Mastodawn

at <https://mas.to/@paulg/109541278664979840>, @paulg writes <screencap>.

counterpoint: QTs at core just a link + wisp of transclusion – hypertext features that elsewhere massively improve context & civiility.

that on Twitter QTs often (but far from always) coarsen discussion is mainly a symptom of Twitter's half-hearted implementation, & degenerate optimization of quality-oblivious 'engagement' over all else. …+

Paul Graham (@[email protected])

One of the best features of Mastodon is the lack of quote-tweeting. I'd forgotten how great that was. And unfortunately for Twitter, it's a feature that they'll never be able to copy.

mas.to

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Gordon Mohr ꧁👀꧂Dec 23, 2022

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in particular, Twitter has sprinkled low-effort incremental error-&-emotion *amplifiers* & *context-shearers* all over – likes, RTs, QTs – with few matching *attenuators* or *context-restorers*.

especially: when there's a chance your post is being RT/QT'd all over, & being misunderstood, the author deserves the ability to push a clarification not just everywhere their original post still appearing, but even everyone who'd interacted-with (read/liked/replied-to) the original version. …+

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Gordon Mohr ꧁👀꧂Dec 23, 2022

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I think of this theoretical functionality as a "priority wrapping reply", or "wraply" - which can prepend, append, or replace the original post with necessary context like "just a joke" or "oops, I erred" or "see here for important followup".

it'd be relatively easy for a platform like Twitter to offer wraplies to at least the original author, as one defense vs bad-faith forwards, & maybe others by audience opt-in. (it's not unlike recent 'birdwatch'/community-notes, but far more general.) …+

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Gordon Mohr ꧁👀꧂Dec 23, 2022

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and, a priority wraply function would finally upgrade broadposting to remedy, not worsen, the old adage:

"a lie gets halfway around the world before the truth can put its boots on."

original-author wraplies could guarantee context/corrections reach *everywhere* any initial misimpressions reach.

what good-faith actor wouldn't want that?

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Nitin B Dec 25, 2022

@gojomo for this to work as spec’ed the content would have to be in possession of the author, the site makes a copy with a listener for notifications and when the original content changes or gets appended to then the site’s cached version gets updated via pulling from author copy. Author should not have the burden of distributing corrections and clarifications.

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Gordon Mohr ꧁👀꧂Dec 25, 2022

@nitinb any system (centralized Twitter, Mastodon-like federation, radically-decentralized) that can successfully broadcast *deletes*, *edits*, or original-author *comments* to later viewers to see, from this moment onward, could also use the same mechanisms to broadcast a wraply which displays *around* the original post. it's essentially the same freshness challenge in all those cases, whatever the underlying copying/caching tactics. …+

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Gordon Mohr ꧁👀꧂Dec 25, 2022

@nitinb …
for a general correction/clarification, an original author (or other audience opted-into annotator) should be able to just target original, & be confident it reaches *everywhere* that post still being displayed. ideally, also, people who *experienced original in any way* should get the update, in their main feed or notifications.

we have tech sufficient to ensure anyone seeing something inadvertently misunderstood can see the remedial note, too – it's time to use it! …+

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Gordon Mohr ꧁👀꧂Dec 25, 2022

@nitinb …
you could also imagine, as an optional more-advanced capability, that this right-to-wraply could be customizable for *each* remote-reuse. that is, if a particular QT goes to a specific audience suffering under a particular misinterpretation, the same entities who could do an "every appearance" wraply could also be given a "wraply in just this one appearance". but that'd be a lot trickier to effect, & report/control, for less-sophisticated wraply-writers.