Elisabeth AndersonAnother #MastodonTip I've learned is that if you're posting a long thread then make the first one public (with the 🌍Public: Post to public timelines) but make the rest of them unlisted (with the 🔓Unlisted: Do not show in public timelines) which means the replies don't appear on people's timelines but the first post does! ☺️
Chris Gerhard 
@velobetty and everyone can still see the replies via the first post? I assume yes but have never seen this
@chrisgerhard Yes they can still see them from the original toot although they wouldn't see, like, 2/3 in the public timeline but they would see 1/3.
artsyhonker@velobetty @chrisgerhard That's not quite how it works!
Unlisted toots do not appear in the local timeline on your instance, or the federated timeline. But they do appear in the timeline of people who follow you.
@artsyhonker @velobetty the app I have offers 3 options
1) public
2)followers only
3)only people mentioned
Which seems clear. Its a pity there is not an option that does what @velobetty described
@chrisgerhard @artsyhonker Ah, I'm using Tusky which supports those options. The web UI does too.
@velobetty @artsyhonker oh yes. Tusky has another option. Unlisted, which this reply is.
@chrisgerhard @velobetty Yes, but unlisted replies *still show in the home timeline of people who follow you*. They don't show in the local instance timeline or the federated timeline.
@chrisgerhard @velobetty I just had this conversation the other day because someone I follow did a long thread of covid stats with no CWs; she thought that because it was unlisted, followers would only see the first toot. That is not what happened.
Unlisted toots still show in the home timeline of people who follow you.