Taylor LorenzPeople who are talking as if reblogging is what leads to harassment need to understand that abuse happens *far more* often in replies. Does that mean u shoudjnt be able to reply to people? No, it means we need controls! As far as I’m aware there’s no way to limit replies on Mastodon or filter them. Would love for more controls like that to be added. Threading on replies wouod help a lot too imo.
It’s also worth noting that a huge problem on Twitter was the way the feed algorithm optimized for attention and outrage. Mastodon doesn’t have that, so it’s impossible to replicate a similar dynamic on here because of the way this platform is currently structured (which I think is a very good thing!)
Steven BrownSometimes you want to go viral, sometimes you don’t. Sometimes you want feedback on a post, sometimes you don’t. Part of meeting the needs of a wide user base (which should be the goal!) is allowing for customization. Facebook and other platforms allow a user to change the privacy settings on a post level, both after and before the post is published, and I think that’s great!
I’m gonna try to tap out of this convo now, but thank you to all the smart people who have shared their thoughts on these issues in my replies! The fact that so many Mastodon devs and users consider potential for abuse when implementing new feature right out of the gate is HUGE. Hope everyone has a happy and relaxing holiday 💓
A_very_undistinguished_person@taylorlorenz may your holiday be awesome. Thanks for raising such a great topic.
Allan Chow@taylorlorenz hope your holiday gets relaxing!
Kevin Porter@taylorlorenz It’s an important topic and a conversation that’s well worth having. I’ve been reading through a lot of the comments, and I’ve appreciated seeing everyone’s perspectives. Thank you for initiating and participating in the discussion, the community is better off for it and we are all better off having you here. Keep doing what you do best!
Edwin G.@taylorlorenz Happy Holidays 🎄 to you as well.
mʕ•ﻌ•ʔm bitPickupCan you rephrase that?
I don't get what you try to say.
Gregg@bitpickup @taylorlorenz
Mastodon is what you get when corporate's ethos isn't "move fast break things".
Here, features are carefully thought of and widely discussed with users' safety in mind before implementation.
Mastodon is what you get when corporate's ethos isn't "move fast break things".
Here, features are carefully thought of and widely discussed with users' safety in mind before implementation.
was that your opinion or did you rephrase for Taylor?
Ben Ptacek@taylorlorenz this is it… this is the problem. We (as an open community) cannot just shut down these new/old ideas. I think we need to solve together. Devs, if you don’t listen to your users, then you will be the same voice as the controller that has the money. Is that the goal?!?! I don’t think it is.
a8e@taylorlorenz Wonderful to see free open source software alive and kicking. This is the spirit, that anyone can contribute, be it with adding ideas or writing code. Keep it up!
Cypher@[email protected] Don't let me drag you back in, but there are two federated (allowing connection to other instances) forks to the mastodon code that has search and quoting enabled
https://misskey-hub.net/en/docs/misskey.html
https://docs.akkoma.dev/stable/#what-is-akkoma
My suggestion is to look into both of these and see if they fix your issues. I really want to see newsrooms create their own fedi instances. Let us know what you think if you do look into them!
Enjoy the rest of the holidays!
Kapis 🇵🇸@taylorlorenz @cspcypher That is the best solution, actually few clients support quoting and that patch for Mastodon too.
Here is an image example of intercomunication between an instance running calckey(that supports it) and my Mastodon: https://social.anartist.org/@4w4@animalesenfu.ga/109633054639694081
I believe the #whashingtonpost has enough budget and skills to launch its own #activitypub instance to satisfy most of their #journalist's needs.
@taylorlorenz Nice to meet you . I am from Virginia. I love the Washington Post.
Escarpment@taylorlorenz I think customization will turn out to be the answer here. Add a switch per instance or perhaps per account to allow or disallow quote posts. End of debate, or perhaps, if it's per instance, start of lobbying your admin to flip the switch.
Shoq 🌿@taylorlorenz Funny you mention that. I was just writing up a spec for exactly that. I hadn't considered changing the visibility after the fact, but I will now. Thanks for mentioning it.
@shoq thank u for the work you’re doing! 💓
LadyUnicornEJG@taylorlorenz you can control if it's public or not, just not replies separate from visibility. Here's the options via tusky.
@ladyunicornejg ahh thank you, yes I’d love to control the replies specifically but yes! This sort of audience segmentation is awesome imo, thank you! 💓
Doc Edward Morbius ⭕@taylorlorenz The challenge with "followers only" is that if you have unrestricted follows, then ... the protection offered is pretty thin. A hostile actor could simply follow your profile.
I've long had mixed feelings on that setting. I'd rather it were restricted to a set of profiles I'd specifically selected myself.
Brian Hawthorne@dredmorbius @taylorlorenz @ladyunicornejg I’ve never really considered that Followers Only is any kind of protection at all. I just figured that there are some things that would likely not be of interest to the whole world, but that people who are weird enough to follow me might find cool. And those are the things I use it for. I’m not trying to protect myself from having others see them. I’m trying to protect them from having to scroll past my drivel!
@dredmorbius @taylorlorenz @ladyunicornejg Basically, I use it to reduce engagement from people who aren’t used to me.
@bhawthorne That's my general use.
In practice, I use it very rarely myself.
@bhawthorne I see people who seem to use it that way.
One thing that really bothers me is that the scope of replies to Followers Only is not the followers of the initial toot, but of the follow-up toot.
For people discussing personal matters and such, whom I know well enough to respond, I'll preferentially reply with a DM (which opens a whole 'nother can of worms), as what I say to them discloses both their conversation and any context visible from my own.
This is where the post/comment format of sites such as Diaspora*, Google+ (RIP), FB, etc., makes more sense: the conversational scope of the entire thread is that of the parent post itself.
I don't recommend Mastodon for anyone requiring robust tradecraft.
@taylorlorenz In fairness, however, many people don’t want to go viral.
I want to have interesting conversations without being harassed by people who appear to have extremely poor anger control. Going viral isn’t conducive to that.
So being able to control quotes would be very important to me.
I want to have interesting conversations without being harassed by people who appear to have extremely poor anger control. Going viral isn’t conducive to that.
So being able to control quotes would be very important to me.
Sriram "sri" Ramkrishna - 😼@taylorlorenz So, to address that I usually let's say in this thread I can set the visibility to "unlisted" which allows only people to see within this thread vs everyone seeing it on the local/federated timelines. Does that help?
@sri Not "unlisted", but "followers only".
"Unlisted" only keeps the toot off public timelines, and makes #hashtags unseachable.
That second is IMO a huge misfeature. Hashtags should be searchable by those within the posting context.
(Diaspora* works that way, and it's quite useful.)
Since I'm posting this as "unlisted", the hashtag above won't appear within a hashtag search.
herid@taylorlorenz exactly. btw on twitter posts from private accounts can't be RTed or QTed. Mastodon could certainly use such feature too but with more granular control than that.
Timo Grün@taylorlorenz
As new guests here and immigrants it behooves us to take some time to get to know the new country and to figure out what it is that makes it so pleasant. Mere civility would indicate that, instead of rushing in and demanding that our new hosts change the laws of their land to match those of the that which we have just fled, to take refuge here.
As new guests here and immigrants it behooves us to take some time to get to know the new country and to figure out what it is that makes it so pleasant. Mere civility would indicate that, instead of rushing in and demanding that our new hosts change the laws of their land to match those of the that which we have just fled, to take refuge here.
Dirk Hohndel@taylorlorenz
of course the problem here is enforcement.
Because you can de-facto already quote-toot, it just takes a little effort.
Take a screen shot, add the text of the toot as alternate text to the image, then tag the original author (and everyone they tagged) in your toot, add a link to the original toot, and add your commentary.
A client could easily automate that - and I don’t think in the federated world you as the author could actually PREVENT that…
Very different 1/2
of course the problem here is enforcement.
Because you can de-facto already quote-toot, it just takes a little effort.
Take a screen shot, add the text of the toot as alternate text to the image, then tag the original author (and everyone they tagged) in your toot, add a link to the original toot, and add your commentary.
A client could easily automate that - and I don’t think in the federated world you as the author could actually PREVENT that…
Very different 1/2
@taylorlorenz … in a centralized service like Facebook or Twitter… so the real question is how would we work on a federated system that encourages the behavior that we want to see (respecting the tag / customization) 2/2
@dirkhh yeah good points!
Bender Wilson@taylorlorenz federated AF💯 finna start saying that instead of Based AF 💪
Phillip Hallam-Baker@taylorlorenz What I don't understand about this Quote Toot argument is that a large fraction of toots are actually posting links to content offsite.
So what is the difference between dunking on Tucker 'Fascist boy' Carlson via a toot and using a Quote Toot?
Special K@taylorlorenz Edit the privacy of toots through the Edit feature, totally in ! And Lists should be improved as well (add an account not in your followings - for News bots for ex).
Sharoney ✍🏻 📰 📻 💻 🎙️@taylorlorenz That's come in handy, especially when posting about politics and dealing with some family members or business associates who might take offense.
seedsinputinspocket@taylorlorenz And sometimes people don't want to go viral because someone else QT-ed them.
Will Allen@taylorlorenz don't have the first clue how the mechanics of any of this work, but as someone migrating from MetaZuckBook, that's something I definitely miss. I suppose I can learn to live with everything being the same. But I like being able to send my goofy jokes and music videos and such just to my friends who know me and can read it in my voice.
heffa@taylorlorenz re: “meeting the needs of a wide user base (which should be the goal!)”
I don’t agree that meeting the needs of a wide user base SHOULD be the goal, mostly because of the size of the user base may not be every developer’s or user’s concern. These platforms have a way of evolving beyond the original developers’ intent. Perhaps we newcomers are foisting expansion onto this thing as part of gentrification.
I don’t agree that meeting the needs of a wide user base SHOULD be the goal, mostly because of the size of the user base may not be every developer’s or user’s concern. These platforms have a way of evolving beyond the original developers’ intent. Perhaps we newcomers are foisting expansion onto this thing as part of gentrification.
@taylorlorenz some times you feel like a nut….
Some times you don’t…….
Some times you don’t…….