@evan@cosocial.caEvan Prodromou it's worse than I thought then 😅
I think there probably should have been a distinction between who you can address in the discussions you start, compared to the discussions someone else starts. It's a privacy issue. Say for example that for some reason I don't want everyone to know I am online and posting, so I restrict the visibility of my posts. Then someone else can see one of my followers replying to me (since including the handle in the replies also practically reveals who you are replying to).
Say for example I am asking my friends on fedi what to do about someone who harasses me. And someone replies to my post with advice about harassment. The person who harasses me could very well understand what I'm talking about.
It is what it is, of course, just saying, I think this particular aspect is not optimal behaviour for social media.
@panos oh, yeah, it's terribly dangerous and rude. It's a good idea for Fediverse software to hide or disable that option. But the protocol allows it. (So does email. You can add in other people or even a mailing list to a private email conversation at any time.)
If you have a fediverse account, you can quote this note from your own instance. Search https://cosocial.ca/users/evan/statuses/116029986876087395 on your instance and quote it. (Note that quoting is not supported in Mastodon.)