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

@evan Alice, Alice’s followers, and the subset of Bob’s followers that follow Alice.

@maj yes, that's the default for Mastodon, I think. It is only visible to Bob's followers.

@silvermoon82 what does the conversation look like to those of Bob's followers who don't follow Alice?

@Jeremiah isn't that third set already included in the second?

@evan I'm going to need a diagram! This is like set theory.

@evan @Jeremiah yes

@evan Alices followers only. I am tired of fragmented discussions

@evan No, I mean what visibility out of available options did Bob choose.
If we're talking about Mastodon, currently he'd have "followers" and "mentioned only".

Who'll see (and who ideally should see) depends on what he had chosen.

But if we're talking about a default selection (followers only), then we really have two rather different things AFAIR: who'd really see it and who should've been able to see that for it to be easily understandable by the end user. Although I think different people may have different opinions on how exactly should it work.

@skobkin

@evan Since the replie is followers-only, to Bob’s followers. Otherwise information that someone with a private account would expect not to be visible to anyone they didn’t approve could be easily leaked to people that they don’t know.

@evan You're right. I would change my vote, but Mastodon.

@evan there's the correct answer and then there's what happens on fedi

@evan people who follow both Alice and Bob

@skobkin the question is about how it should work.

@rune the question is about the correct answer.

@evan I'd argue it should be visible to the intersection, not the union of Alice and Bob's followers. So basically people who follow both of them. There should also be an option to have it be visible to all of Alice's followers.

@luana what if there was a clear label on who it was going to? "Same audience" or something similar?

@evan

By default, visible to both Alice's and Bob's followers.

But, Bob should be able to change it. Even making visible to everyone.

@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@cosocial.ca when I learned that a reply to a "followers only" post in the Fediverse meant that the replier can choose any visibility they can choose for their own posts, in a discussion that the original poster meant to keep among their followers, it was one of my most WTF moments about ActivityPub.