CIRCLE WITH A DOT

@taylorlorenz also, this thread is massive. Much ️ to our friends at Mastodon who go the replies-fetching working. Such a better conversation experience.

@taylorlorenz

1. Your company, university, or club can run a Mastodon server for itself, under its full control.
2. No one can tell you which apps to use or what kind of functionality it can have.
3. You don't have to chase friends or influencers from platform to platform. Set up a homebase on the Fediverse and follow them remotely wherever they go.
4. You own your contacts. No algorithm keeps you from seeing them, or them from seeing you.
5. Your server can be hosted in your country.

@novelgazer the original post and the replies don't have to be isomorphic. If I post a photo of a bus, do all the comments have to be photos of buses? No, obviously not. A "followers-only" conversation where every post is visible to each author's followers is meaningless; it's much more important and natural to have a conversation amongst a group of people.

@cochise this isn't a problem with ActivityPub. We have two different ways to do this.

@Yuvalne @luana sure.

@Yuvalne @luana I think so, too, but making replies that have a broader audience than the original post is hostile and should be used with caution.

@Yuvalne @luana nobody is asking to change what "followers only" means.

@stefan I asked the question I wanted to ask. I'll boost your poll, though.

Mastodon doesn't do either of these things, by the way. It doesn't let you reply to Alice's followers, and it doesn't use the `replies` collection for showing and hiding replies. It's too bad; these are really valuable features of ActivityPub.

Other servers can and should use Alice's `replies` collection to see which replies she has consented to. They can and should obscure or hide altogether replies that aren't in that collection.

Oh, one thing that is worth noting: a lot of people insisted on Bob's absolute prerogative to reply with any kind of visibility he wants: public, his followers, whatever.

This is technically true, but Alice also has some agency here. Her server maintains a collection of `replies` that can be used to read all the replies. There's also another collection for the full thread.

Her server can omit replies that violate her expectations. This limits Bob's reach somewhat.

@kariboka correct

Thanks to everyone who responded or replied, even if I didn't like your answers.

Anyway, I agree with the vast majority that the reply should be to Alice's followers. I think the rule of thumb for replies is that they should address about the same audience as the original post, or optionally a subset of that audience. Expanding the audience confuses readers and violates privacy expectations.

Some repliers insisted that it should be whatever Bob wants, which is trivial. It sidesteps the issue and doesn't address the question at its own level.

I asked, what should be the outcome? Not, who should decide?

What options should Bob have to choose from? What should be the default? What should he choose?

For "Other", a lot of people replied with "the intersection of A's followers and B's followers". This makes replies to replies to replies less and less visible to participants, until practically no one can see what's being said. It's terrible for conversations.

"Both" at least makes the full conversation visible to all A's followers, but it has most of the same problems as sharing with B's followers. It sends them a part of a conversation without context, but also violates A's privacy.

"Bob's followers" is the literalist version, with the worst possible dynamics. "You should reply to a followers-only post with a followers-only post" retains the same UI choice while completely changing the audience. Most of the other people who read Alice's post won't see Bob's comments. Bob's followers who don't follow Alice won't understand the context of his post, and won't be able to read Alice's post. It also violates Alice's privacy to share a response to her question with strangers.

"Alice's followers" is the way most social networks work with private X, Facebook, Instagram. It lets Alice ask questions or share private info with people she trusts and cares about, and lets them discuss amongst themselves. It is really the best way to use social networks.

Hey, all. So, I appreciate the responses. I'll break down the options here.