Diego Dieterich
Ed BottI would really like to quote-tweet this, adding my 2 cents and amplifying Taylor's words.
But I can't. And that's unfortunate.
Dave Kearns@edbott
You just did ...
You just did ...
@dak3 Not really. No one can interact with the original post, or reply to the author, or even see if it's been edited!
@dak3 Friction on top of friction.
Hughster@edbott @dak3 The friction is deliberate, and it makes sense to me, given how easily the feature was misused in anger to put "enemies" on blast. I don't know if you've seen it but there's a good early discussion here:
https://mastodon.social/@Gargron/99662106175542726
https://mastodon.social/@Gargron/99662106175542726
enmodo ⚛️ 🧬 🇺🇦 🍉@hughster @edbott @dak3 I'm inclined to agree even though I initially searched for this convenience. The bloggers and writers everywhere but Twitter managed for years with no more than "quotes", images, and links to articles they are commenting on.
Yes it would be nice if a link to another post was previewed reliably and nicely (unless there's other links or images) and formatting of quotes was possible (Markdown anyone?) but it's hardly a show stopper. Twitter lasted 7 years without it.
Hutch
Pure Spirit@hughster @edbott @dak3 looks like someone got put on blast and decided it was the feature that was the problem, and not the network itself. Quote tweet isn’t the issue, putting bigots on blast is fine. It’s when bigots use it to harass marginalized people. So make “quote tweet” an option someone can turn off to limit their reach.
⛈️ Information ⛈️@purespirit @hughster @edbott @dak3 How is the "putting bigots on blast is fine" strategy working out on Twitter? Has it turned out to be a long term strategy successful at maintaining a sustainable and useful community? Or has it essentially devolved into warring tribe systems that leech engagement out of people and that have been coopted by a billionaire to tilt the table such that only left wingers can be really damaged now?
@Elucidating @purespirit @edbott @dak3 Yes, unfortunately it's not just bigots being subjected to it at all—it's people from different political persuasions continually "doing battle" with them in performative fashion and trying to "own" each other.
@saywhat @edbott @dak3 Not exactly. If you click the link, can you immediately reply? No—you're taken to a web page of another server where you can only read (without extra steps to copy and paste the URL into your own app). The aim is introducing enough friction to make it less likely people will bother, not making it impossible (because you can't).
And now you can
https://kolektiva.social/@Gargron@mastodon.social/99662106184791811
There is no friction to this unless your mind has been so warped by the world being geared toward instant gratification that you can't handle taking seconds of time to do something (if you are linking to direct people to harass and dogpile they are more likely than not going to be on your server and you will tailor the link for this)
The post you decided to link to doesn't even support your argument of why the guy isn't deciding to implement it. It actually shows he thinks what you don't like is a good thing
"Even when doing it for "good" like ridiculing awful comments, you are giving awful comments more eyeballs that way."
Eugen Rochko (@[email protected])
I've made a deliberate choice against a quoting feature because it inevitably adds toxicity to people's behaviours. You are tempted to quote when you should be replying, and so you speak at your audience instead of with the person you are talking to. It becomes performative. Even when doing it for "good" like ridiculing awful comments, you are giving awful comments more eyeballs that way. No quote toots. Thank's
@saywhat How did you post that link? The default Mastodon web interface and apps only allow you to copy links to posts on the other user's instance, e.g.:
https://kolektiva.social/@saywhat/109597769926578435
So in order to convert the link to an internal link on your own instance where you can reply to the post, you have to manually edit it or copy+paste it into your search box and copy the new link, i.e.:
https://mastodon.social/@saywhat@kolektiva.social/109597769967761154
That's enough friction to deter instant reactions, at least, and I think that's the point.
saywhat (@[email protected])
@[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] And now you can https://kolektiva.social/@[email protected]/99662106184791811 There is no friction to this unless your mind has been so warped by the world being geared toward instant gratification that you can't handle taking seconds of time to do something (if you are linking to direct people to harass and dogpile they are more likely than not going to be on your server and you will tailor the link for this) The post you decided to link to doesn't even support your argument of why the guy isn't deciding to implement it. It actually shows he thinks what you don't like is a good thing "Even when doing it for "good" like ridiculing awful comments, you are giving awful comments more eyeballs that way."
Someone could write a script to do this in under 5 mins. This whole argument is akin to security by obscurity and doesn't hold water in stopping either the real reason by the main dev or the reasons put on to the dev by others. The only people it can stop are people who are so broken by the instant gratification pushed by the net that they can't handle taking less than a minute of their time without getting a dopamine hit (which weirdly seems to be the core user base of mastodon)
@saywhat Someone could write a script to do almost anything in under 5 mins. The point is that the vast majority of users won't.
People install extensions and userscripts daily in fact is whole sites dedicated to providing them
@saywhat What percentage of total Mastodon users use them?
How am I supposed to know that? I can say that on the chrome store 10,000,000+ users have installed ublock and as we are supposedly on a tech oriented site with less than 10 million users we can only hope that 100% of the people who are here use some form of content blocker, either self written or written by someone else.
Mastodon even removes the need to edit links as it allows you to just search the link on your instance and lets you reply as normal (again not a hurdle and adds zero friction unless your mind is broken from years of instant gratification)
"How am I supposed to know that?"
Then how do you know that anything more than a small minority of Mastodon users will use them to get around these specific limitations?
"I can say that on the chrome store 10,000,000+ users have installed ublock and as we are supposedly on a tech oriented site with less than 10 million users we can only hope that 100% of the people who are here use some form of content blocker"
That is a hell of a leap of logic.
You want to know how many people here install extensions and scripts. We are on a apparently tech oriented service (starting to doubt this) it is as good an indicator as anything.
@saywhat There is no correlation between the number of Mastodon users who use userscripts to modify website behaviour and the number of global users of a Chrome plugin. There is simply no reliable basis from which to extrapolate the former from the latter.
John Panzer
Aris Teon
Nancy M Ruff
Tracy Hall
Will Mitchell
Pxtl@dak3 @edbott Yes, but if I click that in an app, it takes me out of tbe app and to the site in a browser — possibly a federated site I’m not signed into, so again, I cannot interact.
A “smart link with usable preview” would work. That would basically be a quote tweet of course.
(I’m for quote posts with control over these features from authors. Saying “I don’t want this post previewable” which would block both features.)
Adam Burck@edbott @dak3 @taylorlorenz It’s very easy: Just Click the 3 dots/Share/Copy Link and then paste it under your comment in a new post. Literally 3 extra clicks. Yes, more clicks, but it’s like 10 seconds. https://mastodon.social/@edbott/109565475517385888
Jeff@adamburck @edbott @dak3 @taylorlorenz It takes me from my Mastodon client to a web page of an instance I’m not a member of and so can’t interact with. Not particularly useful.
naught101@lightningjeff @adamburck @edbott @dak3 @taylorlorenz
Why do you need to interact with it? What is the purpose of your interaction?
If it's being quoted in a journalistic setting then it's just documenting what happened. Fostering interaction with source material is not, and should not be part of journalistic intent.
If you need interaction, copy the link and paste it in your search box, then you can find it and interact with it. Friction here can prevent a lot of reactive responses..
@naught101 @adamburck @edbott @dak3 @taylorlorenz Not sure replies from people I wasn’t talking to are any different on the “reactive responses” front.
@lightningjeff @adamburck @edbott @dak3 @taylorlorenz
I'm in this thread because I'm interested in this whole conversation. Because I'm in it, I have a whole lot of extra context that can provide nuanced information that potentially reduces my ability to be reactive. I'm responding in that context.
With a quote tweet, "look at this shit thing this other person you don't know said", it's likely that I will come nuance-free, and primed angry. Ready to make some uninformed and escalatory reply.
@lightningjeff @adamburck @edbott @dak3 @taylorlorenz
I'm actually really interested in your thoughts on the first question in my previous post! What is your intention when you click a quoted tweet?
Dave Diamond@edbott What bothers me most about this is the reason they didn't put quotes in the server protocol was because it could be abused. But bad people will do bad things no matter what, they will find a way. There was no reason to prevent legitimate use of quotes by the the rest of us.
RDS (shawphd on Twitter)@edbott @dak3 Using links, screenshots, and copy-paste also shuts out the original poster. They have no way of knowing that this conversation is happening, to reply or correct a misunderstanding, to block you or to delete their original post — unlike QTs, which are directly linked to from the original.
It’s a fallacy to argue that no QT = no abuse.
Bryan Haggerty@edbott @dak3 @taylorlorenz At Twitter, we started to see people opt to tweet screenshots of tweets primarily because they didn’t want to notify the original author or to limit the amplification they were already providing by faux quoting tweeting it. While I don’t think replicating QT as is would be helpful, it is worthwhile to explore ways to improve upon it instead of a wholesale nonstarter.
@edbott @dak3 @taylorlorenz It’s also worth noting that QT was originally architected as just a permalink to the tweet at the end of a tweet. We started to render an embed of the tweet because we saw people doing this to talk about other tweets just like they talked about web page links. There’s nothing stopping Mastodon clients from doing something similar when encountering a link to a Mastodon post in someone’s post.
@bhaggs @edbott @dak3 @taylorlorenz
This. I think Mastodon would need to provide some link preview metadata for each too though, right?
Tessa 🏳️⚧️
What's it to you?
EcranMobileFr@edbott @dak3 this is me just having done it. First share the original (your toot), then answered the shared item to add context. The vast majority of cool "à la tweetdeck" clients like @sengi_app 🇨🇵 do mention threads as threads cc @taylorlorenz
Benjamin Jones
Sean Macツ@edbott
yep, agree with you Ed. I've been all in with Mastodon for the past couple months, but the lack of 'repost with context' along with the lack of link preview, is becoming problematic for me.
yep, agree with you Ed. I've been all in with Mastodon for the past couple months, but the lack of 'repost with context' along with the lack of link preview, is becoming problematic for me.
Sierra Madre@seanm4c @edbott link preview is available depending on the client you’re using. I’m using Toot! Right now and I can see previews of mastodon links, but I can’t see previews of some web links. I haven’t figured out why some web links show a preview and others don’t.
But link preview seems to be dependent on the client.
Alcea
Six Possums In A Trenchcoat@edbott https://mastodon.social/@edbott/109565445651597161
Good thing you can link to the post.
Andy Daitsman@adaitsman @dak3 It was ... half my point.
Anyone determined enough can figure out a way, but it should be easier than this.
deltatux@edbott @adaitsman @dak3
This is a debate that's been hotly debated on the dev level. There have been many proposals to implement this feature but Eugen has apparently argued that he didn't want to include it because it would spread toxicity & cyberbullying. This debate is still ongoing, maybe as more people demand it, it might come?
So far none of the forks have included this feature either.
Sadly for me, my instance runs on Akkoma (fork of Pleroma) which does support quote posting but since Mastodon doesn't support it, it won't render my post. Since most of my follows & followers use Mastodon, it effectively renders the feature useless since I can't use it...
This is a debate that's been hotly debated on the dev level. There have been many proposals to implement this feature but Eugen has apparently argued that he didn't want to include it because it would spread toxicity & cyberbullying. This debate is still ongoing, maybe as more people demand it, it might come?
So far none of the forks have included this feature either.
Sadly for me, my instance runs on Akkoma (fork of Pleroma) which does support quote posting but since Mastodon doesn't support it, it won't render my post. Since most of my follows & followers use Mastodon, it effectively renders the feature useless since I can't use it...
@deltatux @dak3 @adaitsman Yeah, I feel your pain. I understand the objections, but honestly, the abuse of quote tweets is more about the author than the format.
Hope we figure this out.
@edbott @dak3 @adaitsman
Personally I really think not adding this feature because of cyberbullying doesn't make much sense considering abusers can easily work around this problem by taking a screenshot to quote post. Worse part is, with the screenshot method, the target would have no idea you were talking shit behind their backs.
Also, they're taking away a useful feature because some bad apples could abuse it.
Honestly to me this is a moderation issue, not a technical one. Mastodon remains the only microblogging platform without this basic feature.
Personally I really think not adding this feature because of cyberbullying doesn't make much sense considering abusers can easily work around this problem by taking a screenshot to quote post. Worse part is, with the screenshot method, the target would have no idea you were talking shit behind their backs.
Also, they're taking away a useful feature because some bad apples could abuse it.
Honestly to me this is a moderation issue, not a technical one. Mastodon remains the only microblogging platform without this basic feature.
@deltatux @dak3 @adaitsman I could not have said that any better. This is a moderation issue, not a technical one.
The Great Llama 
@edbott
@deltatux @dak3 @adaitsman
Honestly, from what I have seen so far, moderation is where this platform shines. I've run across a handful of people whose views I disagree with enough to bother blocking them but so far only two that were clearly undoubtedly intentional bad actors. I reported the bad actors and they were gone within the hour. Contrast that with twitter's endless string of emails saying, "we've reviewed HitlerRocks1488's posts and found no violations".
This place has shown a remarkable ability to defend against the worst aspects of Twitter, but a real hesitance to allow the kind of discussion that was the best aspect of Twitter.
@TheGreatLlama @edbott @dak3 @adaitsman
Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if some of the abusive behaviours at Twitter was tolerated because it increased engagement, thus revenue for the company. Company was already not profitable to begin with.
With the fediverse being largely operated by volunteers & donations (so far at least), that incentive for "engagement at all costs" doesn't exist. You also have smaller communities per each server with their own moderation team that can handle this easier, I have a feeling the moderator to user ratio is better here than on Twitter (wished I had this data to back this up but don't think we'll ever get that) and for instances that don't moderate, the option to defederate is always there. These are tools available to put the power back into the hands of the community that doesn't exist on a centralized blogging platform like Twitter.
Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if some of the abusive behaviours at Twitter was tolerated because it increased engagement, thus revenue for the company. Company was already not profitable to begin with.
With the fediverse being largely operated by volunteers & donations (so far at least), that incentive for "engagement at all costs" doesn't exist. You also have smaller communities per each server with their own moderation team that can handle this easier, I have a feeling the moderator to user ratio is better here than on Twitter (wished I had this data to back this up but don't think we'll ever get that) and for instances that don't moderate, the option to defederate is always there. These are tools available to put the power back into the hands of the community that doesn't exist on a centralized blogging platform like Twitter.
@deltatux
@dak3 @adaitsman @edbott
I have absolutely zero doubts about that moderator to user ratio. I wouldn't be surprised if there were more admins per user than Twitter had moderators!
@dak3 @adaitsman @edbott
I have absolutely zero doubts about that moderator to user ratio. I wouldn't be surprised if there were more admins per user than Twitter had moderators!
@edbott @deltatux @dak3 @adaitsman
This is exactly the same logic that the NRA uses to argue against gun control. Guns don't kill people, people do. Quote tweets don't cause abuse, bigots do.
It has an element of truth, but if your aim is to prevent gun deaths, it's irrelevant, because angry people exist, and if you restrict their access to guns, then the number of gun deaths go down.