If Alice makes a followers-only post, and Bob replies to it, to whom should Bob's reply be visible?
I'm not speaking about any particular two people but if you need it please consider @alice_watson and @bobwyman as the characters in this story.
@evan
I would say, To: Alice, cc: both Alice's and Bob's followers, possibly cc: or bcc: a theoretical Collection of all participants in the thread who have not muted the thread by leaving the collection?
@evan Alice, Alice’s followers, and the subset of Bob’s followers that follow Alice.
@evan Since the replie is followers-only, to Bob’s followers. Otherwise information that someone with a private account would expect not to be visible to anyone they didn’t approve could be easily leaked to people that they don’t know.
@evan I'd argue it should be visible to the intersection, not the union of Alice and Bob's followers. So basically people who follow both of them. There should also be an option to have it be visible to all of Alice's followers.
By default, visible to both Alice's and Bob's followers.
But, Bob should be able to change it. Even making visible to everyone.
Edited 15d ago
@evan when I learned that a reply to a "followers only" post in the Fediverse meant that the replier can choose any visibility they can choose for their own posts, in a discussion that the original poster meant to keep among their followers, it was one of my most WTF moments about ActivityPub.
🇬🇱🇺🇦@evan
I’m surprised at the results here. To me it seems like a cut-and-dry consent issue: Alice has indicated in the original post that she only consents to communicating with people who follow her on that post. By making Bob’s replies visible to Bob’s followers (or anyone else) you’re exposing Alice to accounts she did explicitly did not consent to communicating with. 🤨
@evan if "mutuals only" were a visibility option, then I'd be okay with reconsidering "followers only" visibility.
@evan Given all the complexities and real and potential vectors of abuse, maybe replies to followers-only posts should be forced to be private mentions?
Sometimes people share personal things using followers-only visibility, and replying directly without exposing private details seems the most appropriate.
Eg. not announcing "Hope you'll recover from the diarrhea soon, Bob!" to potentially thousands of strangers, or even people who do know Bob, but Bob was not addressing in his post.
@evan If Alice purposefully publishes a followers-only post she must have good reason for it, hence the whole thread should be treated with delicacy, i.e. extending the visibility of the thread (or part of it like Bob's reply!) to people not following Alice is a no-go IMO.
Bob is free to do a post of his own that is not a reply to a more privacy-minded person's.
@evan other -> the intersection of Alice and Bob’s followers.
@evan This is a good one and a common mapping exercise. Many services don't think this through and / or opt for an odd and challenging option of Bob's followers getting the visibility to it, which pretty much breaks the “followers only” intent of the original poster.
I’ve walk through this in a couple workshops around researching in social media as following the shadows of social media. You can't see a person, but you can see their shadows and essence of their moves and existence.
@evan this is a tough one. From a theoretical perspective I'd have gone with "Bob's followers" because each post is a post in its own right and the fact that it happens to have a reply on top shoudn't change that. (Which is also how it works today, right?)
But seeing too many fragmented conversations has made me think that in practical terms it's better to have replies "inherit" viewership from the starting post—i.e. Bob's post is visible to Alice's followers
@evan I know Alice. Alice is fedi-famous. WTF is Bob? 
@evan I think both is a problem because if we keep going, the conversation will be among a very different public each time anyone answers. Same for "Bob's".
I put "something else", but I wish I put "Alice's".
Edited 15d ago
@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
Edited 15d ago
@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.
@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 I expect (but that's not Mastodon): Bob's reply should be public by default, like all replies -- it should not appear in my timeline unless I follow both Alice and Bob. If Bob decides to answer "followers-only" then Alice would not see the reply, unless she follows Bob back.
Mastodon's privacy setting are *very* counter-intuitive. I'd expect:
* "follower-only" = only my followers, not people that I mention!
* "private" = only possible with people that follow me, otherwise it is creepy!
@evan But mastodon posts are visible to the public, without a login. Is there anywhere that isn't the case? Everyone who wants to can see all the posts, no? 🤔
it's about principals
i chose "Alice's followers"
to me the imperative here is:
Alice "owns" their top level post and all replies to it
thus Alice's communication style overwhelms the style of anyone who responds to them, in that context
this has much further architecture implications than just your question. but for the matter here, all replies to a top level post defer on all communication style questions to style of the author of the top level post
Ideally visibility should be thread scoped with replies able to restrict it but not expand it
@evan It should be visible only to people who are followers of both, Alice and Bob. Being a follower of just one of them shouldn't be enough.
@evan To Alice's followers by default. But possible to restrict to the intersection with Bob's followers if Bob wishes.
@evan The answer is go back to LiveJournal and Alice gets to decide. If her post is fully public, anyone can comment on it. If it's private and Bob is in a group of people she shared it with, only Bob and the people in that group can see the post and comment. Now if Bob wants to make a copy of her post and share it privately this his group of friends, that's his business but then he's probably not a very good friend.
My vote was based on current implementation and explanation of same to users.
However, if we ask "ought" rather than "should" (principle rather than expectation), then reply visibility would be contingent on the propinquity of followers to both Alice and Bob, which is to say, not all of either interlocutor's followers would see the post, but rather visibility would be a function of relationship weights with each follower across both participants in the exchange.
@evan It is Alice's post and conversation. If Bob wants other people to know what was said, he's able to do his own post to his followers.
I don't even like the idea of 'followers only' posts. Use email or direct messages if it's that 'special'.
I selected other. I feel that Bob's post's visibility should be defined by Bob's settings for that post.
Followers of Bob that don't also follow Alice could see his reply and know that it was a reply to something else, but they'd not see what it was in reply to.
Conceptual parallel: one can comment publicly on copyright protected material that others may not be able to see. one can also comment publicly on classified info (there may be penalties for doing so, but it can be done).
@evan Only Alice's followers. Those of Bob's followers who are not Alice's followers cannot see the context Bob is replying to. Reading answers without any context introduces a lot of noise in the channel (ambiguity specifically). Ambiguity also has the tendency to trigger a lot of anxious questions in people who read them (and sometimes then reply to ask for the context). For me, these kind of interactions lowers the quality of my network.
@evan I voted “Alice’s followers”, but if Bob marks their reply followers-only, it should be only the intersection of Alice and Bob’s followers.
Just visible to Alice unless she accepts the post. And she controls the visibility on her posts.
@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.
@evan
Please help me, my friend, I desperately need you 🙏
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.
"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.
Edited 14d ago
"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.