Don't like strangers busting into your mentions to give unsolicited opinions?
This could be solved if the Fediverse had better comment controls.
You should be able to make a read-only post if you want.
And you should be able to make a public post that's only writeable to followers.
You should also be able to lock a thread if it becomes a vector for abuse.
"Just make locked posts" is the worst response to this because that so-called "solution" basically tells people to reduce their visibility.
Many people don't want their visibility to be reduced.
However, they want a reduction in harassment.
In fact, much of the "I don't want search to exist" crowd exists due to lack of comment control.
People don't want to be found on search because they can't control the potential replies that might occur through a search vector.
I know this because plenty of the anti-search crowd wants public visibility -- but they don't want harassment.
No, a public post doesn't mean "talk to me".
Public means "publicly visible".
It's about being *read*.
Reading is different from writing.
Just as there's different settings for visibility, there should be different settings for replying.
On Mastodon, there's different visibility settings. They are:
* Public
* Unlisted
* Follower-only
* Mentioned people only
I think you could largely apply this to reply settings as well.
Except, reply settings could be:
* Public
* Local-only
* Follower-only
* Mentioned people only
If there were a way to prevent comments through search results, that would be good too.
It's funny. Regarding potential comment control on the Fediverse, people who are "pro" and "con" tend to be divided along gender lines.
Dudes tend to not want comment control 🤔
But there's a lot of women who very much want this feature. Many of them are DMing me privately to express support -- and that should tell you everything.
But seriously, the reply guy problem on Mastodon is embarrassing.
And it really puts a dent in the whole argument that Mastodon has got rid of social media toxicity.
Of course, that's not true. People have been complaining about reply guys for years.
It's becoming so bad that "Well, akshually..." has become a Mastodon stereotype.
This is why it's better to have more moderation tools, not less.
@haelos I'm not taking anything out of context. In fact, I screenshot the whole post.
The guy wrote "I'm literally entitled to harass".
@tprophet Yeah, I don't think the majority of people who want comment control know how to set up posting from a bot instance. So that's a no go.
Comment control settings for their *current* account is a hell of a lot more usable.
@tprophet Again, freedom of association.
You're entitled to say whatever you want. But you're not entitled to an audience 🙂
@atomicpoet @tprophet but if he's supplied the vehicle to that audience, shouldn't the commenter have use of the same vehicle?
Or maybe you consider that "ride-sharing" 🙂
@Victang @atomicpoet @tprophet
The Original Poster ISN'T entitled to an audience. If the OP doesn't have any/many followers, and users that can see the post in local, explore, federated aren't boosting it, then the OP doesn't gain traction/audience.
@Victang @atomicpoet @tprophet you can have your own audience in a different corner. There's no right to visibility in within the original post's context.
Yes some people will use it to say dumb shit without replies. But others will use it to be able to speak their mind without having to deal with harassment by idiots who can't accept differing opinions. The latter is more important to me.
@tprophet @atomicpoet One moderately effective if obv hugely imperfect restraint on that influence is when false claims are called out en masse in the replies - it's crude but at least it's something. Facilitating comment control precludes that kind of mitigation.
Might be worth the trade off anyhow. Just worry about the law of unintended consequences when Mastodon is growing and changing fast, i guess. (Sorry, super verbose.)
@tprophet @atomicpoet The use of the comments below popular accounts as a public space is a terrible antipattern that I think we should build better alternatives to, not attempt to preserve.
Additionally, I don't really like the idea of making things less convenient for 90+% of people (who don't have social media managers to bear the emotional brunt) in order to make things less convenient for 10-% of people (who do). That's not a trade-off I care to make.
or #WriteFreely, which is exactly a blog with no comments.
(well, when self hosted there certainly are no comments)
Well, Twitter, Mastodon, etc HAVE been described as "mirco-blogging", so yeah, the analogy is extremely apt.
@lemonflavoured If a worthwhile goal is discoverability -- and it is -- then search needs to exist.
The bigger question is: why do *some* people not want search to exist?
And that's because search can be used for harassment.
However, with better comment controls, this becomes less of a problem since potential abusers could be thwarted from writing.
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