Anil@taylorlorenz the link previews thing is complicated because retrieving the data for them is decentralized, meaning each instance (and sometimes, each *app*!) is hitting the website for the preview info. It’s often been omitted because it can knock small websites offline just dealing with serving previews when a popular user shares a link.
Jay Rosen@anildash I agree with Taylor about quote posts. Basic tool of press criticism for me.
Steven L. Johnson@jayrosen_nyu @anildash As a non-press user, I find QT useful to contextualize content I want to amplify in a way that it is appealing to my followers. I don't know of any simple way to accomplish that for "Toots"
jocanib@steven @jayrosen_nyu @anildash
Screenshots.
BurningSkies@steven @jayrosen_nyu @anildash doesn't seem to be one besides screenshot & share. I too miss that feature.
Max Riethmuller (TechLife)@steven @jayrosen_nyu @anildash I agree with this, the argument here on Mastodon seems to be that QT is used as a way to bully or make fun of people rather than directly engage. But that's definitely not the way I use QT
Stefano Pacifico 🧬 🇺🇦@techlife @steven @jayrosen_nyu @anildash I still can’t figure out what actual grounding that argument has.
@stefpac @steven @jayrosen_nyu @anildash I think the idea is that people often quote retweet to disparage the original tweeter. But personally I see it used far more often simply to add commentary to an idea you want to also amplify. It's new to me though I only came across this view of QT once I started here.
T.J. CrowderI think the core of it is here and in the linked blog post by the original author of Mastodon:
https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/issues/309#issuecomment-469260847
@tjcrowdertech thanks TJ, this is helpful!
I just remain agnostic to whether this is just a subjective hypothesis vs a provable phenomenon (the one by which quoting content is a net negative). While I respect the opinion and more importantly the hard work behind it, and also understand “better safe than sorry”, I still think the UX is worse without it and it’s a barrier to adoption.
Chris Coleman@steven @jayrosen_nyu @anildash The better clients have link previews. The official client is bare-bones at best.
So many people are worried about abuse via quoting and don't want it implemented. A simple "don't allow quotes" setting could solve that.
Mark Karabajakian@mkarab @steven @jayrosen_nyu @anildash My favorite is Mammoth on iOS. It's in beta but really nicely done. Ivory is also an amazing client in beta, but slots are very limited. Follow @JPEGuin or @ivory to find out when test slots open up. Mammoth is updated daily, and progress is rapid.
If you can't get into a beta yet, I recommend Metatext
For a very nice web client, especially if you miss Twitter's web interface, check out https://elk.zone.
@mkarab @steven @jayrosen_nyu @anildash I'm only starting to explore Android clients, but Tusky and Megalodon seem to be the best.
budd
Comrade Weez@steven On Mastodon, you have to paste a link into your post. Failing that, you have to screencap & paste in your post. I do agree with Anil's point about loading the machine running the website one is quoting, though. Definitely exacerbated by a decentralised network. It would look like a DDoS to the quoted website. @jayrosen_nyu @anildash
jack the nonabrasive@jayrosen_nyu @steven @anildash You can copy a link to the post (under the ellipsis) and paste that in your post. I think you still need to hashtag effective.
aethervision 
@steven @jayrosen_nyu @anildash One of the challenges to a federated system is realigning our expectations to the platform. It seems like the organic way for journalists to get the QT feature is to move the large instances (journa.host for example) to a server that’s running an app with the feature. If others want that feature or to see when others use it, they can have accounts on that app as well. For folks who don’t want it, there’s Mastodon.
Paul Coen@aethervision @steven @jayrosen_nyu @anildash They’re also never going to be able to track views or get the same “reach”, since there’s no algorithm to bump them up.
On the other hand, the fact that this environment, on the whole, isn’t set up to cater to commercial priorities is probably a plus. And good content here will drive people to actual media sites, so in the long run t they may benefit.
/// //@steven @jayrosen_nyu @anildash So, Im on desktop, which makes it super easy. Unsure how to do this on a phone, likely harder
Sure, its not 1 button then text, but it is literally about 1 second more time
1) Snip to screenshot
2) Paste
3) [...] button to copy link
4) Paste
@steven @jayrosen_nyu @anildash Unfortunately, the link doesnt work quite right because of the federated nature of Mastodon. It links to the server, but then you cant reply because youre not _on_ that server (unless you are of course)
Theres absolutely a lot of sticky parts that need to be worked out.
Antonio Piccolboni@marcsh @steven @jayrosen_nyu @anildash This happens with a number of other features. Threads are incomplete unless you are on the OP's server, follower lists are incomplete. There is no way you can use mastodon without browsing to other instances. You absolutely need the instance changer bookmarklet. https://homepages.inf.ed.ac.uk/imurray2/code/mastodon.html
Alan Sill@steven @jayrosen_nyu @anildash Just quote it and attribute it as you would when writing an article. The longer space available by default in most Mastodon servers makes this easier to do by default. Quote tweets were a rampant source of dogpiling and abuse on the bird site. Behave more normally here please.
Michael Gisiger 
@steven "appealing to my followers" = not interested in a conversation? Rather talk about than with people?
@gisiger Not that at all! It's about expanding a conversation through bridging. Recontextualization is a way of affirming the person whose message I'm amplifying and giving their ideas an even larger audience
@steven Well, the way QT work over at the birdsite: if the op doesn't follow you, he will never be notified about your quote -> therein lies the inbuilt toxicity of QT. It's basically a form of bullying most of the time.
@gisiger Interesting. That's different than my personal experience. I find it easy to see who has QT'd my tweets as an OP. And, the vast, vast majority of the time it is an innocuous use.
That said, I completely agree that bullying happens all too often on social media. As someone who has researched online communities for nearly 2 decades, I'd contend that's more of an issue of the scalability of human content moderation abilities than it is an inevitable outcome of any particular tech feature.
AlexEdwards@steven @jayrosen_nyu @anildash I have to agree. There are plenty of times when I don't necessarily want to participate in a conversation with the original poster, but I do want to add information to a post in a single bite-sized piece. Quote-tweeting is perfect for this.
Paul Atkinson@jayrosen_nyu @anildash @steven So far the best “solution” is to copy a link to the toot and paste it into a toot of your own.
Really does not have the same impact though, as it won’t show a preview.
Cypher@steven @jayrosen_nyu @anildash
copy the link to the toot? https://cville.online/@steven/109565655700406239
Steven L. Johnson (@[email protected])
@[email protected] @[email protected] As a non-press user, I find QT useful to contextualize content I want to amplify in a way that it is appealing to my followers. I don't know of any simple way to accomplish that for "Toots"
Paul Atkinson (@[email protected])
@[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] So far the best “solution” is to copy a link to the toot and paste it into a toot of your own. Really does not have the same impact though, as it won’t show a preview.
@cspcypher and, thank you for taking the time to make a suggestion
@steven np. I've been arguing with people on this for like the last 30mins or so (it's on my nature 😅) but there's ways around this restriction that creates friction to prevent dragging and dunks. Ultimately though, I don't care which way this goes 🤷♂️
@cspcypher I'm thankful for the good natured discussions. People truly care here about creating a better tech to support better social dynamics, which is quite refreshing. It reminds me of early internet / web / social media
@steven probably due to it being mostly the same kind of people on here... for now
@cspcypher Yep, though it's not all early adopters — I'm seeing signs of crossing the chasm like "normies" already showing up.
There's an easy(ish) on-ramp here for many dissatisfied Twitter users... a big question is how many stick around
@steven more than fair for sure. I just like the idea that it's kind of impossible to be fully banned here, but you can be segregated
Goobermunch
Phil Thane ✅