So, I'm a strong yes.

Every ActivityPub post has a `replies` collection that contains all the replies to the post. The definitive version lives on the original poster's server.

The OP should be able to either approve replies before they're added to this collection, or remove them from the collection if they're added automatically.

@evan (because I know you do post-poll analysis)

Qualified yes: you should be able to disassociate someone’s replies from your own messages, but deleting another person’s posts entirely has its own abuse concerns (and is an arms race at best).

(White cis man here, so maybe my opinion is naturally flawed/incomplete, but have been considering/reconsidering these ideas for a long time.)

@evan such functionality is kind of incompatible with a distributed/federated social network, though.

Without a central authority overseeing this kind of thing, there’s no real central list of replies that one can order to remove.

@evan Qualified no.

Removed: no.
Flag as potentially appropriate (for example with a content warning field the original poster can fill) and not visible by default like the current UI for posts having a content warning: yes.

@evan I (mostly) don't think social software should default to showing replies with special treatment in the first place. But the "original poster" (author of any given post) should be able to *add* replies to their post.

I'm not sure if this makes my position a "qualified no" or a "qualified yes", but I'm gonna go with "yes" because it makes more sense to say that if you can explicitly add a reply, then you can explicitly remove it as well.

@evan

Qualified yes. I think that original posters being able to remove and otherwise moderate replies is a desirable feature, but that doesn't necessarily mean that every single platform should provide it.

The cultures of Twitter and Mastodon have evolved under a shared understanding that you own your posts whether they are replies or stand-alones, and people have learned to make use of this fact. Suddenly changing the functionality of Mastodon would inevitably cause some distress.

@evan I mentioned it’s probably technically infeasible, but philosophically, I’d be against that too.

The reply that someone else made is sort of their work, their art. For you to be able to delete their work is something of an affront to the ideas that we make our own content around here.

Yes, their content referred to yours. No, that doesn’t make their content yours.

@evan Qualified no. Some level of control by the OP seems potentially useful but also possible to abuse as stated by other people on this thread.

It would require a lot of thought and trade-offs. Ex: does this capability nest? I.e. does a person replying get the ability to moderate sub-replies? What if the OP wants to hide a sub-reply but the intermediate poster doesn't?

I think perhaps more important than this though would be reply controls on the OP to prevent unwanted replies to begin with.

@evan Whilst I'd love to say yes... you know that this will be used by people to remove any comments that doesn't confirm their bias/agenda/point of views.

It's already bad enough when you have childish people who throw tantrums on their 'public' post if anyone doesn't agree with them.

A few months back, I commented that I preferred Star Trek SNW over Discovery and that Below Decks was currently the best ST show

The vile hate thrown at me by the poster earned that fanatic a block.

@evan @evan Qualified Yes,

Qualification:

If the post was public, a public notice of the removal should replace it in thread

Removed : Disrespect
Removed : Spam
Removed : Off topic

OP chooses from drop down with the option to write in.

This info is useful to the public, OP, & offender.

@evan I’m qualified no, thinking in the context of AP (Which you obviously know better than I do):

I don’t see a way for the protocol to allow a user on server A to enforce that a reply for server B should be removed.

I *do* think the user’s own server can have afforances for not displaying responses that have been “removed”, so if that’s the definition of removed we’re talking about, I’d say yes, that’s fine.

But literally removed across the entire Fediverse? No, we shouldn’t have that power

@evan strong yes. They should be able. Nobody needs toxic garbage hanging off their posts.

But I think it should leave some trace. The ability to tolerate different opinions while ruthlessly vaporizing bad actors is a good measure of an internet poster's character.

@evan I'm a qualified no.

No: Mainly because this would take away any ability of non-admins to fact check/correct misinformation.

Qualified:A mechanism to flag a reply as abuse to be escalated to instance moderation would be helpful in some cases.

I consider my toots public. I do feel a responsibility to "tend to" the replies, but I don't think that includes pruning them.

It's a different story on my own domain (e.g. blog) though, because I'm responsible for all content there.

@evan "qualified no"

From a pure technical sense, this is basically deleting other people's personal blog posts, so we know it's not really possible. Nor is "curating what others see". Everyone gets their own timeline.

But I can appreciate that popular accounts probably have some frustrations around viral posts. I can see value in an "end thread" feature asking your instance to simply drop the "in-reply-to" messages. Also notification controls for threads that one no longer wants to engage.