Developing Mastodon, I strive to use terminology that is familiar to as many people as possible so as to not put up unnecessary barriers in understanding. For this reason I am happy that we went away from calling posts "toots". It has always been a point of friction for people. Not that I dislike branding, quite the opposite, but in my experience receiving feedback over half a decade, it had a negative effect on the platform for little benefit.
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Eugen Rochko (gargron@mastodon.social)'s status on Sunday, 06-Nov-2022 14:00:15 JST Eugen Rochko - Yukari 丼Peerless☑️ and ももつきゆきや repeated this.
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Arnon (cautionwip@mastodon.social)'s status on Sunday, 06-Nov-2022 14:00:06 JST Arnon @Gargron I mean, you’ve no doubt seen this, but just in case.
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Eugen Rochko (gargron@mastodon.social)'s status on Sunday, 06-Nov-2022 14:00:11 JST Eugen Rochko Probably not a lot of people know this now, but Mastodon's web app started out with "Publish". In 2016 a famous YouTuber jokingly offered to support Mastodon's Patreon forever if I changed the button to say "Toot" instead. Needless to say, this was a really early, and not very informed decision. The first glimpse of attention and financial support. As a non-native speaker I had no idea there was another meaning.
ももつきゆきや repeated this. -
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R Hunter Gough ?? (luvcraft@mastodon.social)'s status on Monday, 07-Nov-2022 03:56:43 JST R Hunter Gough ?? @Gargron "toot" is fabulous and never let anyone tell you otherwise.
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ocdtrekkie (ocdtrekkie@mastodon.social)'s status on Monday, 07-Nov-2022 14:35:00 JST ocdtrekkie @Gargron I didn't even know they weren't called toots anymore.
...Still gonna think of them as toots though.
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dunksdonedaily@mastodon.social's status on Monday, 07-Nov-2022 14:48:55 JST DunksDoneDaily @Gargron Losing "toots" seems like a good change. What about swapping the term "instance" to "server(s)" to describe other.... servers. ?
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Eugen Rochko (gargron@mastodon.social)'s status on Monday, 07-Nov-2022 14:48:56 JST Eugen Rochko I like that I was able to go back to "Publish" in the official iOS and Android apps. It may be less whimsical, and less branded, but after using the platform for such a long time, I'm perfectly happy with a button that just describes what it will do without trying to be cute (not that I dislike cute, I'd never part with our elephant illustrations). I have seen enough "Dr. Doom toots as he pleases" quotes in the first two years of Mastodon to last me a lifetime.
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John L. Grantham (jlgrantham@mastodon.social)'s status on Monday, 07-Nov-2022 15:52:51 JST John L. Grantham @Gargron Bummer, I always thought “toots” and „Tröt“ were adorably cute. ?
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Zerov (zerov@mastodon.social)'s status on Monday, 07-Nov-2022 16:27:32 JST Zerov @Gargron I like this approach very much. I think technology should use more simple and self explanatory terms to make it more accessible.
I've seen someone suggest calling them "communities" instead of "instances" or "servers" and I totally agree.
We're dealing with humans, so let's use human language.
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Chris Pitts (thirstybear@mastodon.social)'s status on Monday, 07-Nov-2022 16:57:36 JST Chris Pitts @Gargron @Pwnallthethings Personally I find it endearing. It’s a differentiator, fits with the Mastodon theme and a great bit of fun - something which is important to me. Too many developers and companies take themselves far too seriously. There’s no reason to conflate ‘professional’ with ‘dull’ or ‘serious’.
Keep up the great work!
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Ann Lipton (annmlipton@mastodon.social)'s status on Monday, 07-Nov-2022 17:19:31 JST Ann Lipton @Gargron okay but @nathanrichardson was calling threads "toot suites" and i think we need to keep that.
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Paul Neave (neave@mastodon.social)'s status on Monday, 07-Nov-2022 19:05:47 JST Paul Neave @Gargron It could have been worse. You could have used “Trump” ? Toot is fine ?
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Shmarkus (shmarkus@mastodon.social)'s status on Monday, 07-Nov-2022 22:06:31 JST Shmarkus @Gargron the "Toot!" button works well for me. Every time I press it, my mind says "Toot" which is pronounced "Tuut" which, in Estonian, means "beep" :)
Tuut
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jrm4 (jrm4@mastodon.social)'s status on Monday, 07-Nov-2022 23:39:56 JST jrm4 now let us talk to the fine fellows creating the GNU Image Manipulation Program
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jeffeb3 (jeffeb3@mastodon.social)'s status on Monday, 07-Nov-2022 23:48:36 JST jeffeb3 -
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Pedro Machado Santa (pedrosanta@mastodon.social)'s status on Wednesday, 09-Nov-2022 06:04:10 JST Pedro Machado Santa @Gargron I bet you wrote a "Comedy is now legal on Mastodon" toot right afterwards. Right? No?
Okay, I'll see myself out.
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GM Raphi (gmraphi@mastodon.social)'s status on Wednesday, 09-Nov-2022 06:35:51 JST GM Raphi @Gargron Greatness.
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slashanon (asitwasasitwas@mastodon.social)'s status on Wednesday, 09-Nov-2022 06:49:16 JST slashanon @Gargron does the famous youtuber still support you
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Jennifer Wojcik (jenwojcik@mastodon.social)'s status on Wednesday, 09-Nov-2022 06:54:26 JST Jennifer Wojcik @Gargron It's ok. I find it rather funny. :)
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Boris Barbour (borisbarbour@mastodon.social)'s status on Wednesday, 09-Nov-2022 07:39:04 JST Boris Barbour @Gargron I am a native speaker and I just had to look up the second meaning...
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Austin Kocher, PhD 🌎 (austinkocher@mastodon.social)'s status on Wednesday, 09-Nov-2022 07:56:29 JST Austin Kocher, PhD 🌎 Amazing. LOL. I love it. @Gargron
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Amir (amirzing@mastodon.social)'s status on Wednesday, 09-Nov-2022 07:56:50 JST Amir @Gargron I go with a toot any day, instead of a poke.
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Matthew Moore, JD MPH (profmoore@mastodon.social)'s status on Wednesday, 09-Nov-2022 08:45:24 JST Matthew Moore, JD MPH @Gargron this is hilarious
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Joanne Freeman (jbf1755@mastodon.social)'s status on Wednesday, 09-Nov-2022 08:47:57 JST Joanne Freeman @Gargron ?
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David Alexander McDonald (wyldemusick@mastodon.social)'s status on Wednesday, 09-Nov-2022 09:37:29 JST David Alexander McDonald @Gargron Namor wants a word with you!
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ShadSterling (shadsterling@mastodon.social)'s status on Wednesday, 09-Nov-2022 10:09:59 JST ShadSterling @Gargron I don’t care about the difference between toot, post, share, or publish, but the misuse of the term “boost” bothers me. It doesn’t increase(boost) the weight of that post in decisions about what to show, it adds that post to the timeline of your own posts - it should be called retoot, repost, reblog, or similar
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ƧƿѦςɛ♏ѦਹѤʞ (spacemagick@mastodon.social)'s status on Wednesday, 09-Nov-2022 10:14:41 JST ƧƿѦςɛ♏ѦਹѤʞ @Gargron Maybe the button text could be a user defined option :-)
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Riteke (riteke@mastodon.social)'s status on Wednesday, 09-Nov-2022 16:17:37 JST Riteke @Gargron ?
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Gerard Braad (gbraad@mastodon.social)'s status on Wednesday, 09-Nov-2022 20:31:50 JST Gerard Braad @Gargron it is not the only place where it shows up ;-)
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Jason Hagglund (jhagglund@mastodon.social)'s status on Thursday, 10-Nov-2022 06:49:06 JST Jason Hagglund @Gargron I kinda dig it ?
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James Slezak (jslez@mastodon.social)'s status on Thursday, 10-Nov-2022 06:54:44 JST James Slezak @Gargron “Post” is really what is most in common parlance for microblogging i think - twitter even will use that in place of “tweet”. “Publish” has connotations of an article or even book
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Kevin Gamin (kevingamin@mastodon.social)'s status on Thursday, 10-Nov-2022 06:57:58 JST Kevin Gamin -
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Musique NonStop [TECHNOPOP] (n69n@mastodon.social)'s status on Thursday, 10-Nov-2022 07:19:03 JST Musique NonStop [TECHNOPOP] @Gargron I’m new, but I find “toots” charming.
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Aziz Poonawalla (azizhp@mastodon.social)'s status on Thursday, 10-Nov-2022 08:24:54 JST Aziz Poonawalla @Gargron thanks for this explanation - personally I never used the word, and likewise appreciated that the button says "Publish!" and the word isn't ingrained anywhere formally. I'm sticking to "Posts" because, in my mind, #Mastodon is a lot like self-hosted #wordpress
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Karen E. Lund 💙💛 (karen5lund@mastodon.social)'s status on Thursday, 10-Nov-2022 09:19:32 JST Karen E. Lund 💙💛 @Gargron I just hope you got a generous donation for making the change.
As for me, I prefer to toot my own horn on Mastodon rather than being a twit for a multi-billionaire who thinks free speech can be bought.
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Luke (satchpiglet@mastodon.social)'s status on Friday, 11-Nov-2022 00:59:48 JST Luke -
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The Air Whisperer (pneumofoils@mastodon.social)'s status on Friday, 11-Nov-2022 03:09:05 JST The Air Whisperer Hi Eugen !
Thanks for 'keeping it real'
- I'm happier to 'post' than 'toot' or etc...!
I've also started to 'sensi-censor' images, after learning that some viewers might be disturbed by faces looking towards them.
Would it be possible at some point to provide the image-mounting interface with a dropdown of detail labels for this purpose...?
It seems unlikely that most of the newer users will be working from the same view of 'sensitivities' that your habitual posters understand...
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Melissa Courte (shortsigh44@mastodon.social)'s status on Friday, 11-Nov-2022 18:30:47 JST Melissa Courte @Gargron @evanoconnell here’s the thread re: “toot” terminology :)