Spam (like the torrent of cryptoscamspam lots of people got this morning) has been very rare for me here (and dealt with quickly), but I've noticed that almost all of the spam I've gotten has been via Mastodon's DM feature.
I really wish there was a way to turn DMs off or at least restrict them to people I follow. Control over incoming DMs was a thing Twitter did better than here.
Another way DMs are hopelessly broken: if your handle is mentioned anywhere in a DM, you get a copy.
Yes, I understand why (technically) it might work that way. That doesn't mean it's not broken.
DMs here are a dumpster fire of buggy behavior and non-intuitive semantics.
Broadly, one of the reasons Mastodon DMs are such a mess, I think, is that mixing a private messaging function with a broadcast medium tends to end badly. My students and I explored this mismatch a bit a while back.
@mattblaze I thought that was the intent, but I suppose that my use case is very different than yours.
Blackholing unwanted messages is desirable if you want/need to avoid giving harassers feedback that they can use to harass you more effectively
I suppose there are reasons someone would want block/reject as opposed to block/blackhole
@mattblaze @RandomDamage you know, after giving it some thought, I think I do see your point on this issue.
There would be value in providing the ability for a user to send a Reject object in response to a Create or Announce object (message, boost respectively), and for servers to appropriately respond to such objects by alerting their respective recipients to that Reject.
The standard states that the semantic of how to handle a Reject is different depending on what it's in response to, but only calls out specific behavior with regards to the Follow object.
@mattblaze This appears to be possible, according to some peoples' reports:
Attached: 1 image Friends, have a look in your account settings for THIS: It is somewhat confusingly located under "notifications", but a few admins just quick-tested this, and it seems you CAN block DMs from accounts you do not follow.
@nuz No it doesn't. People aren't prevented from sending you DMs if you don't follow them.
What the setting does is prevent you from seeing it. But it allows people to labor under the false impression that they've sent you a message.
The history? You're saying this is a design choice? What design process occurred where mentioning someone's @ actually brings that person to the conversation?
You know how a lot of problems could be solved? A pop up that says "Warning: you appear to be using direct Mentions. Anyone who you mention will be notified. Tick to remove this box." That's not a guard rail but it's better than the current "system".
Certainly after 12 hours have passed the thread does get more detailed. Thanks for your help.
@snarky @Homebrewandhacking @mattblaze @nuz
Few things regarding federation in Mastodon are conscious design choices. The way Mastodon handles instance silence/limits, mutes, and DM mutes are byproducts of the ActivityPub standard not being built with harassment in mind. The current implementation of client-side muting rather than rejection of messages is a mistake of ignorance that leads to more harassment, not a purposeful decision.
@snarky i am kind, i'm just not polite – so fucking block me; i don't care.
(and if you think that there's a deeper thought behind the slapdash design that rochko affixed on top of ap, you're deluded.)
@oclsc i think you might have missed the fact that i only jumped into this thread to try to help matt resolve his stated problem. but i can see how my early messages could have gotten lost in his barrage of straw man fallacies, so no biggie.
i'm not "frustrated by matt's writings" - at least not in the way i'm guessing you mean. rather, i'm disappointed that someone i formerly respected was so eager to silence and mischaracterize the marginalized folks who were only trying to say: "hey, the current system is designed to protect us. it might not work well for you, and here's how to go about changing that, but it definitely isn't 'broken'."
reread the thread and check his accusations against what was actually said to him - you'll see that most of his posts are DARVO, ad hominem, and straw man fallacies all the way down. it's extremely disappointing to see this from a "professor of computer science and law" with a large following on here.
more importantly, though - his actions are a clear display of white privilege, and a prime example of the type of behavior that makes BIPOC folks feel unsafe on mastodon.
the only thing that's "frustrating" to me is that other white people can't seem to see that kind of behavior for what it actually is.
A friend and I just did some testing of the "Block direct messages from people you don't follow" feature. There are multiple problems we discovered which could be resolved as part of a single fix. ...
Matt Blaze
Mark Madsen
I-baLL
Raphael Mimoun רפאל מימון
Amye Scavarda Perrin
Aaron W | ☕️
leif
Dave the introvert 🦩
Random Damage 🌻
Clara
Andrew Dunham
nuztalgia 
snarky
Christian Huitema
PJ "Vote Green" Coffey
Silve
Michael Downey 🧢
flere-imsaho 🇺🇦
Norman Wilson
Simon Frankau