@futurebird The idea that you should have to talk to someone rather than about their post of public importance is so batshit and contrary to the way the real world works.

Imagine if students were assigned to @ authors over and over rather than writing about their books. 🤦

@futurebird I think their hidden assumption is that there should not be things of public importance here.

That everything here should be "politics free" interpersonal spaces for hobbies and feel-good stuff and everyone should ignore that the person they're engaging with about their hobbies is a nazi as long as they don't bring it up. 😠

@dalias

I get that feeling too. Especially from one user who accused me of "dogpiling" him when I'd replied with a question and literally one other person had also replied. (and I didn't even boost his post, because while it had some pretty clear racist subtex, I wasn't certain if that was what was going on, and I wanted to ask some questions and try to understand)

But, just because the response involved the topic of race it was a "dogpile" to him.

I wasn't even being critical of the guy!

@futurebird @dalias on the dogpiling stuff…

It was pointed out yesterday something I’ve noticed before: I can’t see context & other replies a lot of the time, unless I go to the “original link.” Someone was saying it makes a “reply guy culture” bc we can’t tell a question has been answered 6 times already. I could definitely see this resulting in accidental/coincidental dog piles that are visible only to the person receiving it, when they’ve said something that deserves response.

@maco @futurebird @dalias I have at least once hit reply, written something, posted it, then realized a couple (or more) people already did similarly and so I deleted it. And that's because I go check but checking is a pretty high friction path.

I wish I could make my instance go grab updated context on demand without having to go to another...

@aaron @maco @futurebird @dalias I think that will always be an issue, because no one has the exact same followers. I see a LOT of repeat RTs, but there’s no real way to avoid those, not without more work than it’s worth I think.

So I sigh and scroll.