An interesting item, first, how can I tell when a post to me is a private message, and second, is there a way to pull a private message out of its sequence and turn it public? In general, I try to avoid private messages unless it's for very specific technical issues, or things that just should not be public. I just found myself in a thread that was private but I wanted it to be public. However, maybe the guy is right to keep it private for his own sake.
I'll get the hang of this one day, lol.
@smxi A good rule to follow may be: “You can make your reply more private than the post you're replying to, if you think you should, but never more public.”
@josemanuel ok, now to learn how to spot post is private. That's a simple clean rule though, thanks. Always a learning curve on these systems, but #mastodon is pretty well done overall imo.
@smxi As far as I know, Mastodon's web UI (and, I assume, all others) use the same privacy level of the post you're replying to by default, so you shouldn't need to worry about that.
@josemanuel but how do I know the post/message is private? I realize this is a dumb question, but this has hit me a few times now and it took me a while to realize it wasn't public. The only indication was the alert that popped up when I tried using a hashtag. That's actually the only reason I realized it was private. Generally private chats are only useful when talking to people I know or collaborate with, so I want to avoid this in future. Am I being blind or dense, lol? probably so.
@josemanuel the more but not less private rule is useful once I realize it's private, since I can say, if you want to continue, we will talk in public or not at all, and just stop it there. But I'm trying to avoid the start of it in the first place.
@josemanuel Found it:
"An “@” symbol below the message will designate it as a post between users mentioned, whereas an earth icon indicates a post is in public view."
too subtle for my taste, I'll have to learn how to spot that right away.
@josemanuel the background color is too faint to be noticeable, that sometimes comes because the designers use macs, which have different color settings, hint is what looks great and bright and sharp on mac looks pale and washed out on anything else. That might be what's going on here, as a web dev this issue was a real problem for me re designs. But the earth icon is the key one so fine, it's just very pale and monochrome.
@josemanuel that wasn't my explanation, should have added the link, that's from an intro to mastodon for new users. It was good enough to point to the right direction though.
@josemanuel I have to check more, but on another instance if I reply to a private message the reply box offers 3 levels, public, followers, and private. Didn't actually test though since don't want to bug the guy.
I'm going to consider this solution as "less than ideal", it's too subtle, I prefer the dedicated pm, or at least, a very very obvious pm color/highlight where you simply can't confuse them.
But now I see why I missed it, this is very subtle, and requires awareness when replying.
@josemanuel my concern is simple, I do not want to accidentally fall into private chats like I did today. the icons for this are too subtle for my taste, but I'm starting to focus on them to train my brain to register they have meaning. The other levels are fine, it's the private one I want to avoid unless it's being correctly applied for a real communication that should not be public.
Presentation in past made icons more visible, today's fashion seems to be to make them tiny and faint.