Marco Rogers
So mastodon doesn't do quoted posts. I think I understand the goal of avoiding that feature. People have decided that "dunking" is the overriding usage of quoting and that we should avoid the inherent toxicity.
But quoted posts are also the foundation of true discourse in a medium like this. It is the primary way to start *new* conversation that is an offshoot of an existing conversation rather than a direct response.
I'm finding it hard to do that on here. And the result is I just don't post.
Marco Rogers
Given a tool like quoting, I think most people are going to use it for hot takes. And that has progressed to the point where people assume any quote tweet is *meant* be a hot take. Rather than something that is thoughtful and considered.
But I think these kinds of assumptions are also a part of what drives toxic behavior. People often respond to what they see based on their own assumptions, even when it has little to do with what you actually said.
Marco Rogers
Many people are informing me that quoted posts are on the official roadmap for mastodon. (I would've liked to just quote one of those people, but alas...)
Tom Bellin :picardfacepalm:
@polotek Honestly, I miss the ability to quote-boost. But I think it's OK that it's not on here even if it's not perfectly convenient.
The thing I really enjoy about Mastodon is that it treats everyone as a first-tier contributor. And part of that is the way that every user is given extensive control over the use of their posts.
QT takes that control away from the author (in the case of "dunking" that's precisely the use case for the feature).
Marco Rogers
@tob I'm not talking about convenience. I'm saying that there are valuable conversations that are missing from this ecosystem. Because it's not possible to present them with the right context and affordances.
Tom Bellin :picardfacepalm:
@polotek The "affordances" are removing the context and control from the original author.
Which may well be necessary and justified. As I said, it's something missing from masto. But it's not just about the way the feature was abused on Twitter.
It's also about giving ownership to users as authors & owners of their content. QT lets me take your content and use it to drive a conversation that excludes you.
Imo that change of control is at the heart of the toxic behavior associated with QT.
trdebunked
> features are never "responsible" for toxicity or any other behavior.
people have a habit of blaming tech: "computer says no", using it as an excuse- machine learning algos encourage users to do dumb things. someone joked llm stood for "limited liability machine" and thats apt.
otoh its scapegoating, but also its like an abstraction over responsibility.
everyone knows computers produce unexpected results. "what can you do?"
tech IS to blame in practice, but thats too convenient.
Marco Rogers
@tob I see. That makes sense. But I don't think I said that quoting caused the toxicity. I did infer that may be part of the reason mastodon avoided the feature. I understand why you would want to discuss the nuance there. But it's not what I said and it's not what I was talking about. So it felt pretty frustrating as a response.
FWIW, features are never "responsible" for toxicity or any other behavior. It's just a shorthand for talking about affordances. Which I do think matters.
Tom Bellin :picardfacepalm:
@polotek I did not intend to fight with you. I don't disagree with you.
My point was only that I don't think the source of the toxicity lirs in the QT functionality. In my personal experience, it was almost always used positively.
Twitter's QT functionality also allowed trolls and bad actors to take control of other people's content for their own purposes. That transfer of power is what enables the abuse.
That led to bad patterns like users searching for their own name.
Max Leibman
@polotek So much pushback about quote-posts seems to come from folks who can’t fathom a non-dunking-on use case, but you’ve outlined a perfect one here.
My big two are:
1. I have something to say, but I don’t want anyone to see my comment without the context of what I’m responding to, or
2. I want to share something, but in the spirit of “retweets aren’t endorsements,” I don’t want anyone to see that I shared it without the context of my comment.
Quote-boosts do this. Nothing else does.
Marco Rogers
@tob no. It's fine. It was a little annoying. But mostly I ended up being curious what your actual goals were. Your responses didn't really feel connected to what I was talking about. So they must be coming from somewhere else.
It feels like a reaction. Like you think if you don't fight with me in this thread then quoted posts are gonna be forced on you when you don't want them.
Tom Bellin :picardfacepalm:
@polotek Sorry. Would you like me to delete my replies?
Marco Rogers
@tob Tom I don't think I asked for this conversation. What's the point of this response?
trdebunked
quoting is fundamental to human discourse.
i missed this the first time:
> But quoted posts are also the foundation of true discourse
marco actually said it first, but i completely agree- nearly word for word.
Thanasis Kinias
@mdekstrand
Yeah, that’s where I tend to miss it most: wanting to append an explanation of why I think this thing is interesting and worth sharing.
Consequently, when it comes to sharing links, I’m often tempted just to start a new post with the same link, so I can explain why I’m sharing it.
Michael Ekstrand
@polotek I also found it vital for doing translational work: if I saw a connection between something and my usual topics / audience that wasn’t obvious, I could provide context with my boost to help readers understand why I think it’s worth their attention.
tigerpunk
@polotek also, mastodon is a global platform. Quote toots would be excellent to provide context on national news to an international audience.
Annalee
@polotek this is exactly what I miss about them on here. Quotes are a way to say "yes, and..." and jump off one thing to start another conversation without derailing, interrupting, or clogging up the OP's mentions with tangential replies.
I've been the subject of quote-pile-ons before, so I get the concern. But in my experience, people who want to be weird jerks will use whatever tool is handy.
your auntifa liza 🇵🇷 🦛 🦦
this is incorrect. @maco @Annalee @polotek
go search for twitter.com/blogdiva in the years 2010-2011.
there were no RTs or QTs. we'd copy and paste, either whole or a line with the link
then 2011 happend. the Arab Springs and OWS changed everything.
i was the 3 or 4th (depending on the metrics) most RT account that year due to my livetweeting (video & text) and RT during down time.
jack realized people were losing metrics by RTing superusers like me.
hence the adoption of Oembed
maco
@Annalee @polotek and before a QT button existed on the other site, it was just a text link to the OP. Then they added what amounts to a fancy link preview _with a notification to the OP_.
You can still do the text link here. Some clients will even do the fancy link preview.
But there's no notification to the OP that _that's_ why they might get a flood of replies from randos, so the experience here is _actually worse_.
your auntifa liza 🇵🇷 🦛 🦦
what's funny, oembed felt weird to me at first; but as many people pointed out, it's that "aside" kind of conversion i miss the most. also, embeds work as footnotes. why can't i embed local footnotes!
i've developed websites with Oembed and i don't understand why if you will not render media already on the server then use oembed to handle that but w/o copying again. or give the choice to embed/copy or render.
rendering is the most basic of web functions, why kill it?
maco
@blogdiva @Annalee @polotek I remember the screenshotting, yeah. Can’t remember what those got called after the QT feature was added. But it became a way to avoid the notification.
Does it not show the preview on posts from before they added QTs?
I’m just remembering discovering that once QTs became a feature I *couldn’t* make a plain text link anymore because it’d automatically convert to a QT.
your auntifa liza 🇵🇷 🦛 🦦
thank you @polotek i hate that this feature is disabled here but enabled in other instances; most of which DO NOT have the resources of the main one.
it doesn't make sense to run the largest mastodon instance and have disabled one of the most important features you copied from twitter.
i do not believe the dunking is the issue. it's the whos that made the feature important and the people who don't want them using that feature here.
their reasons are indefensible.
your auntifa liza 🇵🇷 🦛 🦦
@negative12dollarbill @polotek mastodon.social and the default software won't render internal links with oembed the way they do newspapers or other publications
Negative12DollarBill
@polotek
What's the fundamental difference between quoting a post and simply making a new post with a link in it to the one you're talking about?
Technically, psychologically, philosophically, what's the difference?
ErosBlog Bacchus
@polotek "It is the primary way to start *new* conversation that is an offshoot of an existing conversation rather than a direct response. I'm finding it hard to do that on here."
So much this. I feel it in my bones. Conversation X is fascinating, I want to "Yes, and that makes me think..." in a way that could be derailing or creepy as a reply, so I just don't say anything and the conversation I want to have just... never happens.
GNU social JP is a social network, courtesy of GNU social JP管理人. It runs on GNU social, version 2.0.2-dev, available under the GNU Affero General Public License.
All GNU social JP content and data are available under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license.