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I've made a deliberate choice against a quoting feature because it inevitably adds toxicity to people's behaviours. You are tempted to quote when you should be replying, and so you speak at your audience instead of with the person you are talking to. It becomes performative. Even when doing it for "good" like ridiculing awful comments, you are giving awful comments more eyeballs that way. No quote toots. Thank's
in reply to Eugen Rochko

This exact feature is why I am enjoying Mastodon much more than Twitter. There was always a lot of angst and the whole "ratio" thing didn't help. Without a QRT-like feature, I feel encouraged to talk to the actual person, or if I don't like it I can mute or just go on with my day. Obviously I would report something that goes against the rules or is outwardly harmful, but if someone disagrees with me on favourite programming language, Mastodon encourages a discussion instead of a fight
in reply to Eugen Rochko

I like the idea, but I'm not sure if this upholds in practice. Many people taking and posting screenshots of the messages they indirectly replying to, even on platforms that have a quote feature.

Maybe people will use that even more often on Mastodon to workaround the missing quote feature.

in reply to Eugen Rochko

wow, interesting take, never seen it that way. well reasoned.
in reply to Eugen Rochko

Understandable choice.

Still, I think it's wrong.
Preventing users from something they want to do by technical means will not change the culture.

What you will get is exactly the behaviour that you had on Twitter: People just quote anyway and do it manually. The extra effort is certainly worth the benefit.

So, essentially you are only annoying the users with some extra effort without preventing anything.

in reply to Eugen Rochko

oh this is a server thing that admins can enable/disable? Curious, is there a list of features like this?
in reply to Eugen Rochko

This is an interesting perspective I hadn't appreciate before joining.

When Twitter added the ability to limit replies, it was often the only way to get the last word in. And it can be useful to contextualize a position when you want to share something you disagree with.

But ...the hit-and-run snark is by far the most common and least healthy engagement made for it. And I'm coming around to the position that it's too toxic to be worth it.

in reply to Eugen Rochko

I like consideration being given to what might cause bad behaviour
in reply to Eugen Rochko

this makes me very happy. "isn't this awful?" QTs just spread awfulness.
in reply to Eugen Rochko

I get you entirely
Not being able to give a little "you should check out this art that I think is really cool" makes me a bit sad, but then you can just make a toot after the boost and it's all good
in reply to Kuntie Plopkins

the server I am on doesn't have full search enabled - you can search people and hashtags, but not just anything. Is that why it's not working?
in reply to murad

You can only search for hashtags or usernames on Mastodon.

I think this is partly due to technical constraints, but also due to privacy/abuse concerns.

For example:

On Twitter, if someone criticises Elon Musk they may get Musk fans suddenly appear to defend Elon.

But on here, as long as you don't use a Musk-related hashtag, the Musk fans will never know about your Musk critique.

in reply to Kuntie Plopkins

Just write it in the search box and click search!

If there are no results, it may be that your server hasn't "seen" the user before. This happens a lot with very new accounts from other servers.

If this happens, ask the owner of the account for their full Mastodon address (this is the bit that says @ USERNAME @ SERVER on people's profile pages). Copy and paste the full address into the search box, and this will make your server "notice" the user..

in reply to Kuntie Plopkins

type the name in the search box - if it exists it should show up like this
in reply to Kuntie Plopkins

The search box is the link at the top with "Search 🔍 ", is that what you are asking?
in reply to FediTips has moved!

when I click the search icon I get this & it doesn't let me type anything in the box
in reply to murad

Is that in the web interface? If I search for "cats" I get this - accounts that have "cats" in, a message saying that posts can't be searched and a search of hashtags
in reply to Kuntie Plopkins

The "searching by content" refers to searching your own posts, not Mastodon in general.
in reply to Eugen Rochko

no quotes for answers, no hearts for likes and no fascists around. I'm like 🤞🙏
in reply to Eugen Rochko

well need the quote to add hastags to things. maybe we cloud add only this.
in reply to Eugen Rochko

What's about the coneccetd toots, if someone wants to expand an opinion - thessis ?
in reply to Eugen Rochko

Makes sense. Is it possible to get a plugin or something, to remove Greengrocers' apostrophes? 😁
in reply to Eugen Rochko

I hear you and get all the downsides, but a way to explain why I am boosting a post would still be very helpful indeed.
in reply to Eugen Rochko

I agree with this approach. As others have mentioned it is possible, however by making it less discoverable you lower the likelihood of the "piling-on" effect that other platforms are plagued with. IMO - there are plenty of other things that the #FediVerse should work on finding solutions for.
in reply to Eugen Rochko

ok, i will therefore NOT quote your "thank's" which should be "thanks."

thanks.

in reply to Eugen Rochko

> inevitably adds toxicity to people's behaviours

The word "inevitably" tells me this isn't true, and my own use of quote tweets, and the people I follow on Twitter using Quote tweets shows how important they are.

You can certainly decide what you like and don't like on your own platform, but please don't make statements which are demonstrably false.

in reply to Eugen Rochko

100% agree for the exact same reasons, the quote tweeters audience often does not read the other persons or gets their thoughts on it colored by the quote tweeter and does not attempt to give a fair understanding.

I have used them sometimes when calling out historical misinformation, but really better ways to do that.

in reply to Eugen Rochko

I see the performative aspect for quote-sharing as a new top-level toot, isn't it still interesting to quote-sharing a toot A as a reply to a toot B, to link the two discussions together?
in reply to Eugen Rochko

So rare to have such a based person in tech, taking good decisions not motivated by the religion of money. Thanks.
in reply to Eugen Rochko

thanks. This was one of the worst features of the "competition"; too often QRTs were abused as an excuse to belittle and ridicule people and it got depressing to see so much.

God I don't miss that place.

in reply to Eugen Rochko

Well we have reblogging/boosting. And in a way we have quoting in form of sharing the url to a post.

I also agree. Drückos suck.

in reply to Eugen Rochko

I see the intention behind it but still it is some way to control how people use communication and the fact that it has ben misused often does not purely justify to solely abandon it.

and yes - I also used it to speak to "may audience" often - but mostly to prove some posts wrong with adding facts directly to the related post

sometimes it was to agree on posts by adding additional information to it and/or reactions which gave also the original poster more value

just my 2 cents

in reply to Eugen Rochko

Thanks for explanation. I've been missing that feature, but I see the wisdom of your choice now!
in reply to Eugen Rochko

good decision. You can still reply and boost your own post to make it more visible.
in reply to Eugen Rochko

I was just answering a question that multiple new people asked me, it's not like I *just* made the decision. Didn't expect this toot to blow up of all things haha. This has been my position since that feature was requested for the first time more than a year ago
in reply to Eugen Rochko

1. Is this your individual opinion or do other developers also agree on this? Sounds like something the dev-team should at least agree on, otherwise the community should.

2. There are two different approaches to quoted tweets.

One is the one you describing, people harassing others using this feature.

But the other approach is not toxic. It's the way people use quoted retweets with news tweets and public (e.g. political) figures. People who want to tell their followers what they think about the tweet they quoted. If they reply under the tweet, it will be difficult to find, also for their followers. Quoted retweets/post also appear on the default user timeline.

💡 Therefore I advise to create a opt-in quoted posts feature. With a text like: 'are you a news outlet or a public figure, offer your followers the option to quote your posts.

in reply to joene 🏴🍉

I absolutely agree in what @Gargron says, but to answer your first question: This is a platform decision not a fediverse decision. If you disagree with that decision, you are free to choose another platform like Hubzilla i.e. There is no boosting but quoting only.
And as it still is the fediverse, all this platforms communicate with each other.

In the fediverse you are not only not bound to instances, but also not to platforms and coders decisions. 😀

in reply to grischa

The way you say this doesn't come over very nice. 'If you don't like it, go somewhere else.' That is what I get from your reply. I'm not a developer, but a long time Mastodon (and even Hubzilla) server owner and translator. So I'm completely aware about the Fediverse. You don't need to lecture me about that.

I was only asking if this was something @Gargron decided on his own or that the developer team decided it collectively.

in reply to joene 🏴🍉

Sorry, I didn't meant to sound rude. English is not my mother toungue. I only wanted to point at the fact, that there are more options if you don't like something (and that this is something good!). 😀
But if you know Hubzilla that well I don't understand your first question? Mikes decision on boosts and quotes was different and he explained that, too.
@Gargron
in reply to joene 🏴🍉

FWIW, English IS my mother tongue, and the reply seemed sincere and helpful to me.

Especially as I'm new here, stumbling around wide eyed, trying to hoover up the new concepts.

in reply to joene 🏴🍉

Yes... often the OP isn't going to be interested in my .02, but one wants to credit the source and not copy/paste as if we thought of it ourselves.
in reply to joene 🏴🍉

Is it though?

In the other place, the algorithm generally shares your tweets to your followers, but not your replies.

I don't think it's like that here, (unless a post is 'followers only' , some discussion of that here: github.com/mastodon/mastodon/i…).

Here, I think, replies are as visible as a boost would be.

Aren't they?

in reply to joene 🏴🍉

Well, I have circumvented this by using the "Share-contents of post" feature, and often, and my reply/thoughts about the original post appears on top. #Mastodon #QuoteTweets #QuoteToots
in reply to Eugen Rochko

but you could implement the Mastodon emojies. :mastoblush:

I would change their hair to purple. :mastovampire:

in reply to Eugen Rochko

the alternative which will replace quote tweets will likely be screenshot+link+comment. It's certainly less elegant.
in reply to Eugen Rochko

This is probably the way to go. Nearly every time I've been QRTed on birdsite it's been to criticize. Criticize me to my face, not to your followers.

If someone wants to criticize me by replying to my post and then retweeting it, fine. At least I had the courtesy of a reply to me.

in reply to Eugen Rochko

i often used quoted tweets at Twitter to quote myself, mainly for technical topics that required long threads. Now in Mastodon I wouldn't like to repeat myself once and over again.
in reply to Eugen Rochko

@floppy And thank you for not adding a quote feature! The difference between Twitter and Mastodon is like night and day. (I also became a Patreon supporter recently!)
in reply to Eugen Rochko

@Eugen 💀 you have a point. Still, I used this feature to quote a tweet that was the first in a thread and then add some comment like "this thread is long but it's worth reading", or the translation of the tweet i a different language. I miss the quote feature
in reply to Eugen Rochko

Respectfully, that feels as if it's based on a very early perception of quoting. It's now mostly used for highlighting and previewing something we want to talk about or comment about which the follower can see adjacent to your remark at a glance. And the engagement they generate is are far larger than mere replies, likes or RTs of something (which are not visible to the follower unless they focus to inspect them).
in reply to Eugen Rochko

you might be right. I haven't really studied the consequences of quote tweets, but in my feed the majority of QT's are positive.

People wanting to bash others either subtweet or do screenshots of the tweet in question instead of quote tweets.

in reply to Eugen Rochko

I think this is good. Thanks for sticking with this philosophy!
in reply to Eugen Rochko

at the very first I had not understood.
Then I very quickly felt so relieved by the absence of mocking, judging, cynicism that the “quoting feature" seems to imply.
in reply to Eugen Rochko

Dit antwoord op een veelgestelde vraag, hierboven, schreef oprichter van Mastodon in 2018
in reply to Eugen Rochko

a great decision, allowing, promoting way better communication.
thank you.
in reply to Eugen Rochko

I appreciate this and tout this as a feature that is worth switching for. Mastodon is about conversation with one another.
in reply to Eugen Rochko

One of my favourite #mastodon features is the absence of the quoting feature.
in reply to Eugen Rochko

I think this is a good idea!
I'd like to respectfully disagree about ridiculing awful comments being good, though. Even if the comment you are ridiculing is genuinely immoral, it is still toxic.
in reply to Eugen Rochko

people is going to start using the good old "RT@random: toot // <--- this guy knows nothing" as if it were Twitter in 2010.
in reply to Eugen Rochko

So... What about the fact that people can just go "last repost" and do it without even a link?

With a proper QRT, you can at least allow setting up privacy for that...

in reply to Eugen Rochko

One of the issues that Twitter ran into is that the users performed certain interactions despite the tooling, and those took off before Twitter followed with better UX in the app. For example, hash tags threaded tweets.

I would wonder if quote retweets still happen with a slightly different mechanism. ie : RT: "Copied Text" or screenshots.

in reply to Eugen Rochko

you're actually right. i was looking for an "RT" function, didn't find one, so i replied to the thread. Came to the realization organically before reading this toot.
in reply to Eugen Rochko

My problem with this explanation is how it ignores whole use cases, for when you want to talk about something someone else raised without derailing the conversation already happening around it. Multiple reply threads have some serious issues too.
in reply to Eugen Rochko

thank you for that. Coming from twitter, the difference in discourse is noticeable and it’s great to see that some intent and thought went into that.
in reply to Eugen Rochko

I've always felt that quote tweets was one of the early turning points of interactions going downhill on Twitter, and I'm glad we won't be seeing quote toots around here 👍🏾
in reply to Eugen Rochko

But you can retoot and then reply for a similar effect. Except the original author is in on the commentary. Interesting distinction.
in reply to Eugen Rochko

I cannot emphasize how much I appreciate this kind of thinking.

Thank you for being a light in these dark times.

in reply to Eugen Rochko

I think this is great insight and great product development. On reflection, this is exactly what that feature causes in my own behavior, so I'm glad to see principled product guidance here instead of blindly copying just because.
in reply to Eugen Rochko

that’s one thing that really annoyed me about twitter. Everyone misunderstood the quoting feature. It’s supposed to be for discussing a subject resided int he quoted tweet not replying. All the twitter fights I got into were quoted people getting angry at me for having different opinions.
in reply to Eugen Rochko

Understanding the mechanics of quotes in social networks is really important. We need to raise awareness, so that the lack of it on mastodon won't be perceived as a negative factor. It's a feature 😃. We all benefit from.
in reply to Eugen Rochko

interesting….that’s probably smart. We’re all so used to twitter LMAOOO #twitterefugee
Unknown parent

mastodon - Collegamento all'originale
Rebecca
Indeed it is, but that's not the same. QTs still notify the author. The point isn't to be so off topic that you want to quietly discuss something w/o the author (though that's also useful ofc), the point is to not disrupt reading.
Unknown parent

mastodon - Collegamento all'originale
Jody Lemoine 🇨🇦
Ah! Now there’s an observation. I totally missed that. Thanks. There are still use cases for quoting when boosting things beyond the fediverse, but this will work well for stuff within.
in reply to Eugen Rochko

I would like this to be configurable, as I use quoting mainly to provide context to boosting someone's work. Off by default, or only allow quote-boosts from people you follow? Some sort of compromise like that would be nice.
in reply to John Conway

I agree - like taking an extract from the article they link to. Would it be possible to have a quote function, but for the original poster to be able to erase any quotes that they don’t like?
in reply to Eugen Rochko

good choice. On the other side, the proof of your point is there to grab. It's everywhere, weaponizing trolls against people.
in reply to Eugen Rochko

Agreed. A subtle but oh so appreciated non-feature. Thank you.
in reply to Eugen Rochko

@adamdavidson thank you! This is one of my favorite things about Mastodon (and one of the things I dislike the most about Twitter)
in reply to Eugen Rochko

it's a good decision. For whatever reason QRT became the "hey look at this asshole" function and overall a negative way to interact.
in reply to Eugen Rochko

Never thought about it that way but you make a strong argument. I support no quotes.
in reply to Eugen Rochko

I actually like this, I admittedly would behave out of character due to that feature. It also sent mobs after people through quote tweets from large accounts. This keeps people responsible, and maybe a bit kinder.
in reply to Eugen Rochko

I was wondering and kind of like that it is on purpose and not just "didn't bother". 🤗
in reply to Eugen Rochko

as if manual rt wasn't how retweeting started in the first place...
in reply to Eugen Rochko

So we're prevented from quoting other posts just because some people use the function negatively? Retweets began as just the letters RT before a copy-and-paste. What's to stop people from doing that again here? Absolutely nothing. Except that it's clunky and just having the ability built-in would be much more sensible.
in reply to Eugen Rochko

but quoting does work well if it’s a thread being amplified
in reply to Eugen Rochko

This is fascinating. I'm a big fan of quoting personally but I can fully understand why you've chosen not to include it. I wonder, with Mastodon being open source, whether we'll end up with a fork with someone implementing quoting as it's so popular. Potential compatibility across federated instances of forked versions may lead to interesting times.
in reply to Eugen Rochko

But quoting IS replying. It's simply including the thing being referred to so people don't have to seek it. A bare reply is often ignored. If someone wants to abuse, they will, but I've never see it done by serious people. Perhaps we can have this debate on a #tag to see my point. I'm fairly confident most Twitter alums will agree.

#QuotedPostsOnMastodon

in reply to Shoq

As this image should make clear, whether @BarackObama, @kathygriffin, or @ifilljustice, serious users know that quoted tweets is an important tool for sharing via social networks.

#QuotedPostsOnMastodon

in reply to Shoq

@Shoq you don't need mastodon to support. Fruendica supports it and people can still follow you from mastodon
@Shoq
in reply to Shoq

@Shoq you don't need mastodon to support. Friendica supports it and people can still follow you from mastodon
@Shoq
in reply to Eugen Rochko

I’ve requested it a few times and while I understand the rationale I very much want the ability to see a post, boost the post, and say something about it ie “here is why I think this is interesting” and get engagement from my community.

Maybe that is a different mechanism to avoid the negative behavior. Forward + comment sort of. Which is what I wind up doing manually.

Thanks for taking the time on this entire project.

in reply to Eugen Rochko

Thank you for making this choice. This is why I find Mastodon so refreshing 👍
in reply to Eugen Rochko

This gave me a different perspective on how to interact here, including this reply. Thank you.
in reply to Eugen Rochko

@osc Yes, and people can reply and then boost/RT their reply anyway! Much less toxic

I've never understood the QT feature, it also makes many convos unreadable when it's repeatedly used

in reply to Eugen Rochko

My audience has context, there’s a long history of shared humor. Replies only have local context.
in reply to Eugen Rochko

this reasoning makes sense to me - I miss it because I often use quote tweets to "yes, and," as in "this thread is good and I want to jump of it to talk about something related but I don't want to clog up the author's mentions or crowd their mic." But linking can still be used for that the same way I'd link to an article etc
in reply to Eugen Rochko

Some people are toxic that way, it's true. But seeing that is often just a good way to spot a toxic person. Limiting otherwise valuable functionality isn't such a great way to restrict toxicity as implementing quality of life features like block, mute, the ability to leave conversations etc. Most of the time a straightforward retoot should be enough, mind.
in reply to Eugen Rochko

this is so thoughtful and progressive. Makes total sense to me.
in reply to Eugen Rochko

this is something I like very much. I like that the system encourages talking to (tooting to) the author of a toot, not talking about them to some anonymous audience. Which I didn’t even realize I did so much. Thank you.
in reply to Eugen Rochko

Thinking about it, and your reasons...I think you are right. And I thank you.

For me, I used the quote-tweet do amplify and emphasize issues I face as a woman in tech+art+science. But we can all find other ways to amplify/boost in more healthy ways.

The challenge for me, sometimes, is that it's hard to form words to explain why something really resonates for me. And that is what I used quote-tweet for. With my comment being "This!"

in reply to Eugen Rochko

Thinking about it, and your reasons...I think you are right. And I thank you.

For me, I used the quote-tweet to amplify and emphasize issues I face as a woman in tech+art+science. But we can all find other ways to amplify/boost in more healthy ways.

The challenge for me, sometimes, is that it's hard to form words to explain why something really resonates for me. And that is what I used quote-tweet for. With my comment being "This!"

in reply to Eugen Rochko

it's interesting because if this was on Twitter, my first reflex would to quote your post and add something like "that's an interesting take, what do you guys think?". Not all commentary need to be toxic, although I definitely see where you're coming from. QRT can be a way to redirect the discussion toward your community, so I will definitely miss this feature a bit.
in reply to Eugen Rochko

Good decision! Agree! I like that the instance I'm on doesn't even have DMs which means less private toxicity, too.
in reply to Eugen Rochko

I was just thinking about the lack of QT here last night and it makes so much sense.
in reply to Eugen Rochko

But.. I’d love to say something POSITIVE about the posts I share… explain why I like them and why I think they’re important? One of the best things about the birdysite?
in reply to Eugen Rochko

often I use both for the same tweet.
But I suppose I am not very "toxic"
in reply to Eugen Rochko

At the same time, the programmer soul in me that's a bit Libertarian thinks "Why the heck?!", but the empath sees the wisdom of what you are saying. I think I have rarely seen quoting used as a mechanism to constructively continue a conversation, now that I think about it. 🤨 Most often as a tool to decontextualize speech. 🤮 Smart! 👏🏻
in reply to Eugen Rochko

I’m not certain I agree with the idea that it will, of necessity, lead to toxicity, but I’m new here, and must admit to ignorance of other ways to do things. Ie. I could be blisteringly wrongheaded. In any event, happy to learn a different way to do things that has obviously been working for hundreds of thousands of people for years now.
in reply to Eugen Rochko

Every time I find Mastodon "missing" a common Twitter feature I ask myself if this feature is really missing, or if I'm trying to bring something to Mastodon that the curators and shapers of Mastodon culture explicitly don't want here.

This one is an opinionated position, and... I think I like it?

Hand rolling a QRT is not impossible here, but a lot of friction is added, and "healthier conversation" alternatives are easier to do. I'm going to "reply and boost" this!

in reply to Eugen Rochko

That actually makes a fair amount of sense… It‘s making me reconsider my Twitter behaviour. I mostly quote-tweeted to „add value“ I suppose, & add my own perspective to the debate, as opposed to simply re-tweeting
in reply to Eugen Rochko

I love that decision. I think it reduces the ease of performative toxicity.
in reply to Eugen Rochko

Is there any chance a federated server might be able to add it as a local feature?
in reply to Eugen Rochko

I think this was such a wise and wide ranging decision! Congratulations! And thank you!
in reply to Eugen Rochko

provides context on the design choice. A counter point is overlapping audiences who may be interested in the topic, and where the quote is tangential to the original toot
in reply to Eugen Rochko

This is an interesting perspective. I'll ponder it. I'm inclined to think not all quote boosts are evil, ill-intentioned, or inherently destructive, and in the event they are, maybe there are other controls available. But it's a valid position.
in reply to Eugen Rochko

I truly like not having a quote a toot feature and agree it's toxic, instead of engaging a person. I still have a hold over saying "account" which imho dehumanizes the person sending a toot. Thank you for not having quote a toot available.
in reply to Eugen Rochko

interested in the potential this has for doing exactly as you suggest. Might end up being a worthwhile trade off. Always, always, always being willing to revise is how we stay vital, I reckon
in reply to Eugen Rochko

Attempting to control social media behavior by removing features seems like trying to design a language in which you are unable to articulate bad thoughts, and just as doomed to failure.

Recall that Twitter did not invent RTs and QTs, users did.

in reply to Eugen Rochko

Excellent logic. Quote replies are the worst. People will screen-shot them and so on, but there's no reason to make it so easy and normalized.
in reply to Eugen Rochko

never had the bird app, seeing stuff like this makes me think I made a great choice to be here though 😀
in reply to Eugen Rochko

This argument makes sense to me, though from experience on the bird app, I would sometimes use "quote" to highlight a post from a different community to my own followers, with a personal message why I consider it important. I might also, for example, translate a post from German or Finnish to my mostly English-speaking followers.

Maybe making "quotable" optional could be an idea? But I also accept the idea that we need to use mastodon differently than what we may be used to.

in reply to Eugen Rochko

appreciate the thought and insight that provides context to a bold decision...we shall speak as an individual to provide information and context
in reply to Eugen Rochko

i detested the quoting feature on twitter, used to parsphrase and spin others words, and mock people sickened me
in reply to Eugen Rochko

found this initially hard as an academic who’s used to summarising the importance / relevance of a post as I re toot. But replies work fine too… I know you’ve moved mountains for us newbies this last month 🙏 … but cheeky request would it be possible to have access to GIFs in longer term ?
in reply to Eugen Rochko

That's one of the biggest problems I have with the #birdSite, which I think is about to become WAY more performative.
in reply to Eugen Rochko

I've written this elsewhere, but I suspect with correct moderation tools, we could solve the pile-on problem whilst still having quote toots.

E.g., if a quote toot, allow reporting for misuse / abuse, and then provide a means to disable quoting for a user for a time period / indefinitely, and only allow quoting of public content

Additionally, education can help change the message here: act bad & you loose the privilege. Potentially even "disable quotes" as a setting.

in reply to Eugen Rochko

Well then we're just going to have to get around it by posting links to the toots we're remarking on, aren't we?
in reply to Eugen Rochko

I love this. Choices like these are what distinguish Mastodon from “it’s the bird app, only I’m in charge.”
in reply to Eugen Rochko

I agree but didn't think I would at first. Replies are treated as first-class-citizen toots here so it isn't really an issue. You gain the same effect without forking the conversation.
in reply to Eugen Rochko

Thank you so you so much for continuing to choose not to build this feature into this instance.

I like Mastodon as it is. I don't want it to become "New Twitter".

Besides, if one needs to "quote toot", then they can take an image and type in what it says on the image description.

I consider that level of effort gives a person time to decide if it's true, helpful, important, necessary, and/or kind.

in reply to Eugen Rochko

not sure I agree with this yet, but I think it’s a bold stance and I’m willing to give it a shot
in reply to Eugen Rochko

Thank you, this is a really great explanation. I don't suppose you have you a more complete set of musings about your design choices?
in reply to Eugen Rochko

completely agree!

Letting the users choose (as suggested in one of the replies) might be a bad idea since many of them are coming from the blue bird and just want to see the same features as overthere.

in reply to Eugen Rochko

Although I’ve usually use the Twitter quote tweet to push a thread to Threadreaderapp without clutter the tweet’s timeline, your approach is helpful in providing an informational firebreak to reduce abusive behaviour. (Thinking about ethics of thread captures & documenting references. Good, bad, Ugly.)
in reply to Eugen Rochko

when I quote-tweet on Twitter, it’s usually a “Hey followers, here’s why I think you’ll be interested in this” thing.

Is there an equivalent here?

in reply to Eugen Rochko

never thought of it that way but wow that is extremely accurate. Thank you!!!
in reply to Eugen Rochko

what about the recent bird app trend to screenshot and post? It’s even worse imo as Qt at least made you aware this was happening
in reply to Eugen Rochko

I actually highly agree with this choice. As someone who has had numerous people quote tweet me to be snarky on replies, I really do think it’s better to keep the conversations ON the original posts. It creates a better sense of community. It also increases the likelihood someone will follow who you see boosting.
in reply to Eugen Rochko

I've never really understood the antipathy to quote tweets. Some good tweeps, such as the venerable Michael White, do it all the time.

It has a whiff of the religious war.

But.

Your game, your rules.

Anything that gets us away from an algorithm explicitly designed to promote urgent emotional engagement (which means stoking great and hatred) is good.

in reply to Eugen Rochko

I really appreciate this point of view; honestly hadn't really thought of it that way, but it really hones in on my frustration with the bird app -- perhaps migrating here is a chance to alter that habit of mine.
in reply to Eugen Rochko

Twitter’s algorithm gave weight to quote tweets, and users got hooked on the practice.

No need for it here.

in reply to Eugen Rochko

Everything is performative my dear. Especially all these ‘rules’ from people about how to use the platform
in reply to Eugen Rochko

Sounds like a great issue to open up for community governance. I respect a lot the effort that you've personally made to build Mastodon, but I find it problematic that decisions for whole ecosystems are made by individuals. these should be participatory decisions.
in reply to Eugen Rochko

Normally I know, when I want to speak to audience and when I want to talk to a person. I do not like these kind of judgments. But it's your SW, I am only user.
in reply to Eugen Rochko

good choice. That feature was easily one of the most significant contributors of toxic behavior on Twitter
in reply to Eugen Rochko

even when someone wants to quote their own post?

e.g. I may have created a reference thread on a topic, I should be able to quote it into a new thread.

in reply to Eugen Rochko

Excellent. As a recent migrant I keep getting the urge to quote-toot, but I’m realizing the many ways that quote tweeting has contributed to the hellish and abusive environment of Twitter. Thank you.
in reply to Eugen Rochko

@mxtthxw - who boosted Eugen's post.

You gotta know he's muted that thread *years* ago and none of the recent commentators are talking to each other. Just to him.

All just replying to the thread, including only Gargron as a CC, and he definitely has it muted. Surely.

They're not even replying to each other.

I guess some people must be reading recent replies. I skimmed a few.

Quote-tweet function is not up to Gargon of course.

If you want it you can have it!

There are Mastodon forks that include it, and there are other ActivityPub systems which use it too!

You can even embed a post from mastodon in another mastodon post if you just copy/paste the URL of that post.

Are they doing the Fediverse equivalent of a quote-tweet, and doing a reply which they themselves boost?

The three randomly recentish ones I looked at hadn't done so.

So i guess not.

Unless you check their instance you'll won't know. Your local instance just might not have seen the boost. I sampled only three.

Anyway. What I'm saying is, almost everyone talking on this thread is talking to /dev/null right now except you and me. Coz I actually included someone who hasn't muted it yet.

And nobody else will see it unless you boost it.

@INPC
in reply to Eugen Rochko

Seems sensible.

Contrast the other place, where people have the option to block replies (PPE against toxicity), but not to block QT (Elimination of toxicity).

in reply to Eugen Rochko

Yet another reason found why quoting is actually a useful feature:

When I have a toot in a different language, it would be great to quote the original toot as a reference.
Starting a discussion in a completely different language within the existing thread makes no sense and is just annoying people.

in reply to Eugen Rochko

it does reduce the performative aspect of quote tweeting. Something we've all be prone to!, but talking to someone is hard more significant.
in reply to Eugen Rochko

I always added my take when QTing and you're right – that's performative, not a discussion. Never thought about it this way!
in reply to Eugen Rochko

very different thought for lots of newcomers, but I'll give it a chance.
in reply to Eugen Rochko

Makes perfect sense now I think about it. I think it is what helps make this platform what it is
in reply to Eugen Rochko

Too bad. I just wanted a great Toot booster with the phrase "a good one". For something like that, quotes are still great.
in reply to Eugen Rochko

Your argument is valid but i think it seems not thought to the end.
AFAIK here on Mastodon IT IS welcomed to boost content from others - and sometimes you just want to add your own words to that.
May be to present this to your audience or to classify it or to show your (dis)approval.

I personally often want to boost a post, but at the end i do nothing because i don't like to present it "blank" (without my opinion).

Quoting does not necessarily have to be used in a negative sense!

in reply to Eugen Rochko

I am not sure whether this is a good decision, users who miss this functionality may be less inclined to switch from Twitter to Mastodon or stay here in case the situation at Twitter evens out.
in reply to Eugen Rochko

Speaking to your audience is an important feature in social spaces and while quoting has its pitfalls, it has immensely good uses in previewing/summarizing content you want your audience to engage in(threads, gofundmes, important announcements, etc). Performativeness, or even dogpiling, will happen regardless of features available.
in reply to Eugen Rochko

Lol, it's funny you call that 'doing it for good'. I thought that was one of the worst things, spreading toxic tweets for everyone to see with a snarky comment. So much negativity.

I only miss it sometimes when I want to add some context to a tweet about how it relates to my own life or why I find it interesting. Like boosting a tweet about a book and adding what I liked about it. But there are workarounds, I can live with this.

in reply to Eugen Rochko

Ааа, так вот почему на Мастодонте нельзя цитировать. Чтобы если уж сраться, так хоть не за глаза.
in reply to Eugen Rochko

For the newbies missing quote-reply: the lack of such a function is in fact a deliberate design feature of Mastodon.

#Newbies #MastoTips #QuoteReply

in reply to Eugen Rochko

this makes sense to me and I appreciate the thought behind it.

Related though, as a new user I find myself wishing that boosting was more like Reddit "upvotes" than Twitter "retweets."

Is there a way to separate people's "real" posts from the posts they've boosted?

in reply to Eugen Rochko

I don't agree with you 100% but I totally get where you're coming from.
in reply to Eugen Rochko

I guess you can still link to toots if you really want to. A bit of friction in that process isn't a bad thing.
in reply to Eugen Rochko

I think a nice compromise would be giving individual users the ability to opt in or opt out of functionality like quote tweets or allowing their posts to be findable by search. Another option would be allowing users to quote their own tweets so we can link related posts visually
in reply to Eugen Rochko

Thank-you. This is one of the many subtle design differences that is making my first week here a welcoming experience. Good job.
in reply to Eugen Rochko

please do NOT reconsider this stance from four years ago just because of the Twitter implosion.

This subtle yet hugely consequential difference is one of the lessons that should be learned from Big Socials' destructive, vacuous decisions.

If people want to gossip, they can screenshot, etc. - make them do the work, a second to reconsider. Please don't let that behavior infest the entire pool.

#twittermigration #twitterexodus #twitterexit #fediverse #quotetweet #quotedpostsonmastodon

in reply to Eugen Rochko

I actually never use it like that. I use it to add context to a retweet, to praise amazing work, to say why I like something vs just boosting it. Not having it is a big missing features for me.
in reply to Eugen Rochko

Wow, you have thought this through - great! You also articulated well some of the reasons quote-posts get on my nerves. All I could think of was, the quoter took over, commandeered the situation. And they made it all about themselves.
in reply to Eugen Rochko

I had similar thoughts recently. I wanted a quote function, but then I thought about it and about my experience on Twitter. Best not to have than IMO.
in reply to Eugen Rochko

the main thing I saw it used for on Twitter, was provide the source of information. Something that a lot of people demand if you are going to be "qualified" for any proper debate. Otherwise it's just random people making random claims
in reply to Eugen Rochko

100% that! This was a tool used by toxic ppl with huge following to encourage pile ons.
in reply to Eugen Rochko

I feel you are overlooking the usefulness of quotes. I have used quotes on Twitter to qualify WHY the content I was retweeting was worth looking at.
Simply just retweeting content may make people overlook the importance of said content. However, if you retweet content and write a qualifying comment such as "This is a very strong observation, because…" etc., that has real value.
I agree with you, the feature can be abused, but would you not agree almost all features can be abused?
in reply to Eugen Rochko

Frankly, I love having the architecture explained to me. It helps understand the nature of this terrific creation. Thank you. And bravo.
in reply to Eugen Rochko

Great argument! Thanks for keeping the culture of Mastodon a priority.
in reply to Eugen Rochko

originally i thought this was dumb but i’ve since come around and began to appreciate not having QRTs
in reply to Eugen Rochko

I take your point and thank you. I mostly used quote posts to pick out and highlight quotes from articles that might invite people to read the piece instead of ignoring or skimming over it. Sometimes headlines don’t convey the most important/witty/thought-provoking bits.
in reply to Eugen Rochko

You persuaded me. I’ve seen it countless times on the bird site that someone quoting a tweet with a comment like “look at this awful post/person”

After reading your toot, I felt that such quote-retweet might be adding toxicity. If one saw something disgusting, the better way maybe muting or blocking, instead of spreading it with quoting.

Thank you for your explanation for why you’re against this function. And thank you for your great work at #Mastodon

in reply to Eugen Rochko

I agree. Reply to it. Boost it. Or say something original.
in reply to Eugen Rochko

i kind of like the quote tweets but this is totally convincing. The reasonable uses are fine to sacrifice if it discourages the negative uses.
in reply to Eugen Rochko

Thanks for banning that. I hate the conversations based on RT + "ironic" comment showing how much better you are than the quoted person.
in reply to Eugen Rochko

this is probably my single biggest issue with this platform. maybe 10% of quotes get used like that, every other time it's either to boost engagement while providing commentary, to get more people involved in a discussion while not necessarily endorsing (as reposts are often interpreted), or just to ask a question that's too tangential to the original post

quotes don't crush discussion. they promote it.

in reply to Eugen Rochko

I disagree that quote posting automatically or even frequently leads to toxicity. I have never experienced that on Twitter (but I kept a clean timeline). I think boosting is more invasive: blasting someone they don't follow onto their timeline without any explanation feels rude. I often want to share fun or interesting posts BUT with a little intro or commentary for context. I really miss quote posts.
Questa voce è stata modificata (3 anni fa)
in reply to Eugen Rochko

Agreed. Quote tweeting was the single most toxic thing about Twitter, plus it magnifies and platforms stupid. The "dunking" was pervasive and harmful.
in reply to Eugen Rochko

I disagree, and while I might like my followers to know that I disagree, I very much doubt that you give a crap whether or not I do. Is that toxic? Is that performative?
in reply to Eugen Rochko

That, and the fact that all that extra load required to render the post *within* a post en mass is probsbly not a good idea performance wise...
(I don't like how #misskey / #sospbox implements #quote, and have yet to see a good use of the feature. ever.)

Why is it so hard to copy portion of a post + link anyways ?

Ppl are flippin lazy

in reply to Eugen Rochko

that explains a lot actually. If it’s a bit harder to make nasty comments and ridicule people then most will just be lazy and keep going. Making it easy limits the opportunity to rethink the comment and check your attitude a bit.
in reply to Eugen Rochko

a lot of the people who seem to want QT the most are very performative on Twitter.
in reply to Eugen Rochko

@ChrisMayLA6 but you have also used a system that means users don’t see all replies which makes conversations quite disjointed. So how much of this really is about conversation quality ? Could you not just have at feature but the original poster have a a setting “unquotable” the same way they can make their posts unlistable ?
in reply to Eugen Rochko

Danke Eugen. Mir fehlt diese Eigenschaft hier nicht und ich bin voll und ganz hinter dir bei dieser Entscheidung. ❤️
in reply to Eugen Rochko

makes sense. I pretty much blocked anyone who quote tweeted me to argue. It felt like it was never in good faith and was going to result in a pile on.
in reply to Eugen Rochko

thank you, its unnecessary and a tool of mob harassment. I can't believe people are demanding a tool that only came about 5 yrs ago and has been abused ever since
in reply to Eugen Rochko

absolutely the right choice. I wanted to quote tweet the other day, but realised exactly what you wrote: I wanted to converse regarding, not add to, the toot. So I replied instead (don't remember if I boosted, but I absolutely could have done that too.)
in reply to Eugen Rochko

As a migrant, I agree. Just reply, go into discussion. I am only a week here and it’s the best social media experience I ever had, and I had many, since BBS were a thing. No need for quote toots whatsoever.
in reply to Eugen Rochko

If it means that much, they can screen capture. In that case some context explaining it should be expected.
in reply to Eugen Rochko

yeah but then folks end up screenshotting and using that as a quote post. That’s gonna eat resources on object store. There’s gotta be a middle ground here, maybe implement it similar to a CW? And then allow users to filter it out? We’re gonna see forked client and server implementations even if you don’t like it.
in reply to Eugen Rochko

There’s a huge amount of discourse out there now with, in particular, #BIPOC people making what I think is a pretty solid case for uses that are absolutely not toxic.
What’s interesting is that to me, this is in ways no different than quoting a section of an email - pointing out that I’m addressing a specific comment.

mastodon.social/@Gargron/99662…

in reply to Eugen Rochko

there should be a quoting feature. Like anything else it can be used properly or improperly. Abusus non tollit usum.
in reply to Eugen Rochko

I miss it a little, to boost, replying sometimes feels too invasive, however great choice - let’s see if this helps lower negativity!! It’s super fun to have something different, yes with no quotes, and with different boundaries and challenges and people to learn from in different ways — loving it.
in reply to Eugen Rochko

I don't get it, but I usually don't understand what people who put apostrophes in words like "thanks" are talking about.
in reply to Eugen Rochko

Some of the Twitter accounts I’ve valued the most, like the historian Heather Cox Richardson, could not function without quote tweets. They use them to provide context and commentary while making the source immediately available. There’s got to be ways to manage the dog piling behavior spiral while allowing quoting, at least of accounts/posts that consent to be quoted.
in reply to Eugen Rochko

I just feel like there has to be a better solution. Not having the ability to bring a conversation to your own followers while adding your own context really limits the reach any conversation can have here. Like, maybe not allowing conversations to ever extend past their initiator is worth the trade-off, but it is a pretty huge trade-off, I think.
in reply to Eugen Rochko

I agree with your justification. Quoted retoot(?) feature is kind of redundant. It does have the potential of original message being hijacked.
in reply to Eugen Rochko

We just can't boost this enough. We don't want Twatter. We want Mastodon. People that want QT have alternatives. Do not destroy Mastodon.
in reply to Eugen Rochko

I read the reference to *performative* in @gargron 's comment in the context of #discourseanalysis (and in complete agreement, as I've also noticed this use of QT in structured practices in social platforms that intended to be incendiary). It seems a wish for performance, hopefully of a more benign kind, is also what drives the renewed interest in QT (in 2022). But benign or not, this is playing with fire. In that context, I think I can see gargron's point.
in reply to Eugen Rochko

While this (replies) isn't a quote, I'm not sure how it's different, given the issues you stated (how we address our audience and giving things eyeballs)
in reply to Eugen Rochko

Good points. I didn't realize how quote tweets created this sort of toxicity until I came here.
in reply to Eugen Rochko

How does quoting posts add more toxicity than comments? Any statistics or research on it? Seems to me like a personal opinion. It would've made sense for the instance admins to enable/disable but not implementing such a crucial feature is disappointing.

I like quoting posts sometimes to provide additional context or reasoning as to why I am boosting it but that's missing here.

Recently tried #MissKey and liked that it has this feature.

in reply to Eugen Rochko

I always liked quoting as a way to intro people who follow me to something that has a particular rather than generic interest. E.g. this isn’t just an interesting post on coding but one from a not-so-well-known author I know has some particularly relevant experience.

Is that performative? I suppose I think it’s a way of adding a little value above just passing the post on.

Not a big deal and you obviously have thought carefully about it but I don’t think it “inevitably adds toxicity”.

in reply to Eugen Rochko

I literally just replied with practically the same argument to someone else. What’s wrong with boost and reply? It’s one extra tap. One. Unless the goal is to make it all about you. Oh wait…
in reply to Eugen Rochko

got this toot from a blogpost by nerdschalk.com/how-to-quote-so…. Its a good decision, IMO
in reply to Eugen Rochko

That feature is what makes Twitter toxic, in my opinion
in reply to Eugen Rochko

and because you have made this deliberately impossible, others find ways around you. congratulations.
in reply to Eugen Rochko

I really wish you'd change your mind on this. While quote posting CAN lead to toxicity, it's also an important way to share post with your followers and add your own to it. It can and does also lead to positive interactions. And the reality is, I can accomplish the same thing with screenshots but that won't give the original poster the opportunity to join the new conversation. Sadly, I think not having this is holding Mastodon back.

#QuotePost

in reply to Eugen Rochko

I would be interested to know, oh supporters of quoting, why you can't just boost and reply?

But I am also kind of surprised that quoting is considered to be toxic, when boosting and replying is not?