If Alice makes a followers-only post, and Bob replies to it, to whom should Bob's reply be visible?
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@evan
I think subsequent replies should CC both Bob's and Alice's followers, so those who follow Bob but not Alice would still be able to see all subsequent replies.@evan
If we take the further step of a Collection of thread participants/followers, then Bob-only followers should be able to backfill the conversation and see the full thread. -
Showing the comment to just Alice's followers raises a different risk. What if Bob's comment is a good faith critique, but runs against the conventional wisdom within the majority of Alice's followers? Will Bob be potentially drummed out of Alice's circle? This is regardless of the relative merits of the argument.
The outcome would deprive Alice's followers and Alice of a potentially interesting viewpoint. Not to mention the potential for hard feelings.
@evan but Alice wanted her followers and only her followers to see the original post, right? So is it an invasion of the public circle that comprises those followers to spread out further via Bob's reply? Note that I'm very carefully avoiding the word "private". These are limited public spaces.
The only conclusion I can reach is that the ability to post to followers only, since anybody can follow anybody, blocks excepted, is to impose a sort of embargo on what is still a public expression.
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@evan@cosocial.ca it's worse than I thought then
I think there probably should have been a distinction between who you can address in the discussions you start, compared to the discussions someone else starts. It's a privacy issue. Say for example that for some reason I don't want everyone to know I am online and posting, so I restrict the visibility of my posts. Then someone else can see one of my followers replying to me (since including the handle in the replies also practically reveals who you are replying to).
Say for example I am asking my friends on fedi what to do about someone who harasses me. And someone replies to my post with advice about harassment. The person who harasses me could very well understand what I'm talking about.
It is what it is, of course, just saying, I think this particular aspect is not optimal behaviour for social media.@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 If Alice purposefully publishes a followers-only post she must have good reason for it, hence the whole thread should be treated with delicacy, i.e. extending the visibility of the thread (or part of it like Bob's reply!) to people not following Alice is a no-go IMO.
Bob is free to do a post of his own that is not a reply to a more privacy-minded person's.
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@reiver what does the conversation look like to Bob's followers who don't follow Alice? Or to people who don't follow either?
Ideally —
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For the former —
From a UX point of view, they (Bob's followers who don't yet follow Alice) could see a placeholder post for Alice's post(s), that says that the content cannot be shown.
If a follower of Bob's then followed Alice, then the placeholder post(s) would turn into the actual post(s).
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For the latter —
Again, from a UX point of view — Placeholder posts, until they follow Alice or Bob.
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@liilliil what does it look like to Bob's followers if he chooses his followers, or his and Alice's followers?
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@adam so, in a conversation with Charlene, David, Evan and Frances, there would just be a smaller and smaller circle of people who could follow along? That seems best to you?
@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.
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Bob can send his reply to Alice's followers.
Anybody can send anybody anything on the Fediverse. You don't have to read it, but they can send it.
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@evan Given all the complexities and real and potential vectors of abuse, maybe replies to followers-only posts should be forced to be private mentions?
Sometimes people share personal things using followers-only visibility, and replying directly without exposing private details seems the most appropriate.
Eg. not announcing "Hope you'll recover from the diarrhea soon, Bob!" to potentially thousands of strangers, or even people who do know Bob, but Bob was not addressing in his post.
@evan Maybe it would be better to rephrase this question as: If you post a followers-only post, who do you expect to get replies from?
I'm getting the sense that some people are more interested in getting into other people's business than respecting boundaries. Hence the strong opposition to reply controls.
"But what about my right to share my unwanted opinion" vs respecting how other people want to interact online.
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@evan other -> the intersection of Alice and Bob’s followers.
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@evan other -> the intersection of Alice and Bob’s followers.
@steely_glint so, as a conversation continues, the audience gets smaller and smaller and smaller?
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@evan but Alice wanted her followers and only her followers to see the original post, right? So is it an invasion of the public circle that comprises those followers to spread out further via Bob's reply? Note that I'm very carefully avoiding the word "private". These are limited public spaces.
The only conclusion I can reach is that the ability to post to followers only, since anybody can follow anybody, blocks excepted, is to impose a sort of embargo on what is still a public expression.
Restricting the audience of a post will slow its distribution but it can in no way be assumed to prevent it.
So I'm going to opt for the two groups of followers, since while Alice might not that intend her message reach others, it inevitably will. Limiting the expansion of the message reach in this way seems to balance Alice's expectations with the need to avoid creating echo chambers.
But Fedi users also need to be informed, constantly, that these are public forums.
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@evan This is a good one and a common mapping exercise. Many services don't think this through and / or opt for an odd and challenging option of Bob's followers getting the visibility to it, which pretty much breaks the “followers only” intent of the original poster.
I’ve walk through this in a couple workshops around researching in social media as following the shadows of social media. You can't see a person, but you can see their shadows and essence of their moves and existence.
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It doesn't seem misleading
Did you try to look at it from end-user's perspective?
I'm writing a reply to someone's followers-only post. The form shows me "Visible for followers only". How isn't it misleading for me?
When I do that as a post from the same form, my followers see that.Why should I expect anything else when writing a reply with such option enabled?
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Ideally —
...
For the former —
From a UX point of view, they (Bob's followers who don't yet follow Alice) could see a placeholder post for Alice's post(s), that says that the content cannot be shown.
If a follower of Bob's then followed Alice, then the placeholder post(s) would turn into the actual post(s).
...
For the latter —
Again, from a UX point of view — Placeholder posts, until they follow Alice or Bob.
.
@reiver so, like sitting in a room with someone while they talk on the phone, and you only hear their side of the conversation.
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@evan In Friendica we have got the rule that the thread starter decides the audience. Especially when someone posts just to a selected group of people, we put then in
ccand then the reply will go to all actors inccas well. -
@evan Maybe it would be better to rephrase this question as: If you post a followers-only post, who do you expect to get replies from?
I'm getting the sense that some people are more interested in getting into other people's business than respecting boundaries. Hence the strong opposition to reply controls.
"But what about my right to share my unwanted opinion" vs respecting how other people want to interact online.
Great idea; you should make that poll.
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@steely_glint so, as a conversation continues, the audience gets smaller and smaller and smaller?
@evan probably. I don’t see that as an intrinsic problem. The constant broadening of the audience is one of the vices of commercial social media. Maybe Bob has 2 options , Alice’s followers or the (smaller) intersection. But he shouldn’t be able to widen it against Alice’s intent.
