One thing I absolutely love is that hitting star in Mastodon just sends an appreciative signal to the poster. It doesn't influence algorithms. It doesn't shape what I see in my timeline. It doesn't broadcast a signal to my followers that I favorited something.
It just does one thing incredibly well: it sends a simple thanks.
@mike THIS.
One thing I love about here is how that + the "hide follower visibility" neatly cuts off infamous routes of harassment on twitter.
You can thank someone or show appreciation for them with *no one but them and you knowing,* keeping harassers, bigots, stalkers etc from seeing/attacking open support for a target
And your followers, can, too, be private, cutting off stuff like harassing them to get at you or demanding you cut off people over drama/their having a bad take etc
@mybarkingdogs Totally. These kinds of mechanisms are incredibly helpful to protect against abuse. More features like this should be done. Notably, deleting a reply from a thread you started. It's your thread. You should be able to control who can be visible in it.