Diaspora/Diaspora

In that case you should restrict your post to the smaller character count (140 in the case of Twitter; 1000 in the case of Tumblr), and the number of characters you have left to use is displayed when that service’s icon is highlighted. You can still post to these services if your post is longer than their limit, but the text will be truncated on those services with a link to the post on diaspora*.

Why is my stream full of posts from people I don’t know and don’t share with?

Your stream is made up of three types of posts:

Posts by people you are sharing with, which come in two types: public posts and limited posts shared with an aspect that you are part of. To remove these posts from your stream, simply stop sharing with the person.

Public posts containing one of the tags that you follow. To remove these, stop following that tag.

Public posts by people listed in the community spotlight. These can be removed by unchecking the “Show community spotlight in stream?” option in the Account tab of your Settings.

Private posts

When I post a message to an aspect (i.e., a private post), who can see it?

Only logged-in diaspora* users you had placed in that aspect before making the private post can see it.

Who can comment on or like my private post?

Only logged-in diaspora* users you had placed in that aspect before making the private post can comment on or like it.

Who can reshare my private post?

Nobody. Private posts are not resharable. Logged-in diaspora* users in that aspect can potentially copy and paste it, however. It’s up to you whether you trust those people!

When I comment on or like a private post, who can see it?

Only the people that the post was shared with (the people who are in the aspects selected by the original poster) can see its comments and likes. 

Public posts

When I post something publicly, who can see it?

Anyone using the internet can potentially see a post you mark public, so make sure you really do want your post to be public. It’s a great way of reaching out to the world.

How can other people find my public post?

Your public posts will appear in the streams of anyone following you. If you included #tags in your public post, anyone following those tags will find your post in their streams. Every public post also has a specific URL that anyone can view, even if they’re not logged in – thus public posts may be linked to directly from Twitter, blogs, etc. Public posts may also be indexed by search engines.