If anyone would like to experiment with followers-only groups, check out
https://pelago.1sland.social/@chat
Simply follow @chat in order to take part in private (followers-only) discussion groups.
And you can also log into Pelago with your existing fediverse account and follow from there if you prefer.
The gist is that you can @mention the @chat group after you've successfully followed it and start a thread, or you can reply to an existing post from @chat with a private mention and it will be securely passed along to the group. Those who unfollow or are evicted from the group can't see anything. Like, retroactively the posts should be pulled from view (tested in Mastodon/GTS, anyway).
There's also a fun aspect of this where if you create the top post, you are the moderator of it and everyone who replies under that can have their posts deleted and (coming soon) you'll even be able to ban individuals from groups you control. You're also currently able to lock a thread, or delete the thread entirely.
You should be able to use this to create polls and add attachments, too. Feel free to test this out and let me know.
Note: It can take a minute or so for the bot to recognize and accept your follow request.
