Jack
William PietriWomen only, a quick question: How bad is the reply guy problem on Mastodon? (Please boost for a good sample.)
No problem
Happens a little
Significant
Huge
Poll ended at .
And for those unfamiliar: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reply_guy
Somebody asked me privately if trans women were welcome to reply. My answer: Yes, all women! And really, anybody who people perceive as a women enough to cause reply-guy behavior, as what I'm interested in here is the level of impact. So yes, please vote!
Ok, poll closed! From the number of people asking me about results, I guess some clients don't always offer the option to see them. Here's a screenshot of the results just in case.
There were a lot of interesting replies giving further detail. I'd sum it up by saying that women say they are more likely to experience reply guys when
* posts are boosted widely
* they're more visibly female
* they're talking about tech
* responses come from certain servers, including fosstodon and mastodon.social
A number of women mentioned discomfort seeing reply guys on other women's posts. When I worked on abuse previously, this sort of bystander harm had a significant chilling effect on the willingness of people to post when they identified with the people targeted.
To me, this is a pretty clear example of what Kate Manne describes in Down Girl: "misogyny enforces patriarchy by punishing women who deviate from patriarchy".
The post also attracted quite a lot of reply guys who were stridently defending their god-given right to spew opinions in response to any question mark anywhere in the world. Without regard to what the person posting might want, and with an ardent refusal that any negative impact should be brought to their attention, let alone carefully considered. This too is consistent with Manne's "Down Girl", which I recommend to anybody interested in these dynamics: http://www.katemanne.net/down-girl.html
Sylv 
@williampietri oh yeah for sure. it seems all the techbros from fosstodon and mastodon.social love to do that, at least in my experience. i notice it's less common on servers like tech.lgbt where you're less likely to find people harboring that attitude.
MadMike77@williampietri "benevolent sexsism" That's the first time I've seen it explained like that.
Also, I guess, this is mainly because english isn't my first language.
Also, I guess, this is mainly because english isn't my first language.
AleggraI think I the way I write scares men online. Some ppl think I’m a male when there’s no profile.
I scare them in real life, too except for my husband. No, wait.
I scare him, too.
Bewildered Beast@MadMike77 @williampietri as someone for whom English is my first language, this was new to me as well. I'm glad to have a name for it!
Batichi@williampietri It's difficult to know for sure because there's a lot more neurospicy folks here, so I'm willing to give space because more often than not it's a mixup of communication.
But boy, when it isn't that it's awful. Bitching is always taken as problem solving even though I'll just be thinking thoughts and then commanded to do things, and then them getting upset when I don't want to do a task from someone I don't even know.
Luci ☯⚛@williampietri Does a guy coming in to mansplain in my replies count? It is usually condescending but I'm not entirely sure after reading this excerpt from the Wikipedia article. -Valkyrja
@quantumsys That 100% counts. One great look at reply guys counted them as category #7.https://bardoloi.com/blog/2018/09/12/the-9-reply-guys/
@williampietri You just gave me the opportunity to say the funniest thing. I'm sorry 😂 -Luci
Aeáro, a SeaWyrm 
Most of these are pretty clear, but... wot's a "Cookie Manster"? 
...and then it turned out that the answer to my question was already sitting on my home timeline. I just needed to scroll a bit more.
@aearo Ah, great! They're all defined here: https://bardoloi.com/blog/2018/09/12/the-9-reply-guys/
Olivier Revelin@williampietri is there a way to see the result without voting? For educational purpose?
@admin My client has one. If yours doesn't, you can go to the original web link for the post and see if there
Murphestophelese MurphMeisterIf you don't mind me butting in, I'd be curious if this is a problem from Fosstodon in particular.
I had heard that it was, but never saw evidence of it myself. (I know that doesn't mean that it doesn't happen)
@murph That is my association with fosstodon for sure! To the extent that I've considered just blocking the whole server. I'd love to hear what others have experienced, though!
Cat Hicks@williampietri @murph oh me too. I weekly consider blocking that one.
Dušan Mitrović@murph @williampietri Even the rest of the tech community dislikes us. 😢
Deborah Pickett@murph @[email protected] Fosstodon used to have that reputation, but it has settled down somewhat. Perhaps it’s being moderated better, or perhaps the worst reply guys have moved elsewhere.
I find the most egregious reply-guying these days comes from social.tchncs.de.
Stefan Scholl@murph @williampietri The problem here is that posts can leave their bubble unexpectedly. Users aren't prepared to interact with people who don't know them.
Doctor LURK@williampietri not voting, just boosting 👍
Konstantin Weddige
Remind Me
grob (teeth era) 🇺🇦🏳️🌈🏳️⚧️
Viral Obscurity@williampietri I'm sure it is a problem like it is elsewhere but luckily, I've not yet experienced it on Mastodon
Boosted the poll
🇺🇸 🇺🇦 🇮🇱 🐧 🥦Mastodon is *social* media. Social as in people talking to you. It isn't a journal site where it is about the satisfaction of posting thoughts.
OTOH, Mastodon does have a maven problem. People who think they are the only smart person on the platform who reply to posts with points that EVERYBODY would have already thought of.
Mx. Luna Corbden 🐸@Methylcobalamin @williampietri Found our reply guy right here ☝🏻☝🏻☝🏻
I'll be your maven today.
"Social" as in there is a standard etiquette of how to treat people, and "social" pushback for breaking it, which results in "social" consequences, like that people will form opinions of you, which will earn you a "social" status and may even cause you to be pushed to the margins of "society," as social dynamics have operated for thousands of years. 🤷🏻♀️
Typical social media keyboard jockey.
Disagrees with your narrative == "Bad Man".
Happy Tuesday @corbden
Artemis@Methylcobalamin @williampietri
uhh, you know this makes you the reply guy?
Post: "hey women, how bad is this problem?"
reply guy: "well that's what you should expect for being here"
sbi@Methylcobalamin @williampietri Please, please tell me that this was a parody reply! (If so, it's brilliant and I'm sorry you probably got blocked a lot for it.)
Lili@williampietri no problem only because I don't interact with mastodon.social and other mainstream instances
Eira Tansey@williampietri @maco for what it’s worth, I’ve been on here since 2018 and there have always been occasional reply guys but the problem became noticeably worse following Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter and people heading over to Mastodon. I’m glad Mastodon is more active but that growth has come at a cost to my mentions having more reply guys than a few years back.
Anne Deschaine@TeamMidwest @williampietri I've wondered about that. The worst reply-guying I see is, as someone else asked, often from FOSS/tech type guys. I'd assumed that type was around well before the Twitter change, so I assumed it was already a problem. But it's totally possible I don't see the majority of Guys, and totally possible that I'm wrong in my generalization.
I will say, I fear going viral here way more than I expected to. But it hasn't gone too badly when it's happened.
@williampietri @cassolotl I love how, at them moment anyway, the poll is giving the middle finger.
Tattie@williampietri I said "significant", but I mute, mute, mute, and it keeps it under control. All things considered I'd much rather be on Fedi dealing with reply guys than the outright bigots I'm likely to encounter on most other platforms.
Mage 🏳️🌈 🚏@williampietri Extremely dependent of your instance : in my experience in instances that are not feminist it's MASSIVE.
Reply Guy@williampietri can’t wait to see the results.
@williampietri looks like I have a lot of work to do!
Kim Scheinberg@williampietri
<me quietly noting that in a thread that specifies "women only" the replies are split nearly 50-50 women/men>
<me quietly noting that in a thread that specifies "women only" the replies are split nearly 50-50 women/men>
Darwin Woodkasome of us do use pen names to keep away the reply guys ;^)
@kims Funny coincidence. And at least half those men have shown up to pontificate, unasked, about the concept of reply guys. Who could have predicted!
mj@williampietri how bad in general? Or how bad compared to elsewhere on the internet/irl?
Julia, normal person 🍒@williampietri I'm taking this as "not just literal men" because it's not just those, sadly.
Tindra@williampietri I will caveat that I’m a smaller account so I see way less than some of the larger accounts (which have been driven off the platform)
io@williampietri just for safety, there should be "let me explain to you how bad it is" option 🤣
Marty Fouts@williampietri I don’t know that I can tell Reply Guys from someone who is occasionally pedantic, a problem I suffer from; or people who have chosen a hill to die on. But I definitely see behavior that can be taken as Reply Guy in nature and definitely more often in response to women.
But I don’t see it as often on the Fediverse as I did on other social media.
Angela Glansbury 🚽@williampietri
this is going to be wonderful for my block list, thank you so much.
this is going to be wonderful for my block list, thank you so much.
Klara ❤️@williampietri I voted "No problem", as that is my experience of using the Fediverse, but I am well aware that it does happen. I'd wager that me being a small account on a generally good instance greatly influences my experience.