@mayintoronto @evan Yes! I would commit crimes for mutuals only posts to be an option, here and on most other platforms I use. Followers only isn't always enough.

@maj does this help?

https://mastodon.social/@dahukanna/116030109485498081

@stephaniepixie @mayintoronto @evan followers only mostly acts as a "can't be boosted" technique imo. the audience limitation is secondary.

side note: why are boost controls and audience controls the same thing! bothers me to no end

@flippac it's not how most other social networks work. If Alice posted a private photo on Instagram, and Bob commented, Alice's other followers could see Bob's comment, but Bob's followers could not.

@evan@cosocial.ca if Bob is malicious, he could simply screenshot Alice's post and share it with his followers.

With that in mind, it seems reasonable for his reply to be sent to his followers, with an off-by-default checkbox to also forward Alice's message to his followers.

People who don't follow Bob probably shouldn't see Bob's reply. But if Alice appreciates it, she could have an option to forward it to her followers (except any who have blocked Bob). Or maybe if she gives it a / (and it's a non-private message) then it's automatically sent to her followers?

It would also make sense for Charlie to have a profile-wide option to not see replies to posts that he can't see. Even if I'm interested in Bob, I don't need to see his reply to an invisible post by Alice.

I realise that has some uncomfortable implications, but as you describe, all of the options seem to. That's what makes it a tough question 

@evan yeah, but we actually have an opportunity to have at least one mode work that way whereas the current effect of "followers only" is for everybody to have to ask themselves if someone is following them who shouldn't be party to the conversation

@evan ("private" here being the DM analogue, ofc)

@inherentlee @mayintoronto @evan Yes, I mainly only use “followers only so it can’t be boosted”.
It never occurred to me to think of boost control as a potentially separate thing. That would be a good feature even in public posts.

@evan xitter not working that way was also the source of some easy social faux pas if you so much as forgot that one of the people in a thread had their account locked while you were looking at an individual post (in which case in practice you should stay out of it)

@evan The venn intersection of Alice and Bob's followers.

@mhoye so, as the conversation goes on, the audience gets smaller and smaller?

@evan I would tend to say "Both", but I am saying Alice.

Mastodon (not ActivityPub) specifically lacks level of privacy "local". Therefore I use the "followers only" mode to run moderator's account, which confirm follow requests only to local accounts. I want this discussion restricted only to followers, but actually, I wouldn't mind, if I could restrict the privacy to "local users" (some other ActivityPub implementations allow this). But I guess some users in followers-only mode have the same need for privacy.

On the other hand, if there can be more privacy level, there would be very useful level of both status privacy level and reply allowance mode, which would be "people, who I follow only". This would effectively allow me to mix functionality of "anybody can follow" accounts with "confirmation of follow requests": simply, all people, who I follow, would be considered friends and would be considered my inner circle. No need for blocking - just unfollowing someone would remove them.

Adding privacy level "people, who I follow" privacy level besides existing "followers only" and using this also to determine who can reply, would make things much easier, at least for me.

I want to keep open follow policy, but there are certain topics, which I don't really want to discuss openly with general public. But the fact, that I follow someone, usually means, that there are some common interests. If they don't follow me back - well, it is their fault, who cares. Technically, I see zero implementation difference if I compare "who I follow" to "who follows me". These two are very similar SQL queries. But it would be "5th level of privacy" (local users are 6th level).

But there can be different privacy preferences and maybe, some people may like to use lists also as "target groups" (called Circles on Googe Plus)... but this would be probably very hard to implement in federated environment.

@evan Absolutely. People can still seek out threads of conversation, but the set of people automatically tagged in get narrowed quickly.

@brooke I like how conversations happen when I make friends-only posts on Facebook.

@mhoye that's a great way to shut down conversations.

@evan I think the default presumption that everyone is welcome to become part of any conversation is only that: an unconsidered default assumption inherited from Twitter and specifically from early Twitter's growth-at-any-cost corporate goals. At the very least we should be considering counterbalancing options.

@mayintoronto @evan Friendica has a system that allows you to define lists comparable to reading lists for posts (or custom-add viewers to posts as you go) - that would resolve this whole situation, and allow people to have more contextual human-shaped discussions (like taking discussion in which you’re trying to find common ground with someone outside your political sphere to the kitchen at a party rather than having your most strident friends come to chew them out for not being already correct, or being able to plan the surprise party or tabletop twist without the whole world and the targets of said surprise hearing about it.) I really want it to get some renewed developmental interest for that reason - mastodon, akin to twitter before it, is sort of a public broadcasting system….

@evan EXACTLY what I imagined.
So, the answer would be visible to the intersect between them.
Of course, how that scales as *those* people reply... there lies the rub.

@mhoye it's not about everyone having access to every conversation. When I make a friend's-only post on Instagram or Facebook, I expect my friends and family to be able to talk to each other. These conversations are really precious and intimate to me. I would hate to have them attenuate to nothing because no one could see each other's replies.

@evan @mhoye If someone goes followers-only, I think we can assume they're here to talk to their friends and nobody else.

I feel like I'm violating their trust if my replies leak out of their containment. Especially when that could potentially drive harassment.