Mastodawn

Martin Fowler Aug 6, 2023

+1 to @jwz 's argument that replies to posts on mastodon should be treated similarly to comments on blogs

https://www.jwz.org/blog/2023/08/mastodons-mastodonts/

Mastodon's Mastodon'ts

There are a few fundamentally broken things about how Mastodon posts work that are terrible vectors for abuse, as well as being bad for basic usability. Maybe they are fixable, I don't know. To be clear: I am a fan of Mastodon. I have been enjoying my time there much more than I ever enjoyed Twitter or Facebook or Instagram. And I am 100% in the "I won't touch anything Jack Dorsey has ...

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Felix Denbratt Aug 6, 2023

@mfowler @jwz very interesting suggestion - but would also come with other cons, such as making it more difficult to start very valid discussions around posts that the post author might not support. Also federation might be impacted since it might then not be possible to comment on federated posts from other software than Mastodon.

I think I prefer how it works right now - but I look forward to follow these discussions. :-)

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jwz Aug 6, 2023

@fede @mfowler
If you want to have "discussions around posts that the post author might not support" then you do that by making your own top-level post to YOUR OWN followers. You are not owed amplification and audience and reach by the person with whom you disagree. Post to your own followers. Canonical and not at all hypothetical example: post author thinks that Jews and Blacks are fine and you do not.

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chris martens Aug 6, 2023

@fede @jwz @mfowler what you’re describing sounds an awful lot like a quote-post, which also has the problem of directing abuse at OP. Unfortunately there doesn’t seem to be a good solution that works both for when replier vs replied-to holds more clout/power/visibility

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Jesse

@chrisamaphone @fede @jwz @mfowler I think the best compromise is to allow quote posts and unsolicited mentions by default, but a user can disable native quotes of their own posts (across the board or individually), and block annoying (or worse) mentioners. People can still make their case without access to the platform of the person they disagree with.