We know you're famous, we know you're celebrities, and we know you're accustomed to being treated like the cream of the crop - but this is our network and we have an important rule of etiquette:

Please put your news under a Content Warning

If you're talking about Ukraine, use a cw "Ukraine". If it's about a school shooting, use "school shootings", or "school violence". If it's about us politics, use "US politics" or "US pol".

If you're talking about Twitter, please use "Twitter". I'm not kidding. Do you know how stressing it has been for us to deal with this whole thing? We're sick tired of hearing Twitter news. YOU ARE the twitter news. The last thing we need is to see someone boosting a distressing piece of info that isn't safely hidden under a title.

For you it may seem like it's a bureaucratic hassle, but for us it's our mental health where talking about.

There are people with PTSD in here. There are people with burnout. We value mental health and we value consent.

We don't like content being shoved down our throats.

If you want an analogy, consider your stuff Mordor News and we're hobbits from the Shire.

Just because you're big personalities doesn't give you the right to ignore our customs and do whatever the hell you want anyway.

Consider the fact that we left Twitter for a reason. It's not merely the platform, it's not merely Musk, it's not merely the corporation; it's Twitter's toxic culture that we ran away from.

This is our cozy home. We do not starve for content and we're not addicted to engagement in here. We do not like quote tweets, we do not like naked screenshots. We do not like noise.

This is NOT Twitter; Mastodon is a very different beast. This platform is already over 5 years old and its culture is entirely different from yours. We have cozy little instances where we find comfort, friends, and peace.

You arrived unannounced to our virtual piece of land, and we expect you to at least have the decency of learning our customs.

Thank you.

Update: I had a very productive conversation with one of the journalist instance(s) admins, they agreed to use CWs. Thanks all for your likes and boosts!

I'll be muting this thread now.

@yuki2501
So what do we do when big vocal accounts like Peter Stefano Vic and the good law project refuse point blank to listen or react? Peter's recent reply of 'why would I want to do that' was of course expected but surely this sort of attitude is not only disrespectful but plainly self centered. I fully back Peter's work and that of the good law but I don't want it in my cornflakes in the same way I don't want animal abuse photos either.
@yuki2501 I've only been here two days and I can already see it changing! I sincerely hope all us newbies don't ruin it for you.
@yuki2501 help a newbie: I’m seeing a limit of 500 chars on my toots, the one I’m replying to has surely surpassed that limit? is that a mastodon server setting?
@nosuchuser @yuki2501 The default limit is 500 characters, but changing this, which instances are free to do, only takes a few minor code changes.
@julia @yuki2501 great, thanks for confirming my hunch.

@nosuchuser @yuki2501 yes, the default character limit on a Mastodon server is 500, the instance admin may change the value, but I'm not aware of any that do.

On the other hand, Mastodon isn't the only micro-blogging platform on the Fediverse, it's just the most used (by far). Pleroma for example has a default limit of 5,000 characters.

@nosuchuser @yuki2501 Oh, looks like hackers.town is indeed a Mastodon server, so they seem to be one of the few with a raised character limit.

@yuki2501 I do hope the existing Mastodon community are successful in preserving the culture here, but sadly this pattern is very familiar - even going back 30 years to Usenet's Eternal September.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September

@yuki2501 yes, this! I'm not opposed to having more news flow on here (tbh I get kinda annoyed when everyone is vague posting about news and no one posts an article and I have no idea wtf is going on) but please, please give people the option not to see it
consent is so important, even in sharing news

@yuki2501

Nicely said, but they won't listen and when I inevitably see them acting up I'm just gonna' mute or block. :/

@yuki2501 thank you Yuki for this post. I hqve never read anything reflect my thinking as perfectly as this. You so eloquently described my sentiment for joining mastodon.  
@yuki2501 I'm a stranger here myself but *insert applause gif* here.

@yuki2501 i mostly agree, except

we do not like quote tweetsmisskey has had quoting since forever, and it's blurring the line between quote and reply. i think it works okay. quoting is especially nice to reshare a post but with your own content notice tacked on.

@lis I've noticed misskey users have a different culture than traditional-mastodon users - and that's not necessarily a bad thing!

However, the problem is that quote-posting is often used in twitter for toxic behavior, to "dunk on this guy". Replaying while quoting text is not bad at all, the problem is replying on a separate post for mobbing purposes.

@lis @yuki2501 it's also good if i want to react to a thing someone boosted but i don't know the person and the comment is kinda personal so i can post it followers only, like a personal story/memory i think of when i see a meme etc
@zotan @yuki2501 huh so the quoted person isn't notified in that case? i didn't know that

but that functionality (quoting without notifying) can be replicated (poorly) with link previews in masto and pleroma. arguably if one doesn't like regular quoting, this might be worse…

@lis @zotan The most toxic ones on twitter are done by screenshotting the tweet and posting. Can't be traced, and I've seen it used for mobbing people in the most horrible ways.

The worst part is that the only defense against screenshot quoting is... screenshot quoting. In other words, it's a toxic behavior that becomes viral.

@yuki2501
You had me at ‘…we’re Hobbits from the Shire’ ☺️

But seriously, I love the difference and want to respect the culture here.

@yuki2501 also, remember that most of us are anti capitalism and we might not respect you just because of your job title
@yuki2501 is it still possible to mute here? I sure hope so :)
@ampanmdagaba It is. You can even set timed mutes for friends who occasionally post annoying things.