I've been thinking about the Fediverse for a looooong time, since before it was called the Fediverse. I'll admit my thinking hasn't evolved much for much of that time. The basic structure of it has been clear for nearly 15 years.

But today (so far - it's only 8:30 AM here!) I've learned *three* new perspectives that have changed/improved the way I think about the Fediverse/Mastodon in subtle but important ways.

So. Much. Gratitude. πŸ™β€οΈ

Since a number of folks asked what I learned yesterday, I wanted to pick this back up and share with the community that's giving me so much right now. So, a few brief threads (apologies to folks who don't like threads) of things I learned on the Fediverse yesterday: 🧡🧡🧡🧢🐈

TIL🧡2/3: Many have said it, I'm going to say it, too: I miss Quote Tweets. I appreciate the thoughtful justification for not implementing them, but also disagree. My ideal would be

a quote tweet that points up 😍☝️
rather than Twitter's pointing down πŸ€¬πŸ‘‡

because I think sometimes it's really important to contextualize or emphasize why you're boosting someone's post.

I think Quotations are coming, and I hope and believe that ultimately, the call isn't @Gargron's alone to make. @scottjenson has been advocating for designers & UX folk to take part, and I hope that structures emerge to make that not just possible, but pervasive.

In the meantime, @amirouche pointed me at this lovely pattern:
https://social.hyper.dev/@amirouche/109343002733668741

amirouche 🌱 (@[email protected])

@[email protected] @[email protected] Quoted toot fork the conversation, and promote individuals instead of... conversation. Boosting a reply does the same, and leads to the interesting context.

social.hyper.dev

Basically, instead of QTing something, on Mastodon it's possible to reply to a post and then boost your reply.

That way, the visibility is the same as a Quote would have been, but with the interesting property that the OP doesn't get silenced/steamrolled, but the original post is still easily visible. More conversational, less adversarial.

@blaine I get the rationale but I mostly used quote tweets to say how brilliant things were.
@itaryan hard same. I'm sure I had lapses (hopefully all of the punching-up variety), but the thought of being mean to someone by hoisting their words up to mock them makes me feel ill.