Mastodon's attempts to provide for both public, semi-private, and private posts have resulted in a really confusing #UX, where even experienced users are sometimes unsure exactly what level of privacy is offered by each of the scope options (Public, Unlisted, Followers-only, Direct), and newbies may not even know they exist. This has resulted in all sorts of user expectations not being met. Public posts users thought were private, and vice-versa.
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Strypey (strypey@mastodon.nzoss.nz)'s status on Thursday, 20-Feb-2020 01:49:38 UTC Strypey - LinuxWalt (@lnxw48a1) {3EB165E0-5BB1-45D2-9E7D-93B31821F864} and Sean Tilley like this.
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Strypey (strypey@mastodon.nzoss.nz)'s status on Thursday, 20-Feb-2020 01:50:51 UTC Strypey I think it would help to have a #fediverse-wide conversations about this, and see if we can find consensus on how this ought to work, and the best language and symbolism to explain it in the UI.
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Strypey (strypey@mastodon.nzoss.nz)'s status on Thursday, 20-Feb-2020 23:10:34 UTC Strypey @sqwishy what were you trying to replace?
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Strypey (strypey@mastodon.nzoss.nz)'s status on Thursday, 20-Feb-2020 23:19:32 UTC Strypey @Elijah__ same. I thought I understood the purpose of Unlisted but I recently realised I have no idea what it actually does. Followers-only seems reasonably clear, but what if someone follows me after I send a followers-only post? Can they now see it? Or if someone unfollows me, can they still see Followers-only posts sent while they were following me?
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Strypey (strypey@mastodon.nzoss.nz)'s status on Thursday, 20-Feb-2020 23:28:26 UTC Strypey @lanodan it seems like implementing support for groups (both private and public) could help, as well as opening up the possibilities of group federation with other apps (eg the various federated Reddit-a-likes in development). But I'm told @Gargron doesn't want to do that.
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Strypey (strypey@mastodon.nzoss.nz)'s status on Thursday, 20-Feb-2020 23:37:14 UTC Strypey @lanodan true, but that doesn't solve the problem raised in the OP ;)
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Strypey (strypey@mastodon.nzoss.nz)'s status on Friday, 21-Feb-2020 03:06:05 UTC Strypey @sqwishy hmmm. Maybe a self-hosted #Matrix server and apps like #Riot/ #RiotX would be a better federated replacement for #WhatsApp than Mastodon? I really hope #NewVector can resolve the remaining issues this year that still prevent them turning on encryption by default.