Stories: sharing something for 24 hours
A story is something you share for a short window rather than something you add to your profile permanently. Stories appear in the story tray at the top of the feed and disappear after 24 hours.
They exist for the kind of thing that is worth sharing but not worth keeping: what you are having for lunch, the view from a train, a small thing that happened today. For the design reasoning behind keeping this layer separate from the feed, see Stories vs. broadcast.
Who sees a story
Stories use the same audience picker as posts. Nothing about the audience model is special to stories — only the lifespan is.
That means a story can be:
- Public — visible to anyone who can see your profile.
- Friends — your friends on Seldeo.
- Circle-scoped — only the people in a circle you choose.
The audience is selected in the composer before you publish, exactly as it is for a post. If you keep a "Close friends" circle, a close-friends story works the same way as a close-friends post. Circles themselves are covered in Circles: audiences you curate.
As with posts, circle names are private. A friend cannot see which circle a story was shared with, or that a circle was used at all.
The story tray is chronological
Stories in the tray are ordered by the time they were posted — not by predicted engagement, and not by how often you interact with someone.
Once you have viewed a story, it moves to the back of the tray until that person posts something newer. There is no ranking model deciding whose story you should see first, which means a quiet friend's story is not buried beneath a more active one.
What happens after 24 hours
A story is removed 24 hours after it was posted. Two things are worth knowing about what that actually means:
- The metrics go too. View counts and the viewer list are not retained after the story expires. They are not archived for you, and they are not kept as a private statistic somewhere else.
- Nothing is stitched together afterwards. Seldeo does not assemble your expired stories into recaps, "year in review" compilations, or anniversary reminders. Stories you published are the only stories anyone sees.
If you want something to last, post it instead of storying it.
Deleting a story early
You can remove a story before its 24 hours are up. Open the story from your own tray and delete it; it disappears for everyone immediately, along with its view data.
Deleting a story does not notify the people who already saw it.
Stories and screenshots
Anything visible on a screen can be photographed, including by a second device that no software can detect. Treat a story as visible to the audience you chose, rather than as something guaranteed to vanish everywhere.
If a story is shared beyond the audience you selected in a way that harasses you or exposes private information, it can be reported — see Reporting content, messages, or accounts.
Blocking and stories
Someone you have blocked cannot see your stories, including public ones, while the block is in place. The effects of blocking across the rest of the app are covered in Blocking and restricting people.
Stories vs. posts, at a glance
| Story | Post | |
|---|---|---|
| Lifespan | 24 hours | Until you delete it |
| Where it appears | Story tray | Feed and your profile |
| Ordering | Chronological | Feed ordering |
| Metrics after expiry | Not retained | Retained |
| Audience options | Public, friends, or circles | Public, friends, or circles |