Evan ProdromouSo, here's a problem I have with Mastodon: let's say I make a post and someone replies with a racist, sexist, homophobic or transphobic comment. I can block the commenter, but that only hides it for me. Other people who come to my page will see the comment, and believe that I tacitly condone that behaviour. I'd like to be able to delete the reply from my replies list entirely. Or at least hide replies from blocked accounts. And, yes, I know that wouldn't delete it from the originating server.
[ Jer moved instances ]@evan when jwz brought this up a few months ago he got inundated with "you're describing a blog" which is frustrating.
Mike Edey@nyquildotorg @evan I remember that. I can’t say I entirely disagree but having thought about it a lot since I believe that I do want an option to “orphan” someone’s comment, reply, mention.
It shouldn’t be on an individual to engage with a troll and/or bad-actor just to avoid implicitly condoning terrible material tacked onto something else.
CassandraVert@nyquildotorg @mce @evan
You should be able to remove reply posts for -phobic or otherwise offensive content but not for merely disagreeing. Does a "block and report" post automatically get removed?
You should be able to remove reply posts for -phobic or otherwise offensive content but not for merely disagreeing. Does a "block and report" post automatically get removed?
Jay@nyquildotorg @mce @evan
After eating some parmesan and mulling this over for a couple of minutes, I feel like the best compromise might be to give OP an option to delete the post, replacing it with a link to the post on the original server, labelled like "deleted by OP as offensive content, click here to see this reply on the originating server".
After eating some parmesan and mulling this over for a couple of minutes, I feel like the best compromise might be to give OP an option to delete the post, replacing it with a link to the post on the original server, labelled like "deleted by OP as offensive content, click here to see this reply on the originating server".
Peter Sanchez
Jesse@nyquildotorg @evan At a minimum it seems worth trying this model out. And what’s wrong with blogs?
MudMan@nyquildotorg @misc @evan
You wanna know the irony that this conversation is bringing to cap the week?
This is actually how Threads set it up, givng the original poster the ability to hide/block replies for everybody.
I'll stop but... I'm not crazy, right? That's funny.
Deb4+ aka Deborah DT 🏳️🌈🏳️⚧️@MudMan @nyquildotorg @misc @evan
Again, Meta does this on FB too. You can hide a comment from subsequent readers or delete it outright.
It's a no brainer.
In my use, hide is for family members so they hopefully don't get mad and delete is for jerks.
Artemis@nyquildotorg @misc @evan yeah, this is a uniquely twitter thing. And Mastodon just completely replicating twitter like it does causes more problems than it solves imo
CubeOfCheese@nyquildotorg @evan what's wrong with treating mastodon like a blog? There are literal blogs that federate with mastodon
@cubeofcheese @evan it's not my argument, so I can't answer that for you.
I suspect the objection to it is largely that it skips the network effects of replies blasting out to all your followers, affecting the "reach" of the reply, though.
I suspect the objection to it is largely that it skips the network effects of replies blasting out to all your followers, affecting the "reach" of the reply, though.
Kern@nyquildotorg Weird... I thought Mastodon was considered a micro-blogging platform
@kern ha ha, like people who believe in "micro-evolution" but not "macro-evolution"
maegulwell ... how about we have blogs then?
I suspect for many treating their posts as a blog/channel over which they have moderation control actually makes plenty of sense and would generally be more attractive for both the author and follower.
I feel strange ... I keep running into opportunities for the fedi to just lean (back) into blogging as a format and keep seeing pushback.
phi1997@nyquildotorg In general, I think @jwz was right.
Darrin L Rogers@nyquildotorg @evan when a problem with a service is described, and the only responses are "go to a different service," it often feels deeply annoying. Yes, sometimes the suggestions are not reasonable, would cause huge problems, would nullify the entire point of the service, etc.; but in many cases they're completely reasonable things to consider, and the replies feel like tribalism.
spla@evan good idea, something like owner of the whole thread with admin privileges
infinite love ⴳ@evan see https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/issues/10916 and other linked issues
Do not process side effects of incoming activities from blocked users · Issue #10916 · mastodon/mastodon
https://mastodon.social/@trwnh/102194092051019713 Replies from a blocked user will still show up on public pages. These replies would normally not be possible if the blocked user were using complia...
Darius Kazemi
Danny Garside
Martin Vermeer (not Jesus)@evan If you're on a good instance, just reporting these should fix it. It's one thing people coming from TwitBook easily forget: here, the moderators are on our side and not driven by the profit motive.
@evan You have of course also the option to reply yourself and make your disagreement known in choice colourful language... allowing one user to just delete posts from another user sounds a bit dangerous.
Larry Anderson 🕊️@evan Ironically, this is something that Threads handles better. You can hide a reply from everyone over there.
Éric Freyssinet
nandi@evan you should be able to delete responses to your message off the server your account is on in my opinion
Cassandrich@dalias this wouldn't block it for other people viewing it through your instance would it?
@v I'm not sure. I thought so... maybe I should test.
@v In the other direction, opening this in a porn mode tab, I can't see the posts of the person who blocked me. https://hachyderm.io/@dalias/111590679383187607 Unless they just deleted..?
Rich Felker (@[email protected])
@[email protected] @[email protected] Looks like he blocked me tho.. 🤡
PepijnI think what you are suggesting is to de-link / orphan a comment from an original post?
I would love that (as long as it also becomes clear to the author of the other comment: nobody benefits from a system where non-transparant shadow-banning exists).
BlueDot🇺🇦It wouldn't have occurred to me to blame you for someone else's behavior. But if you really want to make it clear that homophobic reply guy doesn't speak for you, you could reply back. You could mention that you're both reporting the reply to the moderators, and blocking the person.
@BlueDot yes, this is what I do now.
Nathan A. Stine@evan that's a reasonable thing to want, but just because someone posts replies to you, I don't assume that you condone it.
glyn@evan A simple solution would be to reply to the offensive post saying "I do not condone this and will now block your account" or similar. Then block. Presumably your reply will remain visible on others' timelines.
william.maggosif Mastodon treated all replies like reddit does (giving us votes but not boosts or favorites), we could down vote this stuff into oblivion.
I really want to see Mastodon and lemmy or kbin merge. hashtags function like subreddits. eventually all content should be a POST on the fediverse. all this combined functionality would make us better than any closed platform could be. the #fediverse should be the attention layer for the open web.
kpw
Derek Powazek 🐐@evan 100% agree. If we all pick up the dog poop off of our front lawn, the entire neighborhood benefits.
Bonus points for a system that summarizes the top posts that have been booted by users to the admins so that they can consider booting the users/instances from the admin level. This way the community is helping the admins do their job.
Eh?!?@fraying @evan
The problem is that we can't have a feature that "removes poop", because it would mean that poop is automatically and unquestionably identified.
What we are discussing here is merely a way to hide or orphan replies that one does not like.
If this feature was introduced, a fascist may hide the replies of antifascists to his posts, a misinformation actor may hide replies that debunk his claims etc.
Reply and report (and block, eventually) is preferable and already in place.
The problem is that we can't have a feature that "removes poop", because it would mean that poop is automatically and unquestionably identified.
What we are discussing here is merely a way to hide or orphan replies that one does not like.
If this feature was introduced, a fascist may hide the replies of antifascists to his posts, a misinformation actor may hide replies that debunk his claims etc.
Reply and report (and block, eventually) is preferable and already in place.
@Eh__tweet @evan nobody was talking about an automated process. Everything we’ve described has humans making decisions. And everyone here already knows about report and block. The tools are insufficient.
@fraying @evan
I did not mean an automated process, my point is that what is bad for me and you is not bad for someone else. So we can't have a feature to "hide only the bad replies", because the system can't decide what's good or bad. We just can have a feature to hide replies one doesn't like. And this feature would also be available for fascists, racists, homophobes, propaganda agents etc. It would strengthen their communication.
I did not mean an automated process, my point is that what is bad for me and you is not bad for someone else. So we can't have a feature to "hide only the bad replies", because the system can't decide what's good or bad. We just can have a feature to hide replies one doesn't like. And this feature would also be available for fascists, racists, homophobes, propaganda agents etc. It would strengthen their communication.
@Eh__tweet @evan you have entirely misunderstood what we are talking about.
Annika Backstrom@evan Yeah, today this really only works if you involve your admin
Chewie@evan
But that would also mean you could delete/block valid replies, and ones the original posters don't like.
It could then look like people don't disagree with the original post.
Tricky.
Jan Wildeboer 😷
@evan It's one of these classic, fundamental problems in decentralised networks ;) Who "owns" the list of replies? I would say the author of the starting thread gets to maintain the list of accepted replies and this list propagates across the fediverse. Others will say that at max a flag should be added with a qualifier and that other instances should be free to decide if/how they show/hide flagged replies. But who gets to add flags? Just the thread "owner" or any reader? Etc.
@evan I'd favour the first approach. When you load a post from me (be it an original post or a reply I posted to someone else's post) you should receive a list of replies I accept. And I should be allowed to define what that list contains. But it's a complex issue.
ראַף 
Enough people socially think the person who started the thread owns the comments below it that getting first-class support for it would be amazing.
I know friendica and hubzilla support it, but Mastodon should too!
Magnus Ahltorp
Kudra 
@raf @jwildeboer @evan to me, this is enough to change to another Fedi instance type instead of Mastodon, once Threads federates. Anyone know if #Firefish supports this or not?
@jwildeboer I don't think it's a complex issue at all! It's built into the protocol.
@evan could you say more about that? My only point of reference is what’s implemented in masto. What’s in the protocol that could be implemented differently?
@evan update: I’ve gleaned the basics from your replies to others - thanks. Also boy do a lot of people want to explain AP to you. How do you stay so calm?