@C. I have two major issues with the Mastodon HOA.

One, they try hard to force "Mastodon standards", Mastodon culture and Mastodon's unwritten rules upon the whole Fediverse. Including places that not only aren't Mastodon, but that are very much not Mastodon. Simply because they can't see where a message is from. In fact, many of them are still fully convinced that the Fediverse is only Mastodon.

And so you have members of the Mastodon HOA yelling at someone who is allegedly "doing Mastodon wrong", but that someone is actually on Friendica and has been since as early as 2011. As in about five years longer than Mastodon has even existed. And seriously, the only places in the Fediverse that are even more different and farther away from Mastodon than Friendica (without specialising in something that Mastodon absolutely can't do) are Friendica's own descendants: Hubzilla, (streams), Forte.

The Mastodon HOA probably don't know that Friendica exists. They definitely don't know that either of the other three exists. They definitely don't know that any of the four is significantly different from Mastodon in any way. And frankly, they don't care a bit. If it appears on any Mastodon timeline, it's Mastodon to them, and it has to adapt to Mastodon's culture and follow Mastodon's rules.

Two, they don't coordinate anything among each other. They're just a bunch of lone wolves. Everyone has got their own standards, but everyone thinks their personal standards are the one and only Mastodon/Fediverse gold standards, and everyone enforces their own standards. And, of course, everyone thinks their standards can and must apply always, including in the most obscure edge-cases.

For example, they've got standards for describing real-life photos on Mastodon with a character limit of 500. And they try to enforce these standards always and everywhere. However, these standards don't necessarily work perfectly when I post a rendering from a super-obscure 3-D virtual world on (streams) with a character limit of over 24 million where I've got loads of room to write an additional long image description and put it into the post text.

The Mastodon HOA, or at least some of their members, appear to be constantly raising their minimum quality requirements for image descriptions. They must be absolutely accurate, and they must be sufficiently detailed that nobody will ever have to ask for a detail description. Oh, and they must explain whatever the audience may not know about the image or the description. (At this point, it's fair to mention that explanations must never go into the alt-text.)

Sure, I can do that. I have done so in the past. But I can't do that within Mastodon's alt-text character limit of 1,500 (Mastodon truncates longer alt-texts from outside). I can do that even less within Misskey's alt-text character limit of only 512 (Misskey and the Forkeys should truncate longer alt-texts, but due to a bug, they delete them entirely instead, giving the impression that you haven't written an alt-text at all). I can only do that in the additional long description in the post text.

If the Mastodon HOA demand I transcribe literally any and all text within the borders of an image, I can do that, too. In fact, I have done so in the past. I can transcribe bits of text verbatim which the Mastodon HOA can't even read. Which the Mastodon HOA couldn't even find in the image because they're so tiny. But there's no way that I can squeeze 20+ individual text transcripts into 1,500 characters of alt-text along with the rest of the visual description, much less into only 512 characters. The text transcripts will have to go into the long description in the post text, whether the Mastodon HOA want or not.

This means that the post will exceed the holy limit of 500 characters by huge magnitudes. This, in turn, means that when I've satisfied one Mastodon HOA member, another one comes and sanctions me for exceeding the holy 500-character limit. That is, chances are it's actually the same Mastodon HOA member.

In other words, if the content of an image is obscure enough and requires enough description, the only winning move when I want to post such an image is to not post it at all.

#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #CharacterLimit #CharacterLimits #CharacterLimitMeta #CWCharacterLimitMeta #500Characters #AltText #AltTextMeta #CWAltTextMeta #ImageDescription #ImageDescriptions #ImageDescriptionMeta #CWImageDescriptionMeta #MastodonCulture #MastodonHOA

@Justin Crozer @Stefan Bohacek @Lentävä Kalakukko @Roni Rolle Laukkarinen Whenever I see Mastodon users talk about "culture" in a Fediverse context, I have to wonder: What exactly do they refer to when they talk about "culture"?

Is it Fediverse culture? As in, overarching, software-independent Fediverse culture?

As in, taking into consideration that Fediverse server applications that aren't Mastodon, e.g. Misskey or Sharkey or Friendica or Hubzilla, have different cultures than Mastodon?

Recognising a post or a comment from one of these applications, acknowledging that it comes from a place with a different history, a different set of features and thus a different culture than Mastodon and refraining from enforcing Mastodon's unwritten rules against it?

Or does "culture" only refer to Mastodon's culture? Does it reject or completely disregard all cultures in the Fediverse that aren't Mastodon's and demand the whole Fediverse adopt Mastodon's culture and only Mastodon's culture?

Do these "bad eggs" include users who post more than 500 characters at once (which, by the way, is perfectly normal everywhere outside of Mastodon)?

Do these "bad eggs" include users who reply to people who haven't mentioned them first, and whom they aren't mutually following either (which, by the way, is perfectly normal in large parts of the non-Mastodon Fediverse, too)?

Do these "bad eggs" include users who quote-post Mastodon toots that must not be quote-posted (because they've had quote-posts for much longer than Mastodon, but without a no-quote flag so they can't see Mastodon's no-quote flag)?

Do these "bad eggs" incllude users who "misuse" Mastodon's CW field for summaries (because they have literally had the exact same text field as a summary field for seven years longer than Mastodon has had it as a CW field, and because having a summary field makes a whole lot of sense if your character limit is not 500, but over 16.7 million)?

Do these "bad eggs" include users who use more than four hashtags in one post (because, unlike Mastodon, the places where they are have filtering as well as automatically having messages hidden behind CW buttons deeply engrained into their cultures, but this requires the appropriate keywords to be present)?

If so, then this explains why only Mastodon users can enjoy significant reach on Mastodon: Everyone else is mass-blocked for misbehaving by Mastodon's standards.

#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #QuotePost #QuotePosts #QuoteTweet #QuoteTweets #QuoteToot #QuoteToots #QuoteBoost #QuoteBoosts #QuotedShares #QuotePostDebate #QuoteTootDebate #CW #CWs #CWMeta #ContentWarning #ContentWarnings #ContentWarningMeta #CharacterLimit #CharacterLimits #CharacterLimitMeta #CWCharacterLimitMeta #Fediverse #Mastodon #NotOnlyMastodon #FediverseIsNotMastodon #MastodonIsNotTheFediverse #MastodonCulture #MastodonCentricity #MastodonNormativity

Your own posts aren't any better anyway; CW: long (over 1,300 characters), Fediverse meta, Fediverse-beyond-Mastodon meta, alt-text meta, image description meta, character limit meta, hashtag meta View article View summary

@David Mitchell :CApride: On the other hand, when I look at your personal timeline, it's obvious that you've never really arrived on Mastodon. You break all kinds of rules. You break alt-text and image-describing rules, and you break Mastodon's cultural rules.

You write alt-texts in multiple paragraphs. You almost never use CWs, not for posts over 500 characters, not for US or Canadian politics, not for wars, never. You rarely use hashtags, and when you do, you sometimes put them in-line instead of all into the bottom line. In-line hashtags are inconvenient for screen reader users.

You boost image posts without checking whether the images have alt-texts, much less whether the alt-texts are accurate, sufficiently detailed and in line with the existing alt-text and image description rules. You boost posts about potentially disturbing topics that have no CWs.

So don't come lecturing me if your own doings are likely to get you silently muted and blocked by other Mastodon users left and right.

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@Stefan Bohacek And I agree, of course. I think policing overall should be left to moderators. Especially enforcing unwritten rules and expectations across different communities.
This is the very reason why the Fediverse becomes a minefield for all non-Mastodon users the very moment they establish their first out-going connection to Mastodon.

Mods are or should be more considerate and more well-read about the Fediverse. They (should) know better than to police users from other servers with different rules the same as they enforce their own rules locally.

They (should) also know that not only the Fediverse is more than Mastodon, but that the non-Mastodon Fediverse has different cultures and does not necessarily share Mastodon's unwritten rules. And ideally, they should be able to at least have a rough idea about which "toots" do not come from Mastodon itself.

A mod should know better than to attack and sanction someone who has just posted over 5,000 characters at once with text formatting, headlines, a bullet-point list and weird-looking mentions and hashtags for not complying with Mastodon's culture and Mastodon's unwritten rules because that someone clearly is on something that's very much not Mastodon.

Non-mods don't care. They attack whomever they feel disturbing. And as for the above poster, they want that kind gone from the Fediverse altogether.

Especially Mastodon servers really ought to introduce rules against excessive policing by non-mods.

This has created a very toxic and gatekeepy atmosphere that's causing a lack of diversity on here.
And yet, it's usually the non-Mastodon users who are being accused of gatekeeping and being toxic. If they're identified (or, more often, openly identify themselves) as non-Mastodon users, that is.

CC: @Leon Cowle

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@Leon Cowle @Stefan Bohacek Yes, that's the trouble with CW policing: People don't police CWs in general. They often don't just police the obvious CWs for porn and gore either. Instead, they aim to enforce all the CWs which they personally need. Regardless of what someone else may or may not need. Then you comply, and then someone else comes and berates or even sanctions you for using too many and/or completely superfluous CWs.

I've compiled a list with over 140 topics that someone demanded be CW'd at some point. And it's very incomplete because it should technically include politics from not only every last nation on the planet, but also every last federal state, province etc.

The worst offenders are those overly sensitive snowflakes who probably came over from Tumblr, and who present themselves as so easily triggered that they absolutely need literally everything CW'd. And as so feeble that they cannot take care of protecting themselves in any way. Granted, I think it'd be too much for them to set up hundreds or thousands of individual filters, especially what with how unnecessarily complex Mastodon's filters are. But still, they see themselves as entitled enough to demand everyone force CWs for everything on everyone, regardless of who needs CWs for what, because they need CWs for everything.

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@David Tanner 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 @Stefan Bohacek You don't. You don't apply them to stuff that you send to others. You apply them to stuff that you receive in your timeline. Not for others, but for yourself.

I think the issue here is that it's often hard-wired in Mastodon users' heads that "CW" equals "poster-side" equals "provided by the poster for all readers all the same".

In this case, it's different. It's all happening on the reader's side. Like, the filter generates a CW for the reader who sets up the filter, depending on what keywords the filter contains, depending on what keywords are in a post.

You, as the reader, define what you want to have hidden behind CWs for yourself. If something disturbs you just enough to have it hidden, but not enough to have it purged from your timeline entirely, you set up a filter with the corresponding keywords. And that filter will hide content with at least one of these keywords in it behind a CW. Automatically generated only for you, personally, individually.

The next user does not want the same content hidden. They do not set up such a filter. And they see the very same post without a CW without having to do anything themselves.

I mean, I guess you know what filters do on Mastodon. Normally, they remove stuff from your timeline. But with this setting, they hide that content behind a button for you instead of completely removing it.

Maybe it's easier to understand for us Hubzilla users because we've had something similar since before Mastodon was even made, much less since before Mastodon started repurposing our summary field for poster-issued CWs. So automatically generated, individual, reader-side CWs are the default for us and part of our culture whereas they came to Mastodon too late to become part of Mastodon's culture.

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@zotheca @Stefan Bohacek It isn't the title field. It's the summary field. It has been the summary field since Evan Prodromou added it to Identi.ca in 2008. And it only became a CW field when a Mastodon user for the demo scene submitted a merge request to Mastodon's GitHub repository in 2017 which repurposed this summary field, unused by Mastodon at this point, as a CW field.

My own POV on this is a whole lot different from typical Mastodon POVs. I've joined the Fediverse on Friendica in the early 2010s as opposed to on Mastodon in the 2020s before I moved on to fledgling Hubzilla.

Now, both Friendica and Hubzilla as well as the whole rest of the family (of which (streams) of 2021 and Forte of 2024 still exist) have a nifty optional feature called "NSFW": It's a list of keywords which, if detected in a message, hide the entire message behind a button. Much like the hiding feature in Mastodon's filters, only not built into the actual filters, much more simple and over 12 years older than Mastodon's solution.

In this software family, the NSFW feature is not perceived as a filter, even though it's very similar to the actual channel-wide filters (which, by the way, are among the few things which are more simple even on Hubzilla than on Mastodon because they've only got two keyword lists, an allowlist and a blocklist).

Rather, it's seen as an automated, individual, reader-side CW generator. It's deeply engrained into the culture of these Fediverse server applications which is a great deal different from Mastodon's culture. And it's seen as vastly superior to poster-side CWs that are forced upon all readers all the same.

A takeaway from this software family: If you write a potentially sensitive post, and you have no way of artificially weaving NSFW-triggering keywords into the actual post text, add them to the bottom line as hashtags. I do that all the time, hence the hashtags that start with "CW" to make clear that they're supposed to trigger reader-side CW generators.

By the way, the Friendica and Hubzilla inventor and (streams) developer Mike Macgirvin proposed two catch-all hashtags for sensitive posts to the (streams) users (that was before he forked Forte off the streams repository). One is #sensitive which also has the side-effect that (streams) and potentially also Forte make Mastodon blank out all images in the post. The other one is #⚠️. Or, if your post is really disturbing, #⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️. However, this has yet to find its way into Hubzilla, not to mention Friendica or even Mastodon and the rest of the Fediverse.

As for the summary field, if Mastodon actually managed to push its entire community away from fixed poster-side CWs towards automated reader-side CWs, the whole field would be useless. I mean, Mastodon didn't support it at all before it had a CW field because, frankly, you don't need summaries for 500 characters.

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@Stefan Bohacek This is the case for three reasons.

One, Twitter has never had this feature. And if Twitter doesn't have a feature, it's hard for many to imagine that Mastodon has it.

Two, there is no dedicated button for it up-front in the timeline view, neither on Mastodon's Web interface nor in any mobile app.

Three, it came too late. Mastodon's culture as we know it now was coined in spring 2022 by those who had escaped from Twitter after Elon Musk had announced he wanted to buy it. However, this filter feature was introduced to Mastodon with version 4.0 in October when Mastodon's culture was already set in stone for all eternity.

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@Stefan Bohacek @Lentävä Kalakukko @Roni Rolle Laukkarinen Thing is, many expect the Fediverse to be one big perfectly cosy and fluffy hugbox in which everyone is always nice to one another. 100% anti-racist, 100% anti-sexist, 100% anti-ableist and so forth.

Also, they expect it to be only Mastodon. They expect it to be nothing but a microblogging service with no more than 500 characters.

Why? Because it's basically exactly that that the Fediverse has been implied (or outright announced) being to them, and be it by telling them that "the Fediverse" is the polar opposite of 𝕏 culture-wise.

The moment that any of the above proves itself to them as not true, they're so deeply disturbed that they're making a mad dash towards the exit, even though they don't know where else to go. Either that, or they make it their goal to fight for the Fediverse to become what they thought it is.

It's largely because of these people that the Fediverse becomes a minefield for all non-Mastodon Fediverse users the very moment they establish their very first contact with Mastodon.

#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #Fediverse #Mastodon #NotOnlyMastodon #FediverseIsNotMastodon #MastodonIsNotTheFediverse #MastodonCulture #FediverseCulture