Welcome to all new faces. I'm your host! I appreciate you coming. Let's be honest up front: this platform is good, but it is not Facebook. On the other hand, the suppression of voices isn't here, either. Just keep your expectations in check and remember this is a bit of a work in progress. With that said, here is an important tip:

This platform only has 3 visibility settings (Everyone, Friends, Only Me). Thus, if you want to interact with people without laying bare your whole life, try creating a page, group, or topic in the forum. GROUPS can be set to private/invite only. Don't forget to change the privacy settings on your posts if you don't want everyone to see them!

I am urging the developer to add privacy lists for more fine tuning, but in the meantime, I suggest you make your 'friends' real friends/family and take a lot of the other stuff to 'groups' or pages dedicated to specific items. Anyway, that's what I'm doing.

Again, welcome!