4 ms·

There are a number of areas in G+ that seem like they're going to lead to highly-publicized mistakes, and the asymmetry of circles is certainly one of them. Yo

There are a number of areas in G+ that seem like they're going to lead to highly-publicized mistakes, and the asymmetry of circles is certainly one of them. You basically have no way to know who can see your comment on a post (outside of the fact that everyone can see it on a "public" post). I also suspect an Weinergate style mis-post of something that was supposed to be private will occur fairly early on. Though to be fair, nothing is as easy to misdirect as a twitter DM.

DavidSJ 15y ago
You basically have no way to know who can see your comment on a post (outside of the fact that everyone can see it on a "public" post). On private posts, the word "Limited" appears next to the post, on which you can click to see who it's visible to. It's not as obvious as it could be, but it's there.
- waterlesscloud 15y ago
  Actually, you can only see icons for 21 of the people (and the total number) it was shared with in that case. Only the poster can see the whole list. There's a problem with even being able to see the 21, from the pov of the poster...
  - ben1040 15y ago
    If I am at a cocktail party, and something is said among a group of friends, I know I won't "out" anything if I only discuss it later with those who were originally within earshot. I appreciate how Google has brought this into the electronic realm. I do wish there was not a 21 person limit because I already see people sharing with much larger pools and you don't know who persons 22...n are who can also see the discussion.
    - tonfa 15y ago
      If there's more than 22 persons I assume it is somehow public.
henrikschroder 15y ago
But you can do the same mistake on Facebook, if I post a story to my wall and you comment on it, then you don't really know who gets to see it. The default sharing mode is "Friends of friends" if I remember it right, and that means my friends of friends can read your comment, and you can only see who my friends are, but not who my friends of friends are. On the other hand, I think most people are used to the fact that posting on Facebook is pretty public, and that the Circles feature might give people a false sense of privacy so they are more likely to make that mistake.
- sootzoo 15y ago
  Adding to this, if I comment on FB about any other member and use the @-mention feature, but they're not authorized to see the original post, they won't be able to read what I wrote or what anybody else did either. Compare that to G+, where a +-mention actually grants access for the post to the mentioned user whether they originally had it or not. Imagine planning a surprise birthday party, where someone +-mentions them, even by mistake. So much for surprises!
  - omouse 15y ago
    How about don't +-mention them? Just use their name and then attach a link to their Google+ profile instead? That won't count as a mention.
    - grey 15y ago
      Agreed, The surprise birthday party is one exact case where this would be annoying, in almost every other situation most users would prefer the current behavior (In my experience anyways)
    - sootzoo 15y ago
      How often does one refer to somebody by URL? You may have noticed (I have, anyway) that FB now "helpfully" defaults to an @-mention if you start typing a person's name, essentially offering it as an auto-complete option. As long as G+ doesn't go down this path, I can live with it, but I don't like that a "mention" automatically implies "full access" to whatever has been said, especially given that the choice of whether or not to share a particular post with that person is presumed to be up to the author of the post, not anyone else who was also included.

DavidSJ 15y ago

You basically have no way to know who can see your comment on a post (outside of the fact that everyone can see it on a "public" post). On private posts, the word "Limited" appears next to the post, on which you can click to see who it's visible to. It's not as obvious as it could be, but it's there.

waterlesscloud 15y ago
Actually, you can only see icons for 21 of the people (and the total number) it was shared with in that case. Only the poster can see the whole list. There's a problem with even being able to see the 21, from the pov of the poster...
- ben1040 15y ago
  If I am at a cocktail party, and something is said among a group of friends, I know I won't "out" anything if I only discuss it later with those who were originally within earshot. I appreciate how Google has brought this into the electronic realm. I do wish there was not a 21 person limit because I already see people sharing with much larger pools and you don't know who persons 22...n are who can also see the discussion.
  - tonfa 15y ago
    If there's more than 22 persons I assume it is somehow public.

henrikschroder 15y ago

But you can do the same mistake on Facebook, if I post a story to my wall and you comment on it, then you don't really know who gets to see it. The default sharing mode is "Friends of friends" if I remember it right, and that means my friends of friends can read your comment, and you can only see who my friends are, but not who my friends of friends are. On the other hand, I think most people are used to the fact that posting on Facebook is pretty public, and that the Circles feature might give people a false sense of privacy so they are more likely to make that mistake.

sootzoo 15y ago
Adding to this, if I comment on FB about any other member and use the @-mention feature, but they're not authorized to see the original post, they won't be able to read what I wrote or what anybody else did either. Compare that to G+, where a +-mention actually grants access for the post to the mentioned user whether they originally had it or not. Imagine planning a surprise birthday party, where someone +-mentions them, even by mistake. So much for surprises!
- omouse 15y ago
  How about don't +-mention them? Just use their name and then attach a link to their Google+ profile instead? That won't count as a mention.
  - grey 15y ago
    Agreed, The surprise birthday party is one exact case where this would be annoying, in almost every other situation most users would prefer the current behavior (In my experience anyways)
  - sootzoo 15y ago
    How often does one refer to somebody by URL? You may have noticed (I have, anyway) that FB now "helpfully" defaults to an @-mention if you start typing a person's name, essentially offering it as an auto-complete option. As long as G+ doesn't go down this path, I can live with it, but I don't like that a "mention" automatically implies "full access" to whatever has been said, especially given that the choice of whether or not to share a particular post with that person is presumed to be up to the author of the post, not anyone else who was also included.