I wish there was an option to share a post with mutuals only. With “followers only” as the only option between “public” and “mentioned people only,” I often toy with the idea of soft-blocking most or all of my nonmutual followers and switching my profile to “request to follow.” Then it would be like a safer community-within-a-community. But then shy people might hesitate to follow. 🤔

#TootVisibility

#TootVisibility pt. 2

Who can see any given toot?
How can you easily tell?

Next to the timestamp of a toot you can see one of 4 icons. Each icon represents one of the possible #TootVisibility settings.

The image below shows them:
1) globe - Public
2) unlock - Unlisted
3) lock - Followers only
4) asperand (at sign) - Mentioned people only

So if you see an asperand, then it's a DM!

Recommend: put [DM] after mentioned names to clearly show DM #TootVisibility!

Mastodon pro-tip because I didn't know this.

DMs are just a variation of a toot.

The difference is in the #TootVisibility.

See image below - 4 choices:
1) Public - everyone and their mom
2) Unlisted - same as public, but not searchable
3) Followers only
4) MENTIONED PEOPLE ONLY

So - if you use "Mentioned People Only" then it's the same as a DM, to one or a million people, ONLY those mentioned.

Now trying [DM] after mentioned names to show #TootVisibility up front. 👍🏾

All that "public" vs "unlisted" angst about replies basically for nothing. :/

#tootVisibility

Unlisted toots (e.g., replies) are the same as public with the one exception that they don't appear in your instance's public feed.

So, everybody on your instance
(a) who searches or looks in the federated feed,
(b) who follows you,
(c) who you mention
sees your reply.

(b) & (c) apply across instances.