Chris News@on #OwnyourBrexitNov 12, 2022
Łukasz Langa

I see an ongoing culture clash between the Old Mastodon and the Newbies fleeing Twitter. The Old believe in heavy self-moderation by way of using Content Warnings for a lot of things, using "unlisted" posts to keep the timeline clean, silencing other servers to avoid even a chance of witnessing interactions of users of that server with users of yet another one that we disapprove of. Heavy self-moderation.

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#mastodon #culture #moderation

Nov 11, 2022 at 10:54pmMastodon for iOS
Show threadŁukasz LangaNov 11, 2022

The newbies are chaos incarnate. Let our feed be everything from food I ate through tips on getting a promotion to onlyfans bait. One feed, nothing is sacred.

I'm sitting here in the middle and wonder if there could be a middle way. A compromise that beats both extremes. Let people post whatever. But let them LABEL what it is. Not "warn", label. Then let my client mute messages by label. Food? Boring, never show it to me. Onlyfans? Sorry, I have this tab open all day and I work at home.

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Show threadŁukasz LangaNov 11, 2022

But the label wouldn't hide messages by default because this makes some interactions pretty annoying. "stuff about cars"? Sounds fine, why even cw? Clickety click. "uspol". Yeah, what is it? Clickety click. "About twitter". Did it burn down yet? Clickety click...

But that's not all. If labels could be applied to posts by others POST FACTUM, this would allow the community to moderate itself even if the original author didn't think to do it.

Anyway, just thinking out loud.

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Show threadAmethyst 🌸Nov 11, 2022
@ambv allowing arbitrary labels from others seems like a tool for abuse and harassment, especially against minorities or queer communities
Show threadŁukasz LangaNov 11, 2022

@amethyst right. I guess like with Wikipedia: most content is mundane and wouldn't attract controversy. For content that does, the Author could always remove a label they deem incorrect. And for the worst cases you could maybe opt out of community labels on your posts entirely.

Or this could be started small and just let the Author add labels post factum.

I'm thinking about this in the Wikipedia context because it would also be really useful for filling out missing image descriptions.

Show threadSteve PeersNov 12, 2022
@amethyst @ambv yeah, it would quickly become the equivalent of people who make Twitter lists with insulting titles. Worse, because it gives the impression that the *author wrote the content warning*. It's wrong in principle to misattribute authorship, especially when attaching misleading/offensive CWs would be used as a weapon in some cases.
Show threadCF Bolz-TereickNov 12, 2022
@ambv you can set all CWs to auto expand in the settings to achieve this for you
Show threadŁukasz LangaNov 12, 2022
@cfbolz yeah but *all* CWs is a little too much!
Show threadAnthony Shaw Nov 12, 2022
@ambv guilty on that one. Still trying to figure this platform out. My feed has useful content atm but it’s weighted towards folks to toot a lot and I’m probably missing some gems further down the feed. Would like to subscribe to a hashtag rather than 1000’s of people otherwise it’ll just be a constant stream of noise
Show threadLalo LeitesNov 12, 2022
@tonybaloney
It would be possible to subscribe to hashtags starting with the version 4.0 to be released next week 😄
@ambv
Show threadHynek SchlawackNov 12, 2022
@ambv post factum labels is allowing people to attach “kick me” post its to individuals. Pre-factum exists and is called hashtags. 😅
Show threadDominik KozaczkoNov 12, 2022
@ambv @freemo you guys should have a talk 😁
Show threadŁukasz LangaNov 12, 2022
@minder @freemo you'll have to be more specific than that.
Show thread🎓 Doc Freemo  🇳🇱Nov 12, 2022

@ambv

I think his response was inspired by this quote thread of some comments I made:

https://qoto.org/@freemo/109320984802510765

@minder

🎓 Dr. Freemo :jpf: 🇳🇱 (@[email protected])

Just to give you an idea of how bad the whole "we block anyone who doesnt block who we block" has gotten, someone sent me this: https://www.patreon.com/posts/74474015 I would **love** to give M.A a script that goes over all the instances in the fediverse and alerts them of every instance that doesnt follow the exact same block list as them and spit it out. I'm sure they will realize they have to block 99% of the fediverse... its getting laughable at this point.

Qoto Mastodon
Show threadDominik KozaczkoNov 12, 2022
@freemo yes, exactly! @ambv
Show threadŁukasz LangaNov 12, 2022

@freemo @minder Ah, that makes sense. Well; I wholeheartedly agree with you. Directly blocking accounts who are harmful is not controversial. Directly blocking servers which allow harmful behavior is also understandable if done with care. But blocking servers that don't block some servers is not sustainable, breaks federation, and smells of The Minority Report.

I can't add much more as I'm not an admin and I'm a newcomer (used to be on mastodon.technology, now dead).

Show thread🎓 Doc Freemo  🇳🇱Nov 12, 2022

@ambv For starters, hashtags already act as labels. It is possible to filter out content by hashtag, so it serves your purpose well.

That said, sounds like your on the wrong side of the fediverse. You tend to have three types of servers... The extreme left, very liberal, but also very quick to block/silence over silly things like not CWing, and this is where you see the heavy pressures to CW.

Then you have the extreme right wing, they wont ban for anything and generally a lot of their users go around harassing people or at least being very confrontational and rude. They will never CW anything except maybe nudity. They are in many ways the opposite of course.

Then you have a rare few instances, like QOTO, that are very neutral... We generally like to encourage people to speak freely, even about unpopular opinions, we talk to people instaed of banning them most of the time, though we will ban if someone is a bad enough actor. We only really CW things that are not safe for work.

Long story short, CWuing everything is not really something that is the norm ont he fediverse outside of a few very restrictive communities.

Show threadStephen GruppettaNov 12, 2022
@freemo @ambv it seems like some can choose (possibly inadvertently) to silo themselves a lot more than others based on choice of servers. Those who silo themselves a lot will of course, by definition, have a skewed sense of what goes on. I’ve not been here long enough to know which servers are which with clarity, but I’m pleased I switched to qoto early on
Show threadMichael KennedyNov 11, 2022
@ambv Lukas, you're so right! FWIW, I changed my default post visibility to "unlisted" and have to opt in to public (can be done under your account settings but isn't the default)
Show threadChris is.Nov 11, 2022
@ambv that's a rather fantastic idea.
Show threadSergiNov 11, 2022
@ambv isn't that the same as silencing by hashtag, assuming that people used hashtags appropriately?
Show threadŁukasz LangaNov 11, 2022

@sergi Hashtags are close but I deliberately didn't mention them as a solution here because somehow it doesn't seem like they are used like this here by the Old Guard.

I don't know why this is. Maybe it's because they are too limited? No spaces? Too freeform? Maybe some relatively minor changes to the clients could allow this to be more natural? I guess now with Mastodon 4.0 you can follow hashtags so maybe muting hashtags will become more popular too?

Show threadJoe WoodNov 11, 2022

@ambv @sergi I've been on here a week, migrated from birdsite, and I'm still trying to work out what the best etiquette is.

I like the idea of users suggesting to append labels, or even hashtags onto posts. The author can approve it, reject it or report abuse.

Show threadGill 🕷️ #GTTONov 12, 2022

@ambv
I’m one of the newbies, trying to get my head around a different way of doing things. I apologise if I’ve done anything to upset people.

I’m going to make more use of content warnings - I’ll think of them as content headers or content descriptors.

I am enjoying Mastodon but certainly don’t want to spoil anything for other users.

Show threadBobbyvanNov 13, 2022
@ambv I am totally new to any form of social media but felt that after the takeover of Twitter by big capital I needed to find out what type of people are leaving Twitter and how they stand in the world.
I am a Dutchman living in Holland who grew up in the states as an immigrant of the 50s,
Returned to The Netherlands as a young adult and have since followed the progress of the US from a distance.
It saddens me to see that there seems to be no possibility for compromise left in the US