@Jasper BurnsPermissions, part 3: At post levelAs I've already said, whenever you write a post to start a new thread, you also define the permissions of this post. Of this post and of all replies.Let's translate this to Mastodon again.You know the toot visibility button, I guess. Let's assume it looks and works somewhat different. Especially the visibility options."Public" still exists. It does what it says on the button: It makes your toot public. Oh, and now, it also makes all replies public. There's no replying to your toot with a DM.The other three don't exist.Instead, as the second option, you have "Only me".Right below, all your lists are listed up. You can pick one of them. You can send your toot to everyone on one specific list of yours and to only those on that list, all without having to mention them. Better yet: Only those on that list are permitted to see your toot. And only those on that list are permitted to see any reply to your toot. Killer feature: They can see each other's replies, and they can reply to each other.Below that, all groups that you follow are listed up. Again, you can pick one of them. This will have the effect that your toot will go to the group, and it will be forwarded by the group to all its members, but it will not go to your followers unless they're also in that group.Below that, there's "Custom selection". This opens another window with each one of your lists and each one of your followed accounts, each with a green "Allow" button and a red "Don't allow" button. Here, you can put together a choice of lists and single accounts whom to send your toot to and a choice of lists and single accounts whom not to send your toot to. Again, only those who receive the toot are also permitted to see it, and only them are permitted to see any of the replies, and no-one can ever change these permissions.What sense this makes?Imagine you have a list with a certain group of friends in it. One of them will soon celebrate their birthday, and you want to organise a birthday surprise for them. So you send a toot to that list with everyone in it, but without that person who'll soon celebrate their birthday so you won't ruin the surprise for them.Or: Imagine you have lists according to which languages people speak. Like, you have a German list, and you have an English list. Then you can put together an audience for a German toot from lists and single followed users, but exclude the English list so that those who don't understand German anyway won't receive that toot.By the way: This also covers DMs. And this means that DMs are actually private.As Mastodon is right now, you can DM Alice, you can have a conversation with Alice, but Alice could mention Bob and pull him into the conversation. This also gives Bob the opportunity to read the whole thread because he has access to it now. Mastodon only defines to whom a message is sent, but not who is allowed to see it.In this version of Mastodon, when you DM Alice, you only grant Alice permission to see your toot and everything else in the thread. Now, Alice can mention Bob all she wants, but she can't pull him into the thread. Bob won't even receive the toot with his mention in it. He is not permitted to see it. You have not granted him permission to see the start toot, and thus, you have not granted him permission to see any of the replies, including the one in which Alice mentions him. Alice cannot change any permissions in the thread. Neither can you, by the way. The moment you send the start toot, all permissions are permanently set in stone for the whole thread.This also makes dogpiling by extra mentions in DMs impossible.Also, this provides for very effective quote-post control. It isn't allowed to boost posts that aren't public, including replies. It isn't allowed either to Mastodon-style-quote, as in quote-post, posts that aren't public, including replies.These DMs have another advantage of DMs on Mastodon-as-it-is-now: If you send a DM to Alice and Bob, Bob receives Alice's replies, and Alice receives Bob's replies, and the two can reply to one another.Oh, by the way, there's another nifty button. A speech bubble. With this button, you can allow or disallow replies to your post. Mind you, again, this only works when you start a thread. You cannot allow or disallow replies to a reply that you post.Now, how does Mastodon-as-it-is-now handle DMs from Hubzilla, (streams) and Forte? It sees them as Mastodon DMs, and it treats them like Mastodon DMs. The downside is, if I send a restricted-permission post to Alice on Mastodon and Bob on Mastodon, both perceive it as a Mastodon DM. Both can only reply to and converse with me. They can't see each other's replies, and they can't reply to each other.(8/9)#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #Fediverse #Hubzilla #Streams #(streams) #Forte #Privacy #Security #Permission #Permissions #ReplyControl
