Mastodawn

Erin Kissane Jun 20, 2024

Men I don’t know have been yelling at me for about 24 hours about how I am promoting toxicity and misinformation and am a narcissist and a bully in replies to my short thread about how it would be super nice to have control over replies here. To give people who for some reason don’t find people yelling at them to be the highest form of online communication a way to participate in public life online.

Many perfectly reasonable comments agreeing and disagreeing, but like…lordy.

Erin Kissane Jun 20, 2024

The most recent one is, I guess, accusing me of sending him unwanted DMs by…replying to him in public?

I guess Mastodon is confusing even to FOSS guys sometimes!

Erin Kissane Jun 20, 2024

Anyway! I could do without another three days of childishness but the only way to stop it is to delete my posts, and I used to do that regularly but then I realized that actually encourages them so nah.

(I should say there have been far more reasonable posts than shitty ones, both agreeing and disagreeing with my points. But the shitty ones go on foreverrrr fighting with other people in branching replies and also the longer a post is up, the higher the ratio of angry and sneering replies to regular ones.)

Derek Powazek 🐐Jun 20, 2024

@kissane it’s almost as if this is the end result of a series of design decisions that should be reevaluated!

Marc Trius Jun 20, 2024

@kissane sounds like your point has been proven 😕

Mark R. Stoneman Jun 20, 2024

@kissane I don't suppose there are keyword patterns you could use to create filters for? Or would that mean paying them even more attention in order to work that out? *Sigh*

Robyn Jun 20, 2024

@markstoneman
I feel like OP was not asking for alternative not ideal solutions. They are just stating once more that there is a feature they would like. With evidence.
I hesitated to reply to you, given the content of their post. Please note I've untagged them.

I have the general feeling that because some people involved in design decisions don't have a problem with always open replies, they see requests for the feature as not in keeping with their view of how discussion should work here.
1/2

Robyn Jun 20, 2024

But if we flipped the "you can't have a broadcast only post, you have to block or mute , individually the people you don't want to interact with (or another workaround like your suggestion) and instead had a default "if you don't want broadcast only posts then block or mute accounts that use them" surely that puts the onus on the right person.
Limiting replies is a clear boundary, easily visible and there's no plausible deniability for "she doesn't mean me, I'm a nice guy"
2/2

Mark R. Stoneman Jun 20, 2024

@kissane To be absolutely clear, I was talking about the present nastiness, not your good suggestion. Your perspectives are always helpful, and I hate to see any of your posts get deleted, *if* it can be helped. BTW, I think the feature you've suggeeted is also on Threads. I've gotten so used to seeing it on the other places that I forgot it wasn't here.

Erin Kissane Jun 20, 2024

@markstoneman It seems like a good use for a chatbot tbh

Mark R. Stoneman Jun 20, 2024

Raven Onthill Jun 20, 2024

@kissane "A great experience should be simple to use. It shouldn’t be overly complex, and there should be sensible defaults and well-run entry points." – https://bsky.social/about/blog/6-23-2023-moderation-proposals

Moderation in a Public Commons - Bluesky

In this post, we share why we believe a public commons is important for social media, as well as some proposals for moderation and safety tooling.

Bluesky

@kissane even in good threads I have a tolerance level for about 5-10 notifications and then I mute the conversation 😆

tuban_muzuru Jun 20, 2024

Sigh... I wish I could say "pay no attention to these asshole griefers" and you'd feel better.

Japanese has a grunt for this.

All I can say is fuck 'em and mute 'em. Nothing is worth being upset over an asshole....

bubbajet Jun 20, 2024

@kissane You’ve perfectly described an unmoderated forum.

yelling jackal Jun 20, 2024

@kissane oof - I guess you might do this already, but absolutely do report them to your admin when they get like that, don't just personally block. People like that do it to everyone, and no one likes it.

Also huge props for still sticking it out, I'm so scared of the fossbro dudes that I'm purposefully keeping my account small

They've been keeping me out of the opensource community very successfully for over a decade and I can't bring myself to put myself in their radar here.

waferbaby Jun 20, 2024

@kissane If only there was a way to control who could reply to posts!