Mastodawn

🩵 Bwee the Fluffdragon 🩵

For fuck's sake. I have been unfollowing people left and right lately because so many are not bothering to put politics/other negative stuff under CW. I'm curating my space as best I can, but please for the love of the Universe, keep your more sensitive followers in mind when posting, please.

Heather 👻Mar 10

neocat_pat_floof

i try too. I have to use filters due to some people. But having those kind of people around makes me slip further too so it's just toxic all round and sucks.

🩵 Bwee the Fluffdragon 🩵Mar 10

@Akki *hugs close* 🩵🩵🩵🩵🩵🩵

Baloo Uriza Mar 10

@Akki I have a lot of filters and I've found that generally works better than depending on other people to be psychic.

Heather 👻Mar 10

@BalooUriza @Bwee It's not unreasonable to expect others to CW things like politics. Just like we expect people to use alt text on pictures here. It's not mindreading/psychic.

Raccoon🇺🇸🏳️‍🌈Mar 10

@Bwee
Where do you draw the line on what needs a CW?

As a moderator, I have always felt it should be something serious and upsetting before I press for it, but my view on that may be evolving. We could be looking into ways to enforce stuff like that.

Is it any politics whatsoever, or does it have to be a specific level of upsetting? Like, your line probably falls somewhere between reminders to vote and full-on violence.

Have you tried using Filters to Auto-CW or hide things from your timeline? My other account has "Politics", "Trump", "USPol", "Activism", "MutualAid", and "Violence" all filtered, so I don't have to think about heavy stuff when I'm just looking at furry memes. Where does that feature fail you?

As I said, this is a growing concern on both sides, so I'm interested in learning so we can get closer to something that works well for everyone.

🩵 Bwee the Fluffdragon 🩵Mar 10

@Raccoon I feel like honestly anything having to do with politics should be behind a CW. Yes, I can use filters. But sometimes I do want to click into those posts, when I'm in the right mood. I just feel that it should be opt-in rather than opt-out, if that makes sense? I'm not the most eloquent with this stuff, my apologies. You do bring up some good points, but in the wrong mood seeing even vaguely-worded politics posts can make me spiral a bit. It's hard to filter those.

Raccoon🇺🇸🏳️‍🌈Mar 10

@Bwee
Something I do on my other account, you can set it up so filters just add a CW type thing, and you can still click them and look. It will just show a thing instead of the post, "1 posts filtered for 'politics'." or whatever you have set up, and you can click to reveal anyway. It's especially nice when you just want to have some warning before you see something.

Octavia Con Amore

pink_moon_and_stars

Succubard's Library Mar 10

@Raccoon @Bwee the problem is that people who don't CW anything at all also tend to use euphemisms for things or *s in the middle of words and this circumvent filters

hell, filters are wonderful and can even fillet when the word is in the alt-text

guess what people who don't CW at all also don't tend to do?

as for what gets CW'd, I try to just use them for common traumas and things that can wear people down just like as an arachniphobiac, I don't appreciate a picture of a spider touching my thumb suddenly, I know pictures with direct eye contact spike a lot of people's blood pressure and cortisol

with the sort of long covid and the light sensitivity it causes, I've started trying to put bright images like white-background comics in a CW as well because having a white image cone across my feed literally, physically hurts (basically the same light sensitivity as a migraine)

in terms off enforcement, though, honestly? enforcement itself gets rather political, and it feels like the only widely agreed upon topics are sex, scat, and gore the rest feels more of a social contract that we'll all do our best not to retraumatise our already traumatised peers

(though some people seem to get it if you put it in the this context: https://cutie.city/@OctaviaConAmore/115838235369403231 )

Octavia Con Amore :pink_moon_and_stars: Succubard's Library (@[email protected])

Content warning: :boosts_ok: Antifascism (actionable), PSA

Yastodon

Raccoon🇺🇸🏳️‍🌈Mar 10

@OctaviaConAmore @Bwee
Without it being a good moment to read the entire post here, I definitely agree, people censoring words like that is a problem that has been brought in from other networks. Whenever I see it, I try to correct that person, and I think generally speaking, moderation across the network is doing a decent job of getting those people to change their behavior.

Remember that most of those people are only doing that because they are still reacting to oppressive algorithms, and actually find it refreshing that there isn't an algorithm hiding posts based on keywords here, and moderation is encouraging you to just say what you want.

WarmasterPalak Mar 10

Meow.social requires its users to use CWs for political or other hot button topics because not everyone wants to see them. However, this isn't a policy that other servers have to acknowledge or follow, so filtering is also helpful to insulate against topics with which one doesn't wish to engage.

In the end, we only have control over ourselves and we must take that agency to control things in manners we are able to enjoy or accept.

Daedalous Eros Mar 10

@Bwee I generally try to keep posts CW'd appropriately and I generally avoid boosting stuff that isn't CW'd correctly. Sometimes I do it on impulse and sometimes I catch myself. The one exception I make is for Palestinians; theirs is a situation that I believe manners can take a back seat.

But yeah, on one hand, at least we have content warnings, unlike a certain other site. But on the other, some people really gotta get better about using them.

Thibaultmol 🌈Mar 10

@daedalouseros @Bwee tbf, with quote tooting this is kinda solved.
I often Quote a political tool and just have the toot empty and attach a CW to my quote. Essentially doing a 'boost with content warning' as a quote toot

Daedalous Eros Mar 10

@thibaultmol @Bwee I do quote post when it's a normal, un-CW'd political post. When it comes to the Palestinian situation, I wouldn't quote post them just to attach a CW; it feels insensitive and, while I am about the biggest advocator of mental health you will ever meet, their crisis should make us uncomfortable. Not all negative feelings need to be avoided. I hope my intent with that comes through; I don't mean it in a cruel way, just that it's the natural and correct feeling to feel uncomfortable with it, and what matters isn't the feeling but what we do about it. Even just boosting is enough.

However, I may start quote posting with CW not out of manners, but to follow a dear friend's example in tagging the mutual aid fedi group to boost their reach.

Thibaultmol 🌈Mar 10

@daedalouseros @Bwee I mean, adding a CW to something doesn't hide it from other people. If anything it allows it to spread more.
I don't boost things like that without CW. So having a CW on it makes it more likely for me to boost it.
(my personal opinion on this:) is that if there's a CW, it's up to the person reading it if they want to read it or not.

I actually have my CW setting set to always auto expand except for a couple.

J. "Henry" Waugh Mar 10

@Bwee very much agree

And now with the new Quote Toots feature, it is often even less friction to "Boost with CW" as an affordance

I use this quite frequently in order to help keep my feed accessible, and I have seen others adopt it also

Here's hoping this spreads as a habit, and lets political posts become more managable in feeds for everyone at their different positions and MH levels

The Shimmering System Mar 10

@Bwee Apologies for our part in that. We tend to be lax with CWs on this account, especially in followers-only posts.