Quinta Jurecicabsence of QT function makes covering news events here really difficult, fwiw
FilmWonkManual QTs are possible (by clicking the three-dot menu and copying the link to the post), but the platform actively discourages it to avoid becoming a place of dunking.
Wurstsemmel 🕊🇺🇦 #SlavaUkraïniI never said it was identical to a QT, but the decision to avoid QTs was clearly a deliberate one. It makes things less convenient for journalists, granted, but so does a timeline that just shows posts in the order they were posted, and that was also clearly a deliberate design choice.
Do you have a substantive argument for why QTs should exist here?
@FilmWonk Just look around this thread for arguments?
And if I may ask - what's your argument for not having the feature?
Because QTs encourage talking past or about someone to your audience, rather than engaging with the conversation at hand.
Much like you're doing right now, even without that feature to encourage you.
I'm not making your argument for you. What do you think QTs are primarily used for on Twitter, and do you think that's a good feature or a bad one? Make your case. Or don't.
@FilmWonk Not exactly "talking past", as you will be notified. Just like you will be (maybe) if I copy all of your content and re-use it in my own toot.
There's this very basic principle in database design that if you can explicitly reference something that already exists, you do it. And then if you do that, you can make things super-comfortable for people if you let them see at first glance what the referenced content is. That is a QT. 🤷♂️
Mastodon is really bad at "embedding".
@FilmWonk This is really just about Usability. The whole point of people complaining is probably that Mastodon acts so poorly in providing inline content previews.
If whenever someone uses a toot-URL (or some other external URL) in a toot, a proper preview of the destination was shown, that is basically the same functionality which I think is missing.
It's really basic.
I'd say with respect to previews, I agree with you. You link to a post, some preview version of that post should appear in your post.
With respect to notifying the person, I think I'm on board with forcing that to be an active rather than a passive choice.
It's the difference between the platform saying, "Someone is talking about you", which you may or may not want to be a part of, vs. "Someone is talking to you", which you can meet with a response (even if it's a mute/block).
I sympathize with Quinta's complaint above, but it's not as if journalists and commentators writ large are immune to the tendency to dunk on stories rather than add to them. They just compartmentalize. If it's their beat, they talk about it. If it's not their beat, they're just like anyone else on Twitter, offering a hot take. And hot takes don't need to create a relationship with the original author, IMO.