Hometown introduces a new kind of exclusive list. It's a toggle available for each of your lists that says "any post that appears in this list should not appear in my home timeline".
Why
Right now if you add an account to your "friends I like" list in Mastodon, posts from people on that list appear on that list. But they also appear on your home timeline, and maybe you don't want that! Perhaps you'd rather treat your "friends I like" list as your "real" home timeline, and then check your home timeline when you're bored. You can do that with exclusive lists!
Also, if Hometown is going to be a universal reader, you're going to need better control over organizing your feeds. This lets you create, for example, a "Blogs" exclusive list with blog accounts that do not appear in your home timeline. You can simply read new blog posts at your convenience by clicking over to the list.
This feature is especially powerful when combined with the Mastodon "advanced web interface", which is the Tweetdeck-style multi-column layout that used to be the default Mastodon layout. (Now you need to enable it in your user preferences.)
Other notes on exclusive lists:
- You can add yourself to an exclusive list, and your posts will be visible in the list, but doing so does not remove yourself from your Home timeline
- The same account can be on any number of exclusive or non-exclusive lists.
- If someone is on an exclusive list, this excludes them from the Home timeline, but not from other lists, or the Local or Federated timelines, or search results. It only affects visibility on the Home timeline!
How
When you choose "Edit list", which is the interface where you add accounts to a list, there is now a toggle labeled "Exclusive?" Turn the toggle on and hit the "check" to make your list into an exclusive list.
Who
This feature was conceived and authored by Darius Kazemi, the maintainer of Hometown.