@silverpill That's probably because "followers only" is not a Fediverse-wide standard backed by the ActivityPub spec or a FEP, nor does it tie in with any actual permissions systems available in the Fediverse.

As an example for the latter, Hubzilla, (streams) and Forte do not translate Mastodon's "followers only" into "these Fediverse actors are granted permission to view, like/dislike and reply to this message indefinitely, and everyone else isn't".

On top of that, all three assume that the permissions of all elements in a conversation are always the same because that's how they work. So if I post in public, and one of my Mastodon followers comments "followers only", then Hubzilla will treat it as public regardless because if my post is public, and it is, then all comments and replies are public, too.

At least Hubzilla shows a red padlock symbol on each message whose "permissions" don't align with what Hubzilla understands or expects.

CC: @kopper :colon_three:

#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #Mastodon #Hubzilla #Streams #(streams) #Forte #Permissions #FollowersOnly

@Helge Good news! guide now talks about followers only posts. If you are in the set of "Some applications create replies to followers-only posts addressed to the replier's followers collection", please fix it.
This. In fact, Fediverse server software that behaves correctly has been around since long before Mastodon was made.

In fact, replies should never go to whoever is replied to unless it's the conversation starter. Replies should always go to the conversation starter and from there to all participants in the conversation, and they should do so without having to visually mention all participants. Also, conversations should be shown as a whole by default always and everywhere and not as single-message piecemeal with no context.

And in an ideal Fediverse, this should go hand in hand with only the members of the followers collection of the top-level post author being permitted to see a) the top-level post, b) any comments on the top-level post and c) any replies to comments in the first place. This would make sure that nobody who isn't intended as part of the audience will ever be able to see this content, also by making it technically impossible to repost/boost/repeat/share/otherwise forward anything in the conversation. But hardly anything in the Fediverse has the all-encompassing permissions system that's required to achieve this.

#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #Fediverse #AP-Next #Conversations #Permissions #FollowersOnly