If Alice makes a followers-only post, and Bob replies to it, to whom should Bob's reply be visible?
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@flyingsquirrel @evan I think this is a fair assessment. If the default setting - particularly for somebody with a large number of followers - is that a reply causes a friends-only post to immediately break containment, that makes any reply from anyone who does numbers on here an act of bad faith, intended or not.
@flyingsquirrel @evan Possibly worse: I've got almost 6k followers on here, because I guess I bring some funny now and then.
But if I have a vulnerable friend On Here, who maybe feels safe with a small number of curated mutuals and posts something friends only, and my reply brings _six thousand randos_ into the mix? Then I ... can't be that person's friend anymore; not on here at least, not responsibly. I can't talk to them at all.
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@maj Dawn's and my answer would be all of Alice's followers. I don't like the intersection answer, because it gets smaller and smaller over time. I think Alice's intent is to have her friends and family have a conversation, like it works on Instagram and Facebook.
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@twobiscuits @evan
You can make posts that are only visible to those mentioned. -
@evan Alices followers only. I am tired of fragmented discussions
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@twobiscuits no.
Posting to your profile - Mastodon documentation
Sharing your thoughts has never been more convenient.
(docs.joinmastodon.org)
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@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
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(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
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@evan Hm. I chose "other" but now I think what I meant to select was
"both Alice's and Bob's followers" -
it's about principals
i chose "Alice's followers"
to me the imperative here is:
Alice "owns" their top level post and all replies to it
thus Alice's communication style overwhelms the style of anyone who responds to them, in that context
this has much further architecture implications than just your question. but for the matter here, all replies to a top level post defer on all communication style questions to style of the author of the top level post
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@evan In that context, I would expect that the venn overlap I'm describing would be quite large, but it certainly seems like something we could actually measure and experiment with if it were presented as an option.
if Bob replies to a post by Alice, they are implictily relinquishing their communication style to the style of Alice, because it is Alice's top level post. Alice "owns" the conversation as top level poster
Bob must consider the implications of that before replying
that solves the problem
the structure of a conversation is beholden to the imperatives of the starter of that conversation. it should not be hijacked
your other concerns are valid
but are overruled in this context
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Ideally visibility should be thread scoped with replies able to restrict it but not expand it
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@evan It should be visible only to people who are followers of both, Alice and Bob. Being a follower of just one of them shouldn't be enough.
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@evan
It should be visible to the original set as Alice shared the post with her followers, not followers of followers (light blue segment of set diagram). Any of Bob’s followers that also follow Alice will see the post and replies anyway. See comments on set diagram and post about the set theory maths/model - https://mastodon.social/@dahukanna/116030140984675453
Alice is the top level poster. it is their conversation. the communication style should flow from that, not be hijacked by someone else's communication style
other people's communication styles matter, but not in this context
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@evan Hm. I chose "other" but now I think what I meant to select was
"both Alice's and Bob's followers"@flowerpot what would Bob's reply look like to his followers?
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@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.
if Bob replies to a post by Alice, they are implicitly relinquishing their communication style, in that context, to the communication style of Alice
if they don't want to to do that, they should not reply to Alice
Bob should not be able to hijack Alice's post with their communication style
it is indeed about respect
but you aren't following what is the most respectful thing here
it is disrespectful to Alice that Bob's communication style can hijack Alice's post
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@evan
I’m surprised at the results here. To me it seems like a cut-and-dry consent issue: Alice has indicated in the original post that she only consents to communicating with people who follow her on that post. By making Bob’s replies visible to Bob’s followers (or anyone else) you’re exposing Alice to accounts she did explicitly did not consent to communicating with. 🤨 -
if Bob replies to a post by Alice, they are implictily relinquishing their communication style to the style of Alice, because it is Alice's top level post. Alice "owns" the conversation as top level poster
Bob must consider the implications of that before replying
that solves the problem
the structure of a conversation is beholden to the imperatives of the starter of that conversation. it should not be hijacked
your other concerns are valid
but are overruled in this context
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@evan I think so. The wishes of any of the participants to keep the message to followers only is not respected if both presence of the conversation and parts of it are visible to followers' followers.
Alice started the thread, so in this context, we respect her communication style choices for that post and everything that follows underneath it
if Bob can come in and hijack the conversation with their communication style, this is disrespectful to Alice
in the context of a thread Alice started, we respect Alice's communication style, and no one else's
this is the most responsible approach
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@evan To Alice's followers by default. But possible to restrict to the intersection with Bob's followers if Bob wishes.
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@maj Dawn's and my answer would be all of Alice's followers. I don't like the intersection answer, because it gets smaller and smaller over time. I think Alice's intent is to have her friends and family have a conversation, like it works on Instagram and Facebook.
@evan @maj that's my answer too, i.e. "Alice's friends", since that's Alice's original intent, a conversation among her friends.
There are advantages to having Bob's reply go to only Alice first, who then fans it out to her followers. For example, it allows full reply controls. It also allows semi-anonymous replies, where Alice can see that Bob sent it but no one else can. This is useful when Bob doesn't want to reveal himself (his profile etc.) to all friends of friends, and it still protects against abuse because Alice still knows it's Bob.
The main disadvantage of routing all replies through Alice's device first is that Alice has to be online for the conversation to continue as it happens. However, Alice could have a trusted (!) server handle the fanning out instead, assuming she doesn't need to manually approve replies.
My social media app FriendSafe routes all replies through the OP (Alice) first. It allows those semi-anonymous replies but doesn't have reply controls now (but it could).
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@evan The answer is go back to LiveJournal and Alice gets to decide. If her post is fully public, anyone can comment on it. If it's private and Bob is in a group of people she shared it with, only Bob and the people in that group can see the post and comment. Now if Bob wants to make a copy of her post and share it privately this his group of friends, that's his business but then he's probably not a very good friend.
