Marcus,
You suggest that "Preventing replies to posts ... sounds like the fantasy
of a naive dictator."
Well, Twitter has offered this capability for many years. They currently
allow you to limit replies to:
- Everyone
- People who follow the post author
- Only the post author (This means essentially no replies)
It is often suggested that the "No Replies" option is particularly useful
for unmonitored accounts that might be used only for the purpose of making
announcements or statements but have no one to review Replies. Disabling
Reply makes it clear to others that any comments they make won't get a
response. Making this clear can eliminate a great deal of user frustration.
Bot accounts would be good candidates for "No Reply." Some instances might
even make "No Reply" the default for Bots...
I don't think I'd use this capability very much, but I am intrigued by the
idea of a somewhat new kind of interaction... If Mastodon supported
controlling Reply, then one could set up a debate or interview between two
people who could then reply to each other in an uninterrupted and thus more
coherent thread without the confusion of interjections from the audience.
Ideally, once such a colloquy ended, one could open up Replies to allow
others to pick apart each of the individual statements...
Note: This is what Twitter displays for "Who can reply?" on every new Tweet:
[image: TwitterWhoCanReply.png]
