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

@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.

@rayslava @evan

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?

@reiver so, like sitting in a room with someone while they talk on the phone, and you only hear their side of the conversation.

@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 cc and then the reply will go to all actors in cc as well.

@stefan

Great idea; you should make that poll.

@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.

@vanderwal actually, most social networks default to having Bob's reply visible to Alice's followers. That is how followers-only posts work on X, Instagram, and Facebook.

@evan Sure!

Does this wording make sense?

When you post a followers-only post, who do you expect replies from?

My own followers (MOF)
MOF + repliers' followers (RF)
Mutual MOF + RF only
Something else?

(Trying to be concise!)

@evan The most common situation where one of my follows makes a follower-only post is where they're asking for advice, help or sympathy for a personal issue. I don't want my own followers to see my reply, as that could expose sensitive details about the issue. But I do want the OP's followers to see it, so that we all know what support we've already offered and can avoid spamming them with unnecessary information.

@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.

@heluecht it seems like a pretty good rule of thumb.

@evan Finally, isn't "Bob's followers exclusively" the definition of sub-posting? I might not understand it correctly so please do correct me if not.

On a side note I've been trying to shift towards the word "exclusively" to avoid ambiguity since I learned all too recently that the word "only" is sometimes used for emphasis in Indian English, and since I have not yet mastered that usage.

@evan this is a tough one. From a theoretical perspective I'd have gone with "Bob's followers" because each post is a post in its own right and the fact that it happens to have a reply on top shoudn't change that. (Which is also how it works today, right?)

But seeing too many fragmented conversations has made me think that in practical terms it's better to have replies "inherit" viewership from the starting post—i.e. Bob's post is visible to Alice's followers

@evan a related interesting question to think about: if Bob's reply is visible to Alice's followers, and Alice later gets a new follower, should Bob's post automatically visible to that new follower too?

@evan I know Alice. Alice is fedi-famous. WTF is Bob?

@evan With early Twitter as they were releasing their “private" option this was discussed a lot. At the time keeping servers up was a primary concern. The reply model they have was intended to be fixed, but never was.

@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".

@vanderwal

Private posts let you have intimate conversations with people you know. They are a great way that people share personal updates with their family and friends. They enable connection.

I have never, ever, *ever* seen anyone on Instagram complain about their comments on a private photo being visible to other followers.

@adam @evan and of course Alice and Bob, right? (what if the following is not reciprocal

@steely_glint @evan

That's kind of a neat solution.

It's all public in the long run of course, so everybody needs to keep that in mind.