e might not be the terms other people use.

* **Stand-alone posts** are posts that are not replies to any other post. (That is, you did not click on the Reply button to start the post.) They are at the head of a chain. You can include people's usernames in stand-alone posts to tag them; doing that does not make the post a reply. **For example:** You use the standard compose box ("What's on your mind?" in the default Mastodon settings) to create a new post.
* **Self-replies** are posts that are a direct repl