Muted Google+ circle wins - unless notifications are on

There has been a change in the Google+ circle visibility recently.


Before it used to be like this:

Person A is in two circles: One is muted and the other one shows standard amount of posts in the Home or All stream. A's posts showed in the stream, so the "louder" circle won.


Things have changed:

Person A is in several circles, one of them is muted.

No normal posts show up in the Home stream with one exception: Community posts.

I don't mean the personal mute here! I mean a Circle mute: When you click a circle open from the drop down on the Home page, you can uncheck the "Show posts in Home stream" and you'll see no posts from that circle.

I did my research

I put some of my favourite (and prolific) posters in a new Mute circle a few days ago:

I have had these gentlemen all the time in a subscription circle: With the notification bell on.

While in the beginning of the test I kept +martin shervington in the Notification circle and also added him to my Muted circle, still his posts triggered a notification.
So the circle notification Bell on, wins over Mute.


When I removed him from the notification circle but still kept him in several other circles with varying degrees of visibility: No posts showed up in my Home stream.

Same happened with +Mike Elgan, +Mark Traphagen and +Yonatan Zunger.


This is the only exception:  Community post

I am a member of the +Plus Your Business! Page's community

The settings are normal, notification bell is not on, but still I see Martin's post.
Is this a good or a bad thing?
If you place someone in a muted circle, would you still like to see their posts on a topic that interests you - in a Community you belong to?

More scope for Circle Management...

I have been checking the circle stream of the Muted circle as I miss the posts from these guys, but been checking for the visibility of their posts in the Home stream also.  No posts from these guys.

I'm glad that the test is over and I can move them back to my #NeedToReadAllPosts circle. :-)

So, now we know. But looks like it's not working for everyone like this...

By the way: Why would you place someone in a muted circle?

Boss? Girlfriend?  Do they +1 a lot?
Putting someone ONLY in a muted circle should not show the posts they +1 in your stream.

More about Who sees your post  and How to control your Notifications


Questions? Do leave a comment! :-)