@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 "Someone was saying it makes a “reply guy culture” bc we can’t tell a question has been answered 6 times already."

Dear god, you might be right about this. I do feel like I'm answering the same thing over and over and over here.

And, you know I just try to assume good faith and be patient. But this is worth thinking about further, along with the idea of threading.

@elyseea @futurebird @maco

One can already thread. Whether one wants more threading features than yet available is another matter.

And you can quote by doing a share-to-somewhere back to Mastodon! Or by copying and pasting an URL.

I truly do not understand what the problem is with that. It is the simplest thing in the world. But it encourages people to subtoot while singling out an individual for pile-on. Just subtoot! Or think HARD, then share the URL!

Tag the person if they MUST see it.

@chemoelectric

If posting links, screenshots, tagging the person is "the same" then what's the issue with having a feature that makes it easier... if it already exists?

@futurebird Because it encourages pile-ons and targeting, so that making it too easy is purposely avoided.

You don’t have to take my word for it about the toxicity of the thing. Do an experiment. (I did just this, to prove it to myself).

Find someone who really is making you angry. (In my case, it was a Twitter developer.) Then do a quote-toot and thread virulently attacking what they say. Better yet, do it from behind a block. See what happens.