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   Chris Trottier (atomicpoet@calckey.social)'s status on Wednesday, 31-May-2023 02:06:31 JST Chris Trottier

   #Mastodon tried hard to kneecap social discovery on the #Fediverse in the name of preventing toxicity and abuse.
   
   Little did they know that lack of social discovery would be a catalyst for toxicity and abuse.
   
   It’s this lack of social discovery that causes Reply Guys to randomly pop into threads with neither sensitivity nor context, demanding people educate them on things when they’re called out on bad behaviour.
   
   If only these people would read threads before talking—but they don’t because social discovery is kneecapped on Mastodon.

   • Embed this notice
     Chris Trottier (atomicpoet@calckey.social)'s status on Wednesday, 31-May-2023 02:15:10 JST Chris Trottier

     in reply to

     • Smitten

     @smitten@snowdin.town No, this has nothing to do with “federating better” nor has it to do with “higher quality” replies.
     
     It has to do with reply guys busting into threads without context, many who don’t bother reading threads before commenting.
     
     This isn’t a federation problem. It’s a social discovery problem.
     
     Ironically, if you slowed down and read my entire post prior to commenting, you would know this.

   • Embed this notice
     Smitten (smitten@snowdin.town)'s status on Wednesday, 31-May-2023 02:15:19 JST Smitten

     in reply to
     @atomicpoet idk about this take. So you're saying that if reply threads were federated better then replies would be higher quality? There are replyguys on every platform, it's a social problem not a tech problem.
     
     This also comes across as dismissive of people's concerns around too much visibility. I'm reading this as, 'you wouldn't be having problems if you were more discoverable'. How do you know that?
   • Embed this notice
     Chris Trottier (atomicpoet@calckey.social)'s status on Wednesday, 31-May-2023 02:21:07 JST Chris Trottier

     in reply to

     • Smitten

     @smitten@snowdin.town Are you pulling my leg? Are you parodying a reply guy or are you serious?

   • Embed this notice
     Smitten (smitten@snowdin.town)'s status on Wednesday, 31-May-2023 02:21:18 JST Smitten

     in reply to
     @atomicpoet I did read your post but I don't understand what you're saying. What do you mean by social discovery problem and what does it have to do with reading threads?
     
     How does more discoverability lead to people educating themselves?
   • Embed this notice
     Chris Trottier (atomicpoet@calckey.social)'s status on Wednesday, 31-May-2023 02:24:09 JST Chris Trottier

     in reply to

     • Phil M0OFX

     @philpem@digipres.club No, this has nothing to do with federating better. Social discovery really is about design patterns.

   • Embed this notice
     Phil M0OFX (philpem@digipres.club)'s status on Wednesday, 31-May-2023 02:24:11 JST Phil M0OFX

     in reply to

     @atomicpoet I'm not certain they would anyway -- isn't this particular brand of trolling called "sealioning"? As in they keep going "explain! explain!" until the other party wears out?

     Anyway I'm not sure this has to do with "federating better" as much as pushing user behaviour towards "using design patterns to encourage people to read the whole thread first".

   • Embed this notice
     Smitten (smitten@snowdin.town)'s status on Wednesday, 31-May-2023 02:33:46 JST Smitten

     in reply to

     @atomicpoet I’m completely serious, this assertion makes no sense to me.

     It’s this lack of social discovery that causes Reply Guys to randomly pop into threads with neither sensitivity nor context

     How? How do you know that? How does more visibility or discoverability improve this? If the problem isn’t federation of the replies then what is the problem exactly?

   • Embed this notice
     Chris Trottier (atomicpoet@calckey.social)'s status on Wednesday, 31-May-2023 02:48:51 JST Chris Trottier

     in reply to

     To clarify, social discovery isn't merely about federation. Nor is it about search.
     
     It's literally about people discovering what has been said before they post a comment.
     
     Most of social discovery can be fixed through modifications of UI/UX.
     
     However, UI/UX comes about largely due to certain design philosophies. And once entrenched, a design philosophy is hard to fix.

   • Embed this notice
     Marie (she/her) (bostonbibliophile@zirk.us)'s status on Wednesday, 31-May-2023 02:59:13 JST Marie (she/her)

     in reply to

     @atomicpoet they wouldn't read them anyway. people like that just want to be a nuisance. if only people would read things before talking, the world would be a different place.

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   • Embed this notice
     Chris Trottier (atomicpoet@calckey.social)'s status on Wednesday, 31-May-2023 02:59:59 JST Chris Trottier

     in reply to

     • Marie (she/her)

     @BostonBibliophile@zirk.us It certainly doesn't help that it's not so easy to read an entire conversation on Mastodon.

   • Embed this notice
     Chris Trottier (atomicpoet@calckey.social)'s status on Wednesday, 31-May-2023 03:06:21 JST Chris Trottier

     in reply to

     • drupalthoughts

     @drupalthoughts@fosstodon.org A lot of the stuff I find is simply stuff I've gleaned from the news. But yes, I'd love it if it were much easier to find stuff. A hashtag can only take you so far.

   • Embed this notice
     drupalthoughts (drupalthoughts@fosstodon.org)'s status on Wednesday, 31-May-2023 03:06:25 JST drupalthoughts

     in reply to

     @atomicpoet Thanks for clarifying. I was reading about your comments on #barcelona (terribly obfuscating codename) the other morning, and wanted to learn more in general, but found it difficult to find relevant links, blogs, summaries, etc. Do you have any good resources to link to stay informed? I hope this doesn't make me a reply guy person

   • Embed this notice
     Cleo of Topless Topics (toplesstopics@eldritch.cafe)'s status on Wednesday, 31-May-2023 03:14:39 JST Cleo of Topless Topics

     in reply to

     • drupalthoughts

     @atomicpoet
     I just don't understand what the difficulty is in establishing some way to intentionally opt-in to set certain posts as "visible to anyone on the fediverse," not just people in your instance or who people in your instance already follow. like a bulletin board in a town square vs a bulletin board in a niche tabletop gaming store.
     @drupalthoughts

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     Cleo of Topless Topics (toplesstopics@eldritch.cafe)'s status on Wednesday, 31-May-2023 03:24:41 JST Cleo of Topless Topics

     in reply to

     @atomicpoet
     an addendum to this idea, which I agree with (hence the boost). I understand that a lot of masto users want to keep their posts from being easily searchable outside of their pre-approved pool--and that's great, more power to them. certainly I have posts sometimes I don't want any random person seeing and turning into a "reply guy" on.

     but on th he other hand, some of us WANT our posts to show up for others, namely #contentCreators like me. I don't put 20+ hours into filming a video essay extolling the values of #feminism, #lgbtq #genderEquality, etc for just a small handful of existing supporters to watch. and people who are interested in finding more material on a certain subject (outside of programming and infosec 😜) are going to quickly give up on mastodon if every time they search for something like, say, #vidcon, they get no results.

     if the goal is really to encourage others to leave "siloed" mainstream platforms, there has to be content here to fill the void that the corrupt platforms currently fill (at the expense of personal data and arbitrary #censorship). it's like saying "don't go to McDonald's, come to this amazing mom. and pop restaurant instead!" but there is no visible menu and you have to know someone who knows someone that knows what the restaurant offers to even order food in the first place.

     BTW putting hashtags in front of things like I did in this post makes me want to vomit, because it feels like I'm trying to be a sell out, but I have to do it if I want to open up the conversation for people who don't already follow @atomicpoet or people who boost him?)

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     Cleo of Topless Topics (toplesstopics@eldritch.cafe)'s status on Wednesday, 31-May-2023 03:31:49 JST Cleo of Topless Topics

     in reply to

     @atomicpoet
     also-also, content warnings are buggy AF, and another huge turnoff for mainstream platform users. on every app that has the option, I check "auto expand every content warning," yet still on most of them, any post, even my own, gets truncated to only a few words, requiring me to manually expand every single paost, including in a thread. it's an unreasonable expectation if you want people to fully explore a thread, or keep up with more than a small handful of people you follow who post no more than a few times a day.

     it also, again, is a huge detractor for content creators, who know that 99% of people are not going to bother pressing "expand to read more," so time and effort wise, there's no point in not continuing to post to mainstream sites. but I understand how people with a lot of triggers around things that the majority of people wouldn't consider triggering, like food and eye contact and pictures of dogs etc, and therefore wouldn't think to censor ahead of time, and if they don't also put it as a hashtag, then auto-filtering out that term doesn't work either (I think?)

     sorry this is getting rambly, what I'm trying to say is, if the goal is to leech people away from toxic mainstream platforms, then there have to be existing carrots to lure them here, and not hide each carrot behind a locked cage. but at the same time, for those who don't want anyone they haven't pre-approved for giving carrots to, to not have the key to THEIR cages. does that make sense? lol

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