Diaspora/Website

If all aspects are selected and you want to view just one, click <span class="click">Deselect all</span> and then select the one you want.

This selection system has two uses:

It filters the content stream. You might want to read only posts written by people in your Family aspect. Or you might want to read everything posted by your contacts <em>except</em> family members.

If you post a status message from the Aspects page, the aspects selected in the left-hand menu will be automatically selected in the publisher. For example, if the Friends, Family and Work aspects are selected in the list, when you click inside the publisher window you’ll see that the Aspects selector button reads “In 3 aspects.”

We mentioned your contacts page in %{part_link}. You’re here now, but the best way to get to your contacts page from other pages is go to your user menu from the header bar and select <span class="click">Contacts</span> from the drop-down list.

The contacts page displays a list of your aspects in the sidebar, and the people you have placed in those aspects in the main section. (The list of aspects appears at the top in the mobile view.)

If you are displaying contacts from all aspects (click <span class="click">My contacts</span> in the sidebar), each contact will have a green button to its right showing which aspect(s) they have been placed in. If a contact is in more than one aspect, the button will read “In <em>n</em> aspects.” Click the button to see which aspects those are.

You can click this button to change the aspect(s) this person is in by selecting and deselecting aspects in the drop-down list. If you want to remove a person from all of your aspects, deselect all aspects and the button will turn grey. You are no longer sharing with them.

If you are viewing contacts in an individual aspect, there will be a cross to the right of each contact displayed. Clicking this will remove the person from that aspect.

This shows you a list of people who are sharing with you but with whom you are not sharing – your “followers.”

How to connect with people

It’s now time to add some contacts to the “Diaspora” aspect you just created. If you already know people who are using diaspora*, you can find them and add them to any aspect you like.

Sharing

We call connecting with someone “sharing” because it’s an indication that you want to share content with them. Sharing in diaspora* can seem a bit confusing at first, because your levels of sharing with other people are unlikely to be the same as their levels of sharing with you. Let’s try to make sense of what that means.

On diaspora* there are three types of relations between users:

Someone has placed you into one of their aspects, but you haven’t done likewise for them. You will get a notification that this person has “started sharing with you” but you won’t notice any other change.

They will see your public posts in their stream, but none of your limited posts.

There’s no way to tell which aspect someone else has placed you in, for privacy reasons – it’s their business which of their aspects they place each person in, so no one else can find out.

You are sharing with a person who is not sharing with you. This means that you have added them to one (or more) of your aspects, but they have not added you to their aspects.

The person you are following will have access to posts you have made to the aspect(s) you have placed them in as well as your public posts, and you will start receiving their public posts in your stream.