@eco_amandine And also I have randos who follow me, one person being quite obtuse today was apparently a follower
Which, lol, now that I say it out loud wouldn't do me much good if I had a followers-only-can-reply option, but I could then stop that person from following me (I just did that, blocked someone so they no longer follow and then unblocked) and then they could never reply
@inquiline I've also blocked randos replying here. I'm with you on this.
I would also like the option to post only to my instance, for example to organize in person meetings.
@eco_amandine@inquiline yes! I was thinking how many organizations could benefit from having an instance, but the only real selling point would be the ability to have a "safe space" to make jokes and nuanced comments that won't show up years later in the hands of demagogues
@inquiline What we have ain't it. Tight coupling of access and reach can only allow for retroactive pruning.
Like barring someone from a public facility for bad behavior.
Propinquity would be more like a house party. Folk you invited show up, and their friends, many of whom you recognize, and maybe a few you don't. But it's still a private space, where the expectation is that those you invited have some level of respect for you to at least make some effort to have complete asshats tag along.
Where the current model is based around a state of boolean flags—followed or not, following or not, muted or not, blocked or not—and exposure settings keyed directly to such flags, a propinquity approach would determine access on affinity grounds.
So, for example, a very superficial propinquity-based network might allow one to limit replies on a post to those whom three of one's mutuals are following. (An arbitrary scenario by way of example.) Even on posts that are widely visible.
@beadsland I will try to dig something up but not sure how easily I will locate. Someone has proposed something similar but their term and their handle both eluding me rn
@inquiline Have been thinking and sometimes spouting off about such for well over a decade, two if one counts my thoughts on omnicentric community calendaring.
Unfortunately, given how deeply entrenched current programming models are, would be a house that Jack built scenario to realize to my satisfaction.
@inquiline That said, believe my first encounter with anyone else discussing decoupling of reach and access, at least in principle, was in connection with one of the corporate Xitter rivals, so would be delighted to know of anyone else working on the broader problem of treating social ties as more nuanced than join relations in a database.
@inquiline Ah, okay, so if one squints, this might appear as an ersatz propinquity by fiat. Yet still too broadly geographic.
If you live in a high rise, you may have closer propinquity to the bodega owner on the ground floor of the high rise across the street and to someone you go running with in the park on Sundays who lives blocks away, than with your neighbor three floors up.
Propinquity is a term from social sciences describing such ties mediated by our movement through social spaces.
@beadsland Yes, and if you assume instance-mates have some commonality, that's why this is somewhat analogous to what you suggested. But ofc that is only true in some instances; and is in any event different than user-to-user relations ofc
@inquiline Yes, here living is the same building if offered as analogy for having accounts on the same instance.
Are there residential buildings where all the neighbors know and regularly interact in tight-knit community with one another? Sure. Probably. I mean, we have the idea that such places exist, and that idea must have come from somewhere?
But then, if that's our model, it can be achieved through insularity. Reddit boards where everyone knows one another because no one else comes there.
@beadsland My instance has people with whom I'm truly friendly/consider friends in the on-here way, whom I wouldn't know if it weren't for being instance-mates. Affinity bred familiarity
& I guess if someone on my instance were being an asshole to a mutual to the point where mods needed to be involved, and my mods didn't do anything (this would never happen), I'd feel a bit like I was... not at all responsible but un peu guilty by association?
@inquiline Moreso than other corners of the internet, people try to fight with me here over really niche bullshit, or the specific wording of my posts. The latter feels like maybe a gap between different language speakers, but the former…
@Zeb_Larson I had a bad day on here yesterday and then in a meta fashion someone else told me these posters are all trolls trying to get a rise out of me, lol. While there are some trolls here for sure there are also a LOT of kinda maladjusted people who don't modulate their tone and just say wild shit thinking they are initiating a conversation but actually just being rude and strange when they do it to someone who doesn't share their norms., ie being confrontational over niche bullshit is fine
@inquiline somebody told me that Mastodon has no trolls but a lot of VERY earnest assholes, and it explains a lot. And I’ll be honest, while I deal with far fewer out and out trolls here, I deal with more rude people who aren’t doing it as a gimmick.
@Zeb_LarsonExactly this. And then for me there are extra layers of like are they being more condescending because of addressing women more rudely. But I think some of it's just straight up FOSS culture which is be rude to everyone bc this is "egalitarian" behavior
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