There were some fascinating points made in response to the thread
union.place/@feralthoughts/115…
I wrote yesterday.

Specifically, this post by @jdp23 neuromatch.social/@jdp23/11534…

and this one by @osma mas.to/@osma/11534837571504777…

#Fediverse #Mastodon

(continues)

Feral Thoughts

2025-10-09 18:52:57

🧵arguing that we should do away with “privacy level” options for reply posts (in case of Mastodon and Mastodon-like Fediverse platforms which follow that model), to eliminate the ability of racists to hide their abuse of black users behind “mentioned users only” replies.

#Fediverse #Mastodon #PostPrivacy

(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)

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)

Then there’s the issue of harassment of black users discussed in
union.place/@feralthoughts/115…

#Fediverse #Mastodon

(continues)

Feral Thoughts

2025-10-09 18:52:57

🧵arguing that we should do away with “privacy level” options for reply posts (in case of Mastodon and Mastodon-like Fediverse platforms which follow that model), to eliminate the ability of racists to hide their abuse of black users behind “mentioned users only” replies.

#Fediverse #Mastodon #PostPrivacy

(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)

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)

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)

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)

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 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)

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)

@silverpill

Yes, you are right. I had come across the term and its description sometime last year, but had completely forgotten it.

@FenTiger already reminded me of it some hours ago. 😀
mastodon.social/@FenTiger/1153…

Nevertheless, thank you for reminding me. 😃

Mike P

2025-10-10 20:45:20

It sounds like you're describing Conversation Containers: codeberg.org/fediverse/fep/src…

There's another page about this in the Streams documentation, but I can't find a decent HTML version of it right now.

fep/fep/171b/fep-171b.md at main

fep - Fediverse Enhancement Proposals

^Codeberg.org