Stephen Smith
SophieI’m seeing long-time Mastodon folks asking people to please PLEASE use CW on posts about political topics and then I’m seeing almost no one actually do that. It’s so important to keep up with the culture of this space that was established long before many of us got here. Just use the CW!!
Why Not Zoidberg? 🦑@sophie Also if they take a hard stance, I think it's correct to report them. When in Rome, etc. Period.
BassmanFred, Inc@sophie what is cw?
@waycooljr content warning! If you’re on a browser it’s the little “cw” in the text box. If you’re on the app it’s the badge with an exclamation point at the bottom of the text box.
Rootvegrockstar@sophie @waycooljr didn't know! Sorry! Will do moving forward. Learning how to use the platform
Karina@sophie @waycooljr Ah, I wondered why so many posts were a 'click to read'. Cheers for that.
Alun D Pughe 🏴 🇺🇦 🇪🇺Ah i wasn't aware of this either. Please be patient with us noobies, just learning as we go!
@waycooljr @sophie glad you asked that. I kept scrolling to see if it was explained somewhere, then saw this 👍
Adam JezardQuite. People need to put CW on when they first post I believe.
Gary b_spectabilis@sophie sorry but what is “CW”
David Gómez@sophie I choose to mute political centric accounts. I don't want my timeline become a dumpster fire like on the birdsite.
@davegomez I think a lot of us who have been burned by that other place are feeling the same 💜
Lee 🌏@sophie
What is the CW ? 😳
What is the CW ? 😳
eswillwalker@MrLee When you write a toot, there are little icons below. One of the icons is "CW." It stands for content warning. You can write a headline or topic and then folks can choose whether to open your toot to read the rest of what you've written. It's also a great way to give a heading to a long toot that not everyone might care to read. Think "above the fold."
@ELS
Lovely thanks. A lot of us newbies here :-)
I'm just wondering what the advantages and disadvantages are of using CW. And when I should and shouldn't use it.
I guess the ultimate goal is not to pollute Mastodon with Negative Political Memes?
Lovely thanks. A lot of us newbies here :-)
I'm just wondering what the advantages and disadvantages are of using CW. And when I should and shouldn't use it.
I guess the ultimate goal is not to pollute Mastodon with Negative Political Memes?
James Baillie@MrLee @ELS I generally use them pretty liberally for politics and other common sources of angst: I don't find there's much disadvantage to them in terms of people engaging, you'll find that some people here won't usually boost un-CWarned politics. And people are in my experience understanding if someone just fires off a personal vent without warning if that happens... it's.mostly just about giving people space to choose how they engage.
OpenDNA⚙️@MrLee @ELS It serves as a "read more" with a headline, hiding the body. Originally to warn of triggering content, adopted use is to allows readers to opt-in, and condenses the timeline.
Many people are sick of hearing about Trump, Musk, Brexit, AI art, are grieving the loss of a pet or loved one, etc. So giving the option to opt-in to my anti-Putin puppy photo is an act of kindness.
Albert Herring@MrLee Last night I posted a bunch of stuff about a football match I was following. There aren't (afaics) a lot of football people on my instance or among my handful of direct followers, so using a content warning meant I could inflict my flurry of football-related posts only on the willing (although I also put it all into a thread with unlisted posts after the opening one so there was an element of belt and braces there too)
ekay
Trevor Wilson@sophie Newbie here - what's CW?
@trevor When you write a toot, there are little icons below. One of the icons is "CW." It stands for content warning. You can write a headline or topic and then folks can choose whether to open your toot to read the rest of what you've written. It's also a great way to give a heading to a long toot that not everyone might care to read. Think "above the fold."
3wombats
RussellCNX@ELS Cool, thank you!
Tony 📊@sophie Sorry, my bad 😅
But seriously, it is hard to truly get this new behaviour incorporated into my system.
Also, it doesn't help that many of my fellow - esp. the many new Dutch -Donnies are not complying to these rules either. 😬 Not an excuse, but just the plain reality.
Today’s Tom Sawyer@tonyvisualizes @sophie though the more people that use it, the more it gets noticed, the more people explain, the more it gets noticed, and hopefully the greater the take up. Bottom line for me seems to be that we now have a tool that’s not difficult to use, that enables us to show some care and compassion to others. To not do so is simply a big “fuck you” to anyone who might struggle with content (or so it seems to me).
@philurboots @sophie Haha, that's one way to look at it.
Tbh, I was not even aware of it until someone boosted a message from another user who mentioned it.
All I am saying is: this is about human behaviour. Behavioural change takes a while and often it requires repeating, repeating, repeating...
So, I would suggest: keep mentioning it, keep using it, and keep making people aware of it! 🙂 ✌️
Facts Central@sophie FTR that’s the reason I mostly crosspost from Twitter. News/politics is most of my content, and the cross-posting app allows a default CW option. On the other hand, you can’t CW what you boost, and I’m told quote tooting and screenshot are no good either - so I go to Twitter instead. I don’t want to bother people who didn’t ask for this -but it’s kind of a pickle, honestly. I feel like even when trying my best, respecting the culture means self-censorship.
@sophie Ofc, if everyone was using CW, that wouldn’t be a problem. But I can’t make that happen. I just wish I could have the option to CW interesting non-CW content here, instead of having to go back to Twitter for that. Or that I could add hashtags #news #politics to toots & boosts that people not wanting to hear about could opt out of, making it all invisible to them. Or a default CW option on my news/politics account -boosts included.
Idk. @Gargron, a thought?
Idk. @Gargron, a thought?
@Gargron @sophie
Made up my mind.
Going for “CWQT”.
https://newsie.social/@stilldelvingh/109311150530033169
Made up my mind.
Going for “CWQT”.
https://newsie.social/@stilldelvingh/109311150530033169
J. Stephen Clark 🏳️🌈@sophie I’ve been here since April. The New York Times feed and accounts covering the war in Ukraine have never used CWs, and I’ve seen very few CWs. I’d be careful about broad claims that CWs are the “norm.”
JohnPettigrew@JStephenClark Just because some accounts don't use it, that doesn't mean most folk shouldn't. (And, of course, it's highly likely that company accounts like the NYT are posting basically the same content to all channels, without really engaging with the norms in each place.)
@JStephenClark @sophie I don't follow news feeds because they don't have CW's.
The Streets of Melbourne@sophie respecting this space matters, yes!
underland@sophie Still learning my way around Mastodon, so bear with me until I learn how to use expanding content warnings. Hopefully my political distress will ease up once my wife and I are ensconced in Canada.
LouisvilleDad@sophie Can this be done when crossposting from Twitter? Can we go back and use CWs on toots here? Some education would be helpful.
Asso Social et Républicain@sophie what CW is?
Allison@sophie I really enjoy the acknowledgement that other people have different needs, and feeling comfortable enough to hide away what could upset people.
It is making me sad seeing colonialist behaviour from some.
Empathy all the way <3
It is making me sad seeing colonialist behaviour from some.
Empathy all the way <3
alli rico 
@sophie Oof I am guilty of this and it’s because I have the Twitter repost setup. Didn’t even think about it. Sorry!! 🤦♀️
Andreas Wagner@sophie I was wondering whether this use of content warnings (CWs) can really be recommended or even expected across all the fediverse. Like, I am not sure I want to ask political activists or news outlets to prefix all their posts with a CW. Like, do I really want to ask @gretathunberg to always use CW "climate crisis" or @watch_union to use CW "depol"?
That's why I found the idea of a client-side content filter that auto-inserts CWs in my client that I have seen mentioned recently kind of intriguing. Need to check it out (find it again in the first place).
Maybe having a default CW post template that these accounts could use would be another (technical) approach.
All of which I guess boils down to my stance being: please use CWs, in particular if it's for stuff that you are not posting mostly about, but I acknowledge that you may have good reasons not to.
@sophie @gretathunberg @watch_union Obviously I have the choice of following such accounts or not, but the charm of CWs is that can decide at each moment whether I am willing to engage with that kind of content right then.
I don't want to unfollow them but there may be times when it's better for me to hide some of the stuff.
Should have said this from the start...
@sophie @gretathunberg @watch_union There is quite a lot of discussion going on about CW which I only got aware of somewhat belatedly. Sorry for adding to this even more - and for keeping Greta and UnionWatch in the thread, I really don't know what would be/have been the appropriate thing to do - , but [email protected] mentioned a not-so-obvious approach that I find interesting. I would still not *expect* anyone to follow this, and it sounds a bit abrupt at first, but I think it's reasonable enough to *wish* it was at least considered widely. I'm copying it here so I have everything in one place:
Quote begin
When all your posts are political AND you want to post them without CW, the consequence is that you *only post to your followers*. So the posts can't be boosted. And noone stumbles across them by accident.
Now, *that* would be consequent and good form!
You can find that option in your settings, btw!
💖
Quote end
Ceri@anwagnerdreas @sophie @gretathunberg @watch_union thank you. I haven't posted any political posts yet while I work out what I want to do about Content Warnings. But I have boosted a few posts - e.g Greta's - that are politics, including/or Climate Change. This may be something that will develop different netiquette on different servers? Eg the mods & members of Green server not expecting all posts about climate to have CWs?
zeemeermin@sophie Excuse you?
The US is about to sell out womens rights and you are asking to please be quiet about is?
How about no!!!
RDS (shawphd on Twitter)@sophie @zeemeermin No one is asking you to be quiet. You’re being asked to label your posts. That will get more engagement here. If all you do is scream at people, they’ll just block you.
kurtsh@shawrd773 @sophie @zeemeermin LOL, too late... I had already blocked zeemeermin who I assume you're talking about. I'm sure however that whatever she was screaming about was truly enlightening.
Musique NonStop [TECHNOPOP]@zeemeermin @sophie This is unnecessarily rude.
Read the room.
Read the room.
Martin Marconcini@zeemeermin @sophie Mastodon is not a US only network. Not everybody cares about the USA political soup. You don't have to be silent, just have to respect others' rights to not want to hear it.
@zeemeermin @sophie If you think the people who are going to read your text could be in any way harmed or feel bad about what you write, then consider it, it costs nothing more than a click and a text. It's not hard to understand I believe. All it takes is a bit of empathy and understanding. If people following / reading you find your texts offensive and such, they will simply elect to mute or block you; it's always your choice.
@gryzor @sophie Exactly. It's my choice. So if you don't like what I write, please mute me. I'll do the same.
I'll put a CW on bloody gore pictures of war crimes and animal cruelty, and horrible quotes.
But I'm not going to put it on my political opinion just because it's election day in the US, thank you very much.
I'll put a CW on bloody gore pictures of war crimes and animal cruelty, and horrible quotes.
But I'm not going to put it on my political opinion just because it's election day in the US, thank you very much.