What the *** is an unlisted boost?? I am a old.

@Lana It's a boost that shows up in your feed, but not the public server feed (or public federated feed).

@Lana

Same... I'm so happy to do the Fedi from the Mastodon but... Some of these concepts don't lend themselves to easy understanding.

Like, I make a living as a programming and I know when I need to talk to people outside of my bubble about an idea.

That... That is definitely what I see going on here.

@Lana it means it doesn’t show up in the public feed. It’s useful for replies and threads and such.

@Lana I would assume it boosts it to your followers but not your local timeline or onto the global timeline.

@faithisleaping how is that different from a followers-only post?

@tiamat271 ahhh ok.

@Lana There are 4 levels of posts on fedi:

1. Public. This is visible to everyone and gets advertised on the global and local feeds.
2. Unlisted. This is still publicly visible but it doesn't get advertised on global and local feeds. People will only see it if they either follow you or someone boosts it onto their feeds. Given how little most people use local and global feeds, this isn't that much different from public.
3. Followers-only. Only followers can see it. (Well, them and the admins of every server of anyone who follows you.) Generally, these also can't be boosted. (Obviously, someone could post a screenshot or something.)
4. Private. Only the people mentioned will see it. (Well, them and their server admin. They aren't actually encrypted.) These generally can't be boosted at all.

Given that, the unlisted boost is pretty much the same as the public boost, except that it won't make its way into the silly server and global timelines.

@faithisleaping thank you so much. That explains it.

@Lana @faithisleaping Here's the official documentation: https://docs.joinmastodon.org/user/posting/#privacy