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

@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.

@evan @reiver I'm not yet sure if I like the idea of placeholder posts or not, but I do find the idea intriguing

@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

@dahukanna omg!!

@evan Because you haven't seen them doesn't mean they aren't out their in abundance. Doing simple user research you quickly find this model is really problematic for people thinking they were private, it is an amazing tool for stalkers to take advantage of and oh they do. The stories are abundant and can be brutal.

Following bad practices and putting people at risk isn't great. People are looking for a better social platform that has their wishes upheld, not another that breaks them.

@vanderwal show me the data.

@dahukanna @evan Yes! This! This has always been the right answer.

The simplicity in this venn diagram is the “yes" is only Alice's followers.

@spraoi @evan true, but this is about etiquette not privacy I feel. Compare it with the old (unspoken) rules about passing on a friend’s phone number.

@skobkin I always read it as "visible for the OPs followers" like it's implied that "followers only" is applied to the root of the thread.

But after our previous discussion this can definitely be clarified
@evan

@vanderwal @evan

I’ve always modeled this information architecture challenge as a set theory maths problem & the answer is the original set regardless of who is replying, as the original poster chose limiting constraint conditions + selected members of the group to access to conversation thread.
Plus there are “n” Bobs, where “n” is the number of Alice’s followers, some of those may not have intersecting followers - so why should they see Bob’s reply to an original post they can’t see/access?

@steely_glint @evan

So that etiquette would demand that Bob limit the visibility of his reply to just Alice, and let her decide how far it should reach beyond that. There's a certain grace there, but does the etiquette of telephony translate to microblogging?

@evan You've never asked anybody who has a private or follows only account about this have you? There doesn't need to be a massive data, but takes one response and it becomes really difficult to decide to follow the sloppy pattern and keep pushing it forward.

It is an easy path forward to do the right thing.

I’m here to help you.

@evan

Yes, that seems like a good analogy.

@evan No matter whether Bob replied as "followers only" or " everyone", Bob's followers should be able to see his reply. They shouldn't be able to scroll up and see Alice's orignal post unless they also follow Alice. But Alice's choice for her own post should not override Bob's choice for his.

@spraoi @evan no, I don’t think it does translate exactly, but it is about being faithful to Alice’s intent in marking the conversation followers only. I suppose I am giving her originators’ privileges- but that seems fair.

@steely_glint @evan I like it. It's a good solution. But it does risk burying dissent in some corner cases.

@vanderwal

Your condescension is unearned.

@ZenHeathen so, for Bob's followers, "Yes" with no context is worthwhile and interesting? That's what they followed Bob for -- to hear his half of a private conversation?

@LunaDragofelis @evan I think we have two different mental models about discussions on Mastodon (and social media more generally). And different people use different mental models, yet often assume everyone else sees things the way they do..
One model sees a “thread” or a “discussion” as belonging to the person who created the first note and sees subsequent reply notes linked to the thread as being part of Alice’s (the original note’s author) thread. The other model sees a thread as a collection of individual notes, linked together, with each reply note in the discussion belonging to the reply’s author.
In the model where Bob and Carol and Dawn and Eve are just replying to Alice’s thread, one might expect those reply Notes to go to whatever group of people Alice had originally sent her note to. In the model where each author owns their own notes, one would expect reply Notes to honor the audience specified in the reply Note itself.
The confusion is made worse because the audience settings mean different things in different circumstances, and none of the clients are yet showing what those audiences actually mean for any given Note.

@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.