@technomancy

I mostly agree with you, with one exception.

I have several bots running on my instance that forward the content of some Twitter profiles to the fedi, and I even wrote an article on how to code a cross-post bot https://blog.platypush.tech/article/Create-a-Mastodon-bot-to-forward-Twitter-and-RSS-feeds-to-your-timeline

I created them for profiles like e.g. The Economist, Scientific American, IEEE, Quanta Magazine etc. that most likely won't join the fedi any time soon.

I agree that one shouldn't cross-post their own tweets, because that splits the conversation and creates that awkward "bot feeling" that you want to avoid in a social network.

But I actually think that it's a good thing when you are bringing to the fedi a conversation that was never supposed to be here in the first place, because the original author is e.g. a publication or a political figure that is not on the Fediverse in the first place.

The alternative is to follow @<handle>@beta.birdsite.live accounts to bridge Twitter profiles to the fedi, but those guys' servers are lately quite overwhelmed by the number of "on-the-fly" bots that they have to maintain. So it's much better if more people can run their own bot services.

My Economist bot, for instance, has >1K followers. People often re-share to their followers and comment some of the articles it cross-posts here, and start a discussion that may have never happened otherwise.

Granted, the original publisher may not see these comments, but in most of the cases those publications or political figures don't reply directly to them even on Twitter 😆

And, it goes without a say, if Scientific American or Quanta decide to open a Mastodon account tomorrow, then I'd be happy to take down my bots, as they would obviously be redundant.

@MrsMouse

@technomancy @seancorfield I have taken to showing, not telling.

If I want to boost an image, I add a post with CW image description below it and describe the image.

Very often, this is enough for people to get the hint, and some of them will then ask how to do it if they need help. This makes my explanation more well-received, because it is wanted and not perceived as mansplaining.

@joepie91 Speaking as like... an ADHD gay boy with chronic fatigue who's been here since 2017: it's weird! It's extremely weird here! I generally like it, but there is a yawning chasm between how people on fedi act and, like, basically any real-world conversation *in our marginal groups*.

Just this morning a queer pal looked into joining fedi and noped out because he saw people insisting that a line drawing of a person not making eye contact should be CW: eye contact. We look *nuts* sometimes.