Notices by Feral Thoughts (feralthoughts@union.place), page 2

@silverpill

How does Mitra work in case of public conversations?

Say, a Mitra user writes a new public post (OP of a thread). Do they get notified of all replies in the thread, including even those reply-to-reply posts that do not tag them?

Can a respondent to the OP’s public post change the status of their reply post to followers-only or mentioned-users-only? If the OP is not a follower of that respondent, and is not tagged, will the reply be visible to the OP?

(continues)

@silverpill

I am curious about #Mitra, so here are a few questions; hope you don’t mind.

(continues)

@silverpill

Say, a Mitra user boosts (reposts) a post in some thread, or posts a reply in that thread. Does the user then get notified of all subsequent posts in that thread?

Basically, is there some way for a Mitra user to “subscribe” to a public thread, or flag in some way that they would like to receive existing posts as well as get notified of all future posts in that thread/conversation?

(continues)

All the points I am making in this thread were already made in various branches of
https://union.place/@feralthoughts/115345717793512758

but they are scattered all over the thread, so I am accumulating them here in one place.

#Fediverse #Mastodon

(continues)

My account is default public, and I am more of a lurker (because I am from the global south, and there’s no community for me here); so the peculiar dynamics that @jdp23 highlighted had never occurred to me—that the followers-only reply to a followers-only post will be visible only to the followers of the responding poster and NOT the followers of the OP.

#Fediverse #Mastodon

(continues)

There were some fascinating points made in response to the thread
https://union.place/@feralthoughts/115345717793512758
I wrote yesterday.

Specifically, this post by @jdp23 https://neuromatch.social/@jdp23/115347779737594231

and this one by @osma https://mas.to/@osma/115348375715047778

#Fediverse #Mastodon

(continues)

This means a followers-only thread is going to be utterly broken, with each reply being visible only to a random subset of participants. And then it is common on the Fedi for people to randomly tag others, which will cause even more disorientation.

#Fediverse #Mastodon

(continues)

I have had this in mind for quite some time, but I think a reasonable solution to all of the above issues would be to make the original poster and the original post the authority over the entire thread. I am combining the points made by @jdp23 and @osma here, and trying to generalize.

#Fediverse #Mastodon

(continues)

Then there’s the issue of harassment of black users discussed in
https://union.place/@feralthoughts/115345717793512758

#Fediverse #Mastodon

(continues)

So if the OP posts a follower-only post, all subsequent posts should be restricted to the followers of the OP, not the followers of the respondent.

#Fediverse #Mastodon

(continues)

Not only should every subsequent post in the thread inherit the original privacy level, but it should also inherit the “privacy group” of recipients set by the OP (followers-only, mentioned-people-only, etc.)

What happens if some reply post tags an outsider? What ought to happen?

Not sure, maybe tagging should be forbidden for follower-only posts? And replies should be forbidden from tagging anyone in mentioned-people-only posts?

#Fediverse #Mastodon

(continues)

In addition, all of the subsequent posts, even posts that do not tag the OP, should be routed through the original poster’s instance.

#Fediverse #Mastodon

(continues)

So... say, user UA on instance A writes a new post. User UB on instance B replies. User UC on instance C replies to UB’s post. User UD replies to UC’s post. UD’s post should reach instances C and B though A (D -> A -> C and D -> A -> B). Same with all other replies.

This may also give the OP the authority to delete any subsequent post in that thread.

#Fediverse #Mastodon

(continues)

I think this will also eliminate the need to tag the users one is responding to, for them to receive notifications. That will save many characters which can be used for actual post content.

(The need to tag in Mastodon-like platforms is a headache. If there are too many people participating in a conversation, then a whole lot of characters are lost in tags. In addition, one also has to think of hashtags. So very few characters are left for the actual post.)

#Fediverse #Mastodon

(continues)

In other words, a new post should be treated somewhat like a blog, and every response and response-to-a-response should be treated somewhat like comments under a blog.

#Fediverse #Mastodon

(continues)

I believe Mike Macgirvin’s ActivityPub-based #Forte behaves in the fashion I have described above. So it may be worth checking out.

#Fediverse #Mastodon

(continues)

@osma

I was wondering if #Forte is the only #ActivityPub software to implement Conversation Containers and Nomadic Identity. Do you know of any others?

@osma

I know about Hubzilla and (streams), but they are both based on Nomad/Zot protocol. I was asking about software based on ActivityPub. I guess then Forte is the only ActivityPub-based software to implement Conversation Containers and Nomadic Identity.

🧵 arguing that all responses to a new post (the original post of any thread) and responses to those responses should be routed to all the participants through the instance hosting the original poster (and that all responses should mandatorily inherit the privacy level of the original post, and also mandatorily inherit the “privacy group” of recipients set by the original post).

#Fediverse #Mastodon

(continues)

@roadriverrail @nitrml @santiago @anilmc @augustocc

My feeling is that this will not improve the situation.

This isn't just about global south servers being invisible; low visibility users/topics on global north servers also remain invisible, they just don't get likes or boosts. So I suspect the bot will not be able to find them either.

But I could be wrong, I haven't really thought through all the possibilities.