If Alice makes a followers-only post, and Bob replies to it, to whom should Bob's reply be visible?
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@evan You asked "should", not "does", so my answer is "only people who follow *both* Alice and Bob", that is, the intersection of both sets of followers. (Your 3rd option, to me, reads like "people who follow *either*", that is, the union.)
Whether Alice-only follower Carol (resp. Bob-only follower Dave) should gain access to Bob's reply by following Bob (resp. Alice) after Bob's reply is unclear to me.
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@maj does this help?
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@evan You asked "should", not "does", so my answer is "only people who follow *both* Alice and Bob", that is, the intersection of both sets of followers. (Your 3rd option, to me, reads like "people who follow *either*", that is, the union.)
Whether Alice-only follower Carol (resp. Bob-only follower Dave) should gain access to Bob's reply by following Bob (resp. Alice) after Bob's reply is unclear to me.
@pauamma so, the audience for replies gets smaller and smaller as the conversation grows?
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Intersection of Alice and Bob's followers.
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Intersection of Alice and Bob's followers.
@bjb so a smaller and smaller audience as the conversation goes on? Eventually too small to keep the conversation up?
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@bjb so a smaller and smaller audience as the conversation goes on? Eventually too small to keep the conversation up?
Yep. If there are people that Bob's not interested in, Bob should not have to deal with them.
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System moved this topic from Uncategorized
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@evan What about Ted and Carol's followers?
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@evan
Please help me, my friend, I desperately need you š -
@pauamma so, the audience for replies gets smaller and smaller as the conversation grows?
@evan Good question. I'd have to think about it more, but my hot take is "it depends a lot on context". (Consider for instance that Bob may be Alice's stalkery ex.)
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Hey, all. So, I appreciate the responses. I'll break down the options here.
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Hey, all. So, I appreciate the responses. I'll break down the options here.
"Alice's followers" is the way most social networks work with private X, Facebook, Instagram. It lets Alice ask questions or share private info with people she trusts and cares about, and lets them discuss amongst themselves. It is really the best way to use social networks.
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@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
Something else?(Trying to be concise!)
@evan Well I went ahead, if you're interested:
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"Alice's followers" is the way most social networks work with private X, Facebook, Instagram. It lets Alice ask questions or share private info with people she trusts and cares about, and lets them discuss amongst themselves. It is really the best way to use social networks.
"Bob's followers" is the literalist version, with the worst possible dynamics. "You should reply to a followers-only post with a followers-only post" retains the same UI choice while completely changing the audience. Most of the other people who read Alice's post won't see Bob's comments. Bob's followers who don't follow Alice won't understand the context of his post, and won't be able to read Alice's post. It also violates Alice's privacy to share a response to her question with strangers.
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"Bob's followers" is the literalist version, with the worst possible dynamics. "You should reply to a followers-only post with a followers-only post" retains the same UI choice while completely changing the audience. Most of the other people who read Alice's post won't see Bob's comments. Bob's followers who don't follow Alice won't understand the context of his post, and won't be able to read Alice's post. It also violates Alice's privacy to share a response to her question with strangers.
@evan That's it course. But is it also the case for Mastodon? I'd guess it is.
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"Bob's followers" is the literalist version, with the worst possible dynamics. "You should reply to a followers-only post with a followers-only post" retains the same UI choice while completely changing the audience. Most of the other people who read Alice's post won't see Bob's comments. Bob's followers who don't follow Alice won't understand the context of his post, and won't be able to read Alice's post. It also violates Alice's privacy to share a response to her question with strangers.
"Both" at least makes the full conversation visible to all A's followers, but it has most of the same problems as sharing with B's followers. It sends them a part of a conversation without context, but also violates A's privacy.
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@evan @stefan
This has always irked me. What I want and what I expect are different.
I expect replies to *followers only* posts to be visible to the replier's followers, only. And yeah, that means they get a hint about me, and can't see my post, and therefore it's just all-around inappropriate.
contā¦ -
"Both" at least makes the full conversation visible to all A's followers, but it has most of the same problems as sharing with B's followers. It sends them a part of a conversation without context, but also violates A's privacy.
For "Other", a lot of people replied with "the intersection of A's followers and B's followers". This makes replies to replies to replies less and less visible to participants, until practically no one can see what's being said. It's terrible for conversations.
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For "Other", a lot of people replied with "the intersection of A's followers and B's followers". This makes replies to replies to replies less and less visible to participants, until practically no one can see what's being said. It's terrible for conversations.
Some repliers insisted that it should be whatever Bob wants, which is trivial. It sidesteps the issue and doesn't address the question at its own level.
I asked, what should be the outcome? Not, who should decide?
What options should Bob have to choose from? What should be the default? What should he choose?
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Some repliers insisted that it should be whatever Bob wants, which is trivial. It sidesteps the issue and doesn't address the question at its own level.
I asked, what should be the outcome? Not, who should decide?
What options should Bob have to choose from? What should be the default? What should he choose?
Anyway, I agree with the vast majority that the reply should be to Alice's followers. I think the rule of thumb for replies is that they should address about the same audience as the original post, or optionally a subset of that audience. Expanding the audience confuses readers and violates privacy expectations.
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@julian @liaizon https://activitypub.space/uid/1/inbox still returns 404. Perhaps group's inbox is working?
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@evan I think this is one of the problems with Mastodon being the go to for people in the fediverse, and is also why I've been looking things up and trying to work out how the good ol concept Google+ had could work well in the fediverse, and also supporting all the features of ActivityPub instead of using its own thing, and I even had the idea that if I can get a service like that off the ground, I'd be happy for a non-biased nonprofit organisation to take over. A name for it I thought of is Fedi+ and if eventually that was to be ran by something like the Social Web Foundation or something, that could really help the fediverse at large.
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@evan Ah, I was only tagging you as an FYI, but thank you, appreciate it!
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@stefan I asked the question I wanted to ask. I'll boost your poll, though.
