help?

https://mastodon.social/@dahukanna/116030109485498081

[inherentlee@flipping.rocks]

@stephaniepixie @mayintoronto @evan followers only mostly acts as a "can't be boosted" technique imo. the audience limitation is secondary.

side note: why are boost controls and audience controls the same thing! bothers me to no end

[evan@cosocial.ca]

@flippac it's not how most other social networks work. If Alice posted a private photo on Instagram, and Bob commented, Alice's other followers could see Bob's comment, but Bob's followers could not.

[danso@mtl.rocks]

@evan@cosocial.ca if Bob is malicious, he could simply screenshot Alice’s post and share it with his followers.

With that in mind, it seems reasonable for his reply to be sent to his followers, with an off-by-default checkbox to also forward Alice’s message to his followers.

People who don’t follow Bob probably shouldn’t see Bob’s reply. But if Alice appreciates it, she could have an option to forward it to her followers (except any who have blocked Bob). Or maybe if she gives it a / (and it’s a non-private message) then it’s automatically sent to her followers?

It would also make sense for Charlie to have a profile-wide option to not see replies to posts that he can’t see. Even if I’m interested in Bob, I don’t need to see his reply to an invisible post by Alice.

I realise that has some uncomfortable implications, but as you describe, all of the options seem to. That’s what makes it a tough question 

[flippac@types.pl]

@evan yeah, but we actually have an opportunity to have at least one mode work that way whereas the current effect of "followers only" is for everybody to have to ask themselves if someone is following them who shouldn't be party to the conversation

[flippac@types.pl]

@evan ("private" here being the DM analogue, ofc)