Mastodon: [UX] People don't get that account locking and default post privacy are unrelated

[Cassolotl]

I saw someone (possibly Gargron?) saying that at the moment people are locking their accounts and then getting totally thrown when their posts are still completely public and ending up on the public timelines.

So here's some things I think could help.

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Put the settings next to each other

At the moment the two settings are on completely different pages in settings! Default post privacy is on Preferences, and "lock account" checkbox is on Edit profile. Putting them together and making it clear that you may need to change both could help.

ACCOUNT AND POSTING PRIVACY SETTINGS

Account: Locked / Unlocked

• Locking your account requires you to manually approve followers. Please note that this won't change your default post privacy setting (below).

Default post privacy: Public / Unlisted / Followers only

• A default post privacy setting of "public" means your posts will still go to the public timelines, even if your account is locked.

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~# Have post privacy change automatically when an account is locked~

~When someone changes their account to "locked", have their default post privacy setting change to "followers only", and then tell them that this has happened. Give them a link to the default post privacy setting, so they can change it back if they want while keeping their account locked.~

Apparently this is already a thing!

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• [x] I searched or browsed the repo’s other issues to ensure this is not a duplicate.

[AnkeW]

How about "Account: Locked/Unlocked" gets renamed to "Followers: Accept or decline manually/Automatically accept", or something "Accept Followers: manually/automatically" or something along these lines?
Or if it's a checkbox, "Automatically accept follow requests" and make it checked by default.

[nightpool]

hi, it was me

Have post privacy change automatically when an account is locked

this already happens. the point that I was making was some third party apps don't respect this behavior, which leads to problems for users.

[Cassolotl]

this already happens.

WAHHHHHHT okay, my mistake! Thanks. :)

I still think it'd be better if these settings were side-by-side, though, so I think I'd like to keep this open.

[nightpool]

hmm. i'd maybe be a bit worried about putting the setting side-by-side because we don't automatically update them visually when you change them, which could increase confusion for users, but maybe the answer that is that we should just also update them visually before you confirm your change.

(currently it's not a problem because they're on different pages, so there's no way for you to see the default privacy level without either confirming or discarding your change to the account's locked status)

[Cassolotl]

but maybe the answer that is that we should just also update them visually before you confirm your change.

Oh yeah that sounds good!

[spaceottercode]

@Cassolotl How are you guys doing this. Every time I tick the Lock account box, save and post, the post is Public. It is true that it's not reflected in the Post privacy setting or in the Adjust status privacy dropdown menu below the textarea box.

running on 2.6.5 mastodon.social web on firefox

[Cassolotl]

That suggests it's not a third-party app issue, but an everywhere issue. I've only ever changed the privacy and follower setting separately and not paid attention to whether they affected each other, because them being on separate pages was too complicated for me. I just trusted @nightpool when they said that making your profile require follower approval changed the default toot privacy and never tested it.

[spaceottercode]

Thanks @Cassolotl for the clarifying that.

[nightpool]

The system definitely worked last year when I tested it. It could be that it's broken in the intervening year, or that you haven't refreshed the web interface since saving the settings, or some other bug related to your instance or your browser.