Kim Crayton ~ Her/SheOk, one of the main Twitter features that I’m definitely missing is the quote retweet because it’s been an important and impactful teaching strategy…it enables me to highlight an issue/concern by adding often missing perspectives/voices/narratives/historical framing/etc
Stefan@KimCrayton1 more and more are speaking up about this as well.
@stefan “more and more are speaking up”? Do you mean that more users are requesting that this feature be added?
@KimCrayton1 yes. Originally it was excluded as a feature because folks though it promoted hateful behavior. Lots of bigger twitter accounts have come over like @taylorlorenz who have started strongly advocating for it to @Gargron who started the mastodon codebase.
@stefan @taylorlorenz @Gargron just shared this same sentiment https://dair-community.social/@KimCrayton1/109416449565751183
Kim Crayton ~ Her/She (@[email protected])
@[email protected] @[email protected] so again, nuance is missing related to such decisions but thanks for the clarity
JD Harvey@stefan @KimCrayton1 Don’t know if you follow @futurebird , but they’ve had excellent posts and discussions, pushing for it.
Final Round Player 😷🇪🇺🍸@KimCrayton1
Reply. Then boost your reply.
Reply. Then boost your reply.
@jbond that hasn’t always been a win for me because, as an educator, context is key and that feature made maintaining context an easier task to accomplish
My Blue Check is MIA@KimCrayton1 I think it will be addressed. They weren't ready for all of us to flock over so quick.
Maxwell White@KimCrayton1 the problem is that QT takes the conversation away from the original source and feeds it to your followers who often wont need the context. A reply is how you engage in a conversation directly, then you can boost your post so your audience can see it as well. Its the difference between talking at someone versus talking with someone. I only saw QTs being used to put people on blast
@max “talking with someone versus talking with someone” is a great point and yet there are good reasons for both
The issue I find with most moderation is the “one size fits all” solutions and the binary approaches
The issue I find with most moderation is the “one size fits all” solutions and the binary approaches
@KimCrayton1 If QTs are ever implemented i hope it’s in a way that encourages constructive dialogue and isnt just a “hey followers, look at this bozo! Lets go swarm them” kind of thing. The latter feels like it contributed to a lot of tribalism on twitter
@max the issue is that both approaches have value, particularly for the most vulnerable…sometimes a swarm is the ONLY way for folx in the larger community and for the individual to “get it”
There’s a huge difference in a nefarious attack and a public callout…I’ve been able to utilize the “callout” to get folx to immediately stop problematic behavior by inflicting enough discomfort for them to take notice…these are binary issues
@@KimCrayton1 thank you for bringing this topic up, I think QT usage as you’ve outlined would add value to the platform
George Dinwiddie@KimCrayton1 I understand that quote retweets can be used to harass people, but I found them very valuable for forking a conversation to talk about a side issue without hijacking the original. The author of the quote tweet could follow the side conversation, or not, as they chose. To my mind it was a lot more polite that screenshotting.
@gdinwiddie absolutely! My use of screenshots was limited to providing context for callouts. I shared them because folx who open their mouths when they'd be better off scrolling past and staying silent, often realize this fact too late and try to erase their nonsense WITHOUT acknowledging or attempting to make amends for the harm they inflicted.
Sasha Costanza-Chock@KimCrayton1 @gdinwiddie hi @kimcrayton! Nice to see you on the 'Don!
Re: QT, just a note that QTs originally were a User Innovation on the birdsite, only appeared as a button later. Remember we used to just put "our comment, QT @username, link to their post" ! We could try that here for now? Or do the comment, then boost, that others suggested
mekka okereke 
Yup. Most of Black Twitter used QRTs differently.
A lot of non-Black Twitter only saw it where accounts with millions of followers would pick on a small account to get their followers to dogpile.
Most of Black Twitter used it exactly as you described... The online equivalent of Black folk talking *to each other* about some nonsense that someone in a position of power said.
The problem here is that the non-Black folks don't believe the other use cases.
@KimCrayton1 I'm not denying the toxic uses of QRTs exist. They absolutely do. But to speak about QRTs as if they have no redeeming quality whatsoever is... well... most of the folks saying it don't have much interaction with Black folks online. 🤷🏿♂️
@mekkaokereke that part…you can always tell the white folx who’ve been in relationship with Black folx versus those with “Black friends”…these folx understand that we do NOT navigate the world the same way AND they default to prioritizing the most vulnerable
John Lusk@mekkaokereke
Tbh I am always on the margin and not really understanding, but: is there any way to rob QT of its toxicity? Or reduce it? (Unspoken: I believe you that it has its uses.) I wonder: maybe retroactively withdraw permission to qt?
@KimCrayton1
Tbh I am always on the margin and not really understanding, but: is there any way to rob QT of its toxicity? Or reduce it? (Unspoken: I believe you that it has its uses.) I wonder: maybe retroactively withdraw permission to qt?
@KimCrayton1
The BirdYes! I honestly miss it too.
I used it as a teaching strategy, but also as a call-and-response as an autistic/neurodivergent person. We had a similar use to it and often was how we talked with each other. And I miss that a bit.
The closest I can come to it here is taking the link to the thread I want to do the call-and-response to, then putting that in my post. It shows a bit like how a website shows in a post. Not quite the same though.
I did hear that some places like qoto.org has the quote retweet available (built into its engine, which seems to be a fork off the main Mastodon open source code actually). I have no idea how accessible or safe the platform is though. This does prove that it's possible to have it here.
Magess 
@TheBird @mekkaokereke @KimCrayton1 Misskey has it. I did a test to see what the same post with a QT looked like on Misskey and on Mastodon. The post was made using the Quote feature on Misskey.
Gina@TheBird
From the Fediblock hashtag:
"Qoto.org says it has zero tolerance for hatred, but also 'does not currently block any Fediverse servers'."
It is apparently a very frequently blocked instance because of the moderation views there.
https://tech.lgbt/@FediThing/109405363344623224
FediThing (@[email protected])
Content warning: Qoto.org blocking, genocide mention
@thekat03 @mekkaokereke @KimCrayton1
Yuck. Thank you. I was worried about safety concerning them. Appreciate the research/digging.
So for quote tweet-like function existing and specific servers that have it, this makes me wonder if it can be activated somehow on admin side.
Tim Bray@mekkaokereke @KimCrayton1 Betcha $10 we get QT back soon, because on top of the #BlackTwitter vibe, lots of pale people want it back too, and there's no actual technical barrier, and the software is open source. So probably it'll start showing up on a few instances but not others. Probably everywhere eventually.
Will Norris 🦦@timbray @mekkaokereke @KimCrayton1 the vocabulary certainly supports it. It was even called out as an explicit use case (then "reposts") in the original 2011 #ActivityStreams spec https://activitystrea.ms/specs/json/1.0/#activity-object
@timbray @mekkaokereke @KimCrayton1 though maybe that's just boosts? I can't recall how we modelled an additional comment on top of the repost, but I know it was possible b/c we did that in the Google+ API which was largely based on activity streams. (Veering from the original topic into technical minutia; apologies)
David Gerard@timbray it already is and further implementations are in progress.
Dianne HackbornThere is an active feature request for QRTs: https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/issues/20673
Some of the discussion has revolved around a more controlled form, where a poster would indicate whether a post is okay to use in a QRT. Though it doesn't sound like that would still serve the purpose you are describing? (It looks like there has been a lot more discussion in that feature request since I last looked at it, though!)
Might be worth commenting there.
Scott Jenson@edk You might want to check this out.
Outeast@mekkaokereke @KimCrayton1 I don't think it's disbelief that there *are* positive uses - that's self-evident - but a conviction that the *net* impact is negative. It's not just the dogpiling, but that QRTing for criticism amplifies the OP (in the Fediverse, critical QRTs of toxic accounts would make those accounts proliferate across Federated feeds, thus motivating trolling). I'm just not clear if the conviction is based on analysis or just a personal instinct.
No, it's also disbelief that there are positive uses, as I said.
Here's one example (from my now abandoned mastodon.cloud account, RIP!).
Geoff starts out saying I'm disingenuous, then that this can't be how Black people use the feature because he's never seen it used that way, despite the fact that he doesn't interact with many (any?) Black users on Twitter.
https://mastodon.cloud/@mekkaokereke/109359366766816080
Please, don't use this to bother him. Let him be!
Mekka :verified: 💉💉💉🎉 (@[email protected])
@[email protected] @[email protected] Short version: On Twitter, Black folk often talk to each other *about* what powerful but clueless white folk in power say. QTs make that easy to do. Unfortunately, QTs are also used to enable unpleasant conversation. Throughout US history, white folk have prioritized pleasant conversation over enabling social change. This is the point of MLK's least famous words 🙂: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=gfFWzacEgAI Mastodon is no different.
I don't keep these examples so the people in them can be bothered.
I keep them because I know that lots of white folk don't believe Black folk, so if I say
"people don't believe how Black folk used quote tweets"
or "Someone blocked me because they said that by warning other Black users that I moved servers because of too many nazi death threats, I was 'bashing' the server"
or "people think it's not a big deal if many new Black users are 1st exposed to Nazi threats"
people don't believe me.
@mekkaokereke Thank you. That's... a frustrating attitude to the discussion. Geoff's experience certainly doesn't align with mine, though. In my Twitter, QRTs are mostly used constructively. But they're also the main way that toxic stuff gets there - transphobic stuff, US right-wingers and Elon Musk, most recently. So I'm open to the argument that it tends to amplify toxicity, and that *might* outweigh the positives. But it doesn't seem as obvious to me as it does to Geoff.
Dubi is here 
@mekkaokereke @outeast @KimCrayton1 if I may offer a different perspective: the people who experienced QTs as a source of toxicity also has a real hard time convincing the white cishets that that's the case. Some may have taken up an extreme position against it because they, too, felt completely ignored.
@Dubikan @outeast @KimCrayton1
I'm not saying QTs didn't have toxic uses. I'm saying 2 very specific things, with concrete examples:
1) Black Twitter used QTs differently
2) Some Mastodon folk refuse to believe that Black folk used it differently, and speak dismissively to Black folk about QTs having no real alternate uses
I do understand that many trans folk helped build early Mastodon. I also understand that Black trans folk exist.
@Dubikan @outeast @KimCrayton1
Building a space that works for Black trans folk is a better goal.
And the "No QTs!" folk didn't have that hard a time convincing cishet folk here of the problems, as evidenced by the fact that there are no QTs here, never have been any here, and the topic itself is almost verboten.
But hey. I'm not even tripping if there are no QTs. I'm mainly talking about the way Black user concerns are dismissed out of hand.
@mekkaokereke @outeast @KimCrayton1 in the first few days of the #twitterexodus there was A LOT of arguing from normies in favour of QTs, including completely denying the experiences of those arguing against them. Us white cishets are a right bunch, I'm afraid.
@mekkaokereke @outeast @KimCrayton1 But do remember Twitter didn't always having QTs either. It's not necessarily a default feature - it's a design decision with its pros and cons. Twitter added it not to support black users, but to increase user engagement and make more money.
Let's work together to derive the benefits black users saw, without the drawbacks LGBTQ+ experienced. I'm sure we can figure it out.
Let's work together to derive the benefits black users saw, without the drawbacks LGBTQ+ experienced. I'm sure we can figure it out.
@mekkaokereke @outeast @KimCrayton1 I don't disagree with any of that. But I've also seen people, black and other, who dismiss LGBTQ+ concerns about the potential toxicity of QTs, and practically said opposing QTs is motivated by racism. I see down the thread that you are open to alternative solutions, so this is great and exactly the spirit of collaborative development that we should all have
(also, I have no idea where black trans land on this)
(also, I have no idea where black trans land on this)
Sunyshore (ナギサシティ) 🌐🇹🇼🏳️⚧️Thinking more... with the ability to reply to a thread, and then boost that reply, what if there was a "context boost" thing which boosted your reply with the thing you replied to included in the boost like a QRT?
There are a lot of fascinating UX design problems here between serving user needs vs. creating incentives against negative behavior that hopefully someone will be interested in really digging into.
Yeah! I think there are a number of UX options that we can explore to keep the good, while minimizing the bad.
Once we acknowledge that the reduced toxicity feels good, but also acknowledge that there were other valid use cases for QTs, then we can talk about better options/tradeoffs in a way that doesn't make Black and brown users feel ignored.♥️👍🏿
Even if the solution does end up being "Sorry, still no QTs!"
Justin@mekkaokereke @hackbod If you have an Android phone, install the #Megalodon app.
A long press of the Boost icon allows you to #QuoteBoost.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.joinmastodon.android.sk
JarOCats™ 🏳️🌈@justinionn @mekkaokereke @hackbod Thank you so much! I had no idea the long-press feature existed. #Megalodon is the best.
486timetable@mekkaokereke @hackbod
This is not about TOXICITY, it's about CONFRONTATION.
For all their talk of self-governance and federation, these people don't want to lose control.
Which is futile anyway. 2 millions won't dictate to 200 millions.
This is not about TOXICITY, it's about CONFRONTATION.
For all their talk of self-governance and federation, these people don't want to lose control.
Which is futile anyway. 2 millions won't dictate to 200 millions.
Ross Grady@KimCrayton1 I used to QT all the time, to provide context for why I was sharing a particular thing. But I also about reached my breaking point the past couple of years with ppl QTing total garbage just to say “LOL what garbage.” It really wore me down psychically! (& I’m not talking about Black Twitter, I’m talking about my dang wyt friends picking on dummies whom they could have just as easily ignored.)
I’m replying, though, to say that several other flavors of ActivityPub servers actually do provide QT as a feature — including a fork of Mastodon called Hometown. They all interconnect pretty seamlessly (I’m posting from one called Akkoma which also has QTs) so I suspect as the ecosystem grows and more ppl join, either ppl will start sorting themselves into “wants QT, uses something that allows it” vs “doesn’t want it,” or eventually it will get folded in to Mastodon, just as it is in the others.
I’m replying, though, to say that several other flavors of ActivityPub servers actually do provide QT as a feature — including a fork of Mastodon called Hometown. They all interconnect pretty seamlessly (I’m posting from one called Akkoma which also has QTs) so I suspect as the ecosystem grows and more ppl join, either ppl will start sorting themselves into “wants QT, uses something that allows it” vs “doesn’t want it,” or eventually it will get folded in to Mastodon, just as it is in the others.
Mary Olivia@KimCrayton1 Agreed! I've taken to linking to threads I want to highlight with my own commentary or framing, then tagging in the thread author if I want them to get notified, but it's not really the same.
nikkiana@KimCrayton1 I miss them, too. I feel like I saw QRTs mostly used either to teach or to provide context as to why something is being shared.
Replies can functionally serve as a QRT on Mastodon, as when you reply to somebody it links back to the original post, which effectively bumps the whole thread of posts..... but I don't find it to be of the same energy AT ALL.
Ed Sanders@KimCrayton1 you can do it, but it takes a few steps.
Here’s how I do it using Metatext (iOS app)
Tap the “share sheet” (box with up arrow)
In the menu that pops up select “copy”
When you get back to the post select ”comment”
Hold to paste the URL of the post, and write your comment
https://dair-community.social/@KimCrayton1/109416424606458572
Kim Crayton ~ Her/She (@[email protected])
Ok, one of the main Twitter features that I’m definitely missing is the quote retweet because it’s been an important and impactful teaching strategy…it enables me to highlight an issue/concern by adding often missing perspectives/voices/narratives/historical framing/etc
Not pretty, but it works
Brantley Harris@KimCrayton1 Would love your take on this: What would you think about certain people being identified as experts on a topic, and then their quote/retweets get boosted by an algorithm?
@deadwisdom it depends on who’s deciding who’s an “expert” because far too often white folx make these decisions ex. “fair”, “equal”, etc which positions whiteness as the “expert” of all things, even those it has no lived experience with and denies assigning such status to those who do
Hell! White folx can read an online article that they have no understanding of, steal the ideas, and then writes best seller, while silencing the victims of their theft
@KimCrayton1 Ugh, I see the problem. Identifying the actual expertise is really tough. But, on the other hand, everyone's doing that all the time with no tools to do so.
I'm interested in figuring out how to actually amplify positive voices in social media. It seems to me that the best quote tweets are from people like you that have worked on and thought long about a topic and so can add the very best perspective. I want to see that rise through the rest of the chaos. But how?
@deadwisdom then you do that…you RT, you QT, you pay us to speak at your events and in your communities, you buy our products/services…you do whatever it is we say we need but asking us, when how to help is already out there doesn’t help. It does nothing to amplify our voices and work. So stop asking how to do what is obvious and just do it. If all else fells…CashApp, Zelle, PayPal, Venmo, etc all work…PAY US
Mark Anderson@KimCrayton1 Yeah, I'd love quote retweet here. Maybe it's time to hit up github and see how this business works. Then abandon it for another project when my ADHD kicks in.
Argent Stonecutter@KimCrayton1 @lincolnDuncan There is this hard-core hate for the quote-tweet in the Mastodon community, terrified that it will draw trolls.
Jai [Techie]I see that people have talked about how to currently do quote retweets in different mobile device apps.
You probably know how already.
I posted an example of how to currently do a quote retweet or quote post in the web UI here:
https://hachyderm.io/@jai_oh/109567270572382805
Jai... 👩🏻💻🧙🏼♀️ [Tech] (@[email protected])
I agree that it would be very nice to have a button/link to quickly do a quote post. +1. ➡️ Eugen has said he would revisit this ➡️ +1 Include count of quote posts in post meta ➡️ This post is a quote post example. To do it: - For the post u want to quote, click (...) menu, click "Copy link to post" - Click Publish & type in ur comment - Paste link - Optional: add @ mentions & hashtags From @[email protected]: https://mastodon.social/@taylorlorenz/109565436163660592 #QuotePost #Mastodon #MastodonFeatures #MastodonTip
Now @@KimCrayton1 and it seems like such a no brainer! Whether you want to critique the quote or add to it, this option seems like something everyone would want!