Matthew McGranahan 🏳‍🌈Nov 23, 2022

Here is an example of being over the top with the #CW feature. The admins over at aus.social instance is requiring all toots relating to #auspol to have CW enabled.

If you don't want to see auspol content, scroll and/or block accounts that participate in auspol toots.

Those of you on the same instance as me #mastondonau, CW is not required for auspol, don't feel like you are required to use it. Server rules are available on the "about" page.

https://aus.social/@AusSocialMods/109390315623687378

Aus Social Mods (@[email protected])

Reminder to all the new folks who have joined us over the past week: please make sure if you are tooting links regarding, or have commentary on AusPol, elections, political parties and your views on them, electoral politics, or geo politics you are required to use the CW feature on those toots. We understand that for some people this is a new idea so we will not be going back in time to punish folks. Whether you use the browser or one of the many apps, that feature exists whenever the text box is up. It will not hide your toots from peoples feeds, it will simply act as a subject line to allow people to opt in. This is a request to make our lives as volunteers easier, but don’t mistake that for being optional, bad actors will be removed. Please refer to the Aus Social code of conduct before asking questions https://aus.social/about (but otherwise feel free to ask questions) Big thanks from the Aus Social mod team - H

Aus.Social
Show threadsortiusNov 23, 2022

@CurbsideShip116 there's also great filtering features that the aus.social users could be using, instead of bullying others to use CWs. The whole "CW whatever I don't want to see" attitude is so broken it's not funny, especially when it's codified as a server rule.

How does anyone know what someone else doesn't want to see? What if I don't want to see people's complaints about a lack of CW on something they don't want to see? Who wins that one? 😂

Show threadMatthew McGranahan 🏳‍🌈Nov 23, 2022
@sortius that needs a boost, cause I had yet to learn about the filtering functions, and I am sure a lot of people would love to know.
Show threadsortiusNov 23, 2022
@CurbsideShip116 it's part of Mastodon 4.0 that was released a week or so ago. I've been trying to impress that on the CW bullies, but few are receptive 😩
Show threadMatthew McGranahan 🏳‍🌈Nov 23, 2022

@sortius I mean, my take is that it is a more powerful feature than simply relying on others to use the CW feature.

Also, if social.aus admins pushed on the use of that feature instead, they would probably have to spend less time moderating if CW had been used on auspol posts or not.

Show threadsortiusNov 23, 2022

@CurbsideShip116 exactly. There's a large portion of aus.social that do use auspol and the like, so they're really fighting a losing battle.

All it's doing is giving them a bad rep on other instances, especially when their users decided to white knight for them.

As much as there are definitely things that need a CW (porn, graphic imagery, potentially triggering stories), the onus should be on the people who "don't want to see" <insert content>. Personally, I just move to the next toot 😆

Show threadMatthew McGranahan 🏳‍🌈

@sortius yea, 100% there are legitimate reasons to use it.

I would point out that if people want to use a CW, that is fine, but they shouldn't force others if it isn't required. Like if I was going to post something that is a spoiler for a new show or game, I would probably use a CW in that situation, despite it not being required. However that just makes sense to me.

Nov 23, 2022 at 2:02amWeb
Show threadSteveNov 23, 2022
@CurbsideShip116 @sortius but also I get that some people either don’t think about it, or don’t care enough to use it to cover spoilers, so I have filters set to hide content mentioning the shows that I’m actively avoiding spoilers for
Show threadMatthew McGranahan 🏳‍🌈Nov 23, 2022
@lilstevie @sortius honestly, how damn good is Mastodon. So many fb groups I have been in with people bitching cause there is literally no built-in function for dealing with spoilers, and so it is very easy to come across spoilers with no warning.