I understand "private mentions" or DMs on Mastodon are treated like normal posts under the hood, but with viability limited to yourself and the recipient.
What I don't get is why they're included when in my own post history as I scroll through it. I'm being shown fragments of a continuous conversation amongst self contained, public posts. If I wanted to see my DMs, I'd go to the dedicated tab for it, you know?

#Mastodon #PrivateMentions

#Mastodon #MastoAdmin #MastoHelp

So

Is there now no such thing as a "#DirectMessage" on Mastodon?

I'm on v4.3.0-alpha.5+glitch and although I do see "#PrivateMentions" off in the righthand (web version) sidebar, I can find nowhere any sort of "Accept [Private Mentions] from Followers only" control in Preferences, like I seem to recall from earlier versions

Has that been removed, and now the reach of PMs is only controlled at the compose level (begin the user name with an @) thus rendering it to a "Specific People" audience?

TIA &c &c...

@a7ndrew

do you know of an easy way to see all my #mentions?

When I check my #Privatementions it looks like I can only see the most recent mentions.

So you might know by now that DMs (here called Private Mentions) work differently on Mastodon (maybe other fediverse platforms?) in that anyone you @ mention will receive the message, unlike on Twitter, where tagging someone does not add them to the conversation.

Who here learned this the hard way? Share your stories!

#mastodon #DMs #PrivateMentions