@mivox Yes, I've gathered that's what happens. Unless someone with a wider network of connections boosts a post of mine, as happened today. The outcome being that I now have a 30% greater chance of my posts being seen, and a bunch of helpful and interesting new connections!

And a new question: if one starts a post/toot/thread desperately addressing a bunch of follow[ers/ees? - this terminology makes me crazy!] is it impolite to then strip them off as side-conversations develop? Or is it rude to keep them involved if they haven't chosen to weigh in at all?I would think the latter, but maybe it's an awful gaffe (I've been going kind of half and half here ).

@suzannealdrich Likewise!

@claralistensprechen3rd @Urban_Hermit my old high school friends (when we were all freaks; some of us later became geeks) are mostly not tech savvy at all and I'd have to walk them through every step. Since I'm barely walking here yet myself... it'll be a while.

@claralistensprechen3rd @Urban_Hermit

I will at some point ask you about friendica, I've contemplated trying to set up an instance...I left a lot of very old friends back on Facebook and I miss them (but don't feel safe there any more, not to mention the feeling of being "the used" in my relationship with the platform, rather than the user).

@FediTips thank you! I have checked Tips as I go, but not for a while - one has to be in a place of enough understanding to be able to formulate the right questions... I generally have to bootstrap to the next set of problems before I get much out of pertinent guides. And I have a whole new set now! Just found myself wondering if there's a place (analogous to FB profile) to view how another user sees one's posts from where they are, depending on one's privacy settings.

Back at ya! I had no idea this question would suddenly make the fediverse explode (how it feels) and now I feel like I have to - but can't - keep up with all the responses!

@mazz thanks - I'm not sure if I understood correctly but I thought hashtags aren't active in 'quiet public' posts. Also, I'm so literal I have a hard time with what's an appropriate tag!

Thanks. I'd be REALLY worried if you didn't, bc it would mean I'm even more clueless than I thought about how things work here!

@Urban_Hermit thanks, that all makes sense! I do go out and explore the live feeds - it's like the deep ocean instead of the kiddie pool; interesting, but you can drown there... It's nice to try to build a diverse little 'community' pond, but it's been slow.

As I read it, quiet public posts only appear in timelines of one's followers, but they're not hidden. I think that might mean they could be found floating in the vast sea of live feeds (which means effectively "invisible") but I have no idea. Being in the US while fascism is taking hold, I'm leery of public posting ...

@raven667 Ooh, this is almost too much! Thanks for telling me, I'm pretty sure I've never been boosted before. A lot of 'firsts' today...

@beandreams thanks, I've wondered about that, but my thoughts seem so random it's hard to pick hashtags

@mem_somerville
Thanks. It feels a little weird to suddenly be getting answers, but it's nice!

This is probably a terrible faux pas, and I don't mean to bother everyone, but I clearly still haven't got the hang of this place. Last week I asked: if my default is Quiet public and I have a pretty meager number of followers, then is it redundant - or incestuous, even obnoxious - for me to re-boost their boosted posts (toots?)?

Crickets.

After several months here I'm not sure anything I've tooted is even visible; I've yet to get a single answer or comment on anything that wasn't directly addressed to someone, or a response on another's toot. So I'm firing this at anyone I can think of in the moment... Thanks, sorry to be a noob noodge!

@Nettlephagus @tuban_muzuru @GhostOnTheHalfShell @lin11c @beandreams @roknrol @Yehuda