It seems the solution is to allow a user to choose whether to be quote-posted, perhaps down to a post-level.
That has implementation hurdles, I’m sure, but I think we should try to build it right this time.
That’s literally what they’re doing:
For starters, Mastodon says it will allow users to control whether their posts can be quoted at all. This would protect people from being the recipient of unwanted attention or hateful replies to some extent. (Though, arguably, people could still screenshot someone’s post to circulate it more broadly if they intended to troll the user.)
In addition, users will be notified if someone quotes them, and they’ll be able to withdraw their post from the quoted context at any time. This latter option could help in the case that someone’s quote post goes viral, and the original poster starts to receive too much attention or even abuse, forcing them to reconsider whether they want their post to be quotable at all.
Oh, well then that’s good. Yay Mastodon!
I think you’d need a little more than that to make sure the restriction isn’t used defensively by harassers (one of the reasons people ask for this is to show others bad behavior in their replies). But it does feel like a solvable problem.
And Mastodon having more active moderation (since you can proactively look for an instance that meets your moderation expectations) also means the stuff that can’t be handled mechanically can be managed.
Can someone please tell me what a quote post is? Maybe I’m blind but I don’t see an explanation for what it actually is anywhere.
It’s a good way to be pedantic on social media.
It’s like a repost, but it lets you add your own post to it and shows the original post as a quote bubble.
It’s like a repost, but it lets you add your own post to it and shows the original post as a quote bubble.
So like this?
Or like this?
It’s like a repost, but it lets you add your own post to it and shows the original post as a quote bubble.
Wow, stop being so controversial
X does it more like the second one, but there’s nothing stopping mastodon from doing it like the first.
Is it just that it links back to the original or what? I mean how is it different from just quoting the post like this:
It’s like a repost, but it lets you add your own post to it and shows the original post as a quote bubble.
And then saying something about it?
The bubble would be the actual post itself, you know? Like having the full post within another post. Similar to what you just showed but clicking the bubble brings to to the original post.
Right. I guess I just don’t understand the use case since I’m used to comment trees (like here on Lemmy) and you’re never confused about what someone is replying to since the comment being replied to is always just right above.
It’s used in the context of a micro-blogging platform where your feed consists of individual posts that don’t show the whole comment thread. If I replied to a post on mastodon, my followers only see my post on their timeline unless they click on my post to see it’s context. A quote post can be used to present someone else’s post to your followers, with whatever you want to say about it.
at first i was again it, but there’s no action on mastodn, it’s a very slow closed system, and quote toots might open it up
It’s a good feature that’s only controversial because it was used on a shitty platform
It was part of what made the platform shitty…
As others have already pointed out, you can literally get the same result by using images as quotes. People could’ve been shitty even without the quotation feature because it’s not the feature on the platform that makes it shitty, it’s the people on the platform who decide to use it for a shitty purpose.
Not implementing a feature because morons may abuse it is not justification for not implementing a feature. It’s like saying we shouldn’t be able to reply to comments because someone might use that feature to directly send you hateful comments. Now, if the features primary purpose is (or primary use case ends up being) to use it negatively, then sure it shouldn’t be implemented. But I don’t see how quotation falls under this exception. In my eyes quotation is a net positive.
It doesn’t turn the platform shitty and if there are good moderators it also prevents assholes from trying to turn the platform shitty.
Good. I get why they were originally resistant to it, but fringe, outlier situations can be dealt with when you have actual mods maintaining things. The reason quote-retweeting was used so heavily for bullying on Twitter was because there were no repercussions for it, and Twitter never enforced their bullying rules for the practice. Mastodon instances have their own mods enforcing their own rules, to a much better degree than Twitter ever has. While the potential for bullying still exists, it’s far easier to mitigate on Mastodon.
I’m so confused. How would quoting someone’s words bully them? Maybe I’m not getting something. You’re talking like I say something on mastodon, you quote what I said, with me attributed to the quote, and that bullys me? Or am I missing something? I feel like I’m missing something.
(This is an example.)
Get a load of this idiot! They can’t imagine how quoting someone can be bullying!
Omg howd you do that without a quote feature remove images from mastodon
Haha, what a bozo! Now we’re going to relentlessly shit-talk them in this sub-thread that OP has no ability to moderate nor stem the flow of vitriol from.
(Further continuing the example.)
The quote isnt bullying at all. Its your own post using words like idiot ect. Thats abusing which again has nothing to do with the post below it. A mundane version of that post wouldnt be as controversial and most likely be roundly ignored.
Might as well just remove the ability of people to post. That will fix it
You have to think of it from a micro blogging perspective. Imagine I have a ton of followers and have created a culture of them attacking anyone I attack. It makes more sense how it is bullying in that context.
Edit: Also, to be clear, I’m not arguing against this feature, just explaining how it can be used for bullying.
Again, it’s the attacking which is the simple rule breaking and it’s regardless of how. Good god talk about over analysis.
Break it more than once and account suspended.
Aren’t Mastodon instances maintained by volunteers in their spare time? I can’t imagine how they manage to continue moderating it once there are ten thousand or millions of users on it. At least the moderators on Twitter were paid. It was their job. I think people massively underestimate how much work this is.
That’s true, but I don’t think we’ll see that sort of rapid growth on Mastodon. At least not for a while. For now, Bluesky is sucking up most of the users seeking Twitter alternatives. I imagine that the growth will be slow enough that it’ll be easy enough for mod teams to scale up to.
Also mastodon instances not named mastodon.social are still relatively small.
Most instances will stop allowing new accounts to be created when it reaches a certain size that gets difficult to manage (hardware and moderating-wise). They self-regulate that way, and instances that get out of control will just be defederated by the others.
Submit feedback and pull requests to improve the feature to make it much less controversial.
Other fediverse platforms have had it for awhile. Not sure why so many feel so stuck with Mastodon. There are alternatives.
Much needed feature
Then we can finally get people to write
Don’t subtoot me bro
Is that the controversial part?
RIP mastodon
As much as I love the Fediverse, it’s amazing that Mastodon users see this feature as a threat. By the way, any decent app implemented quoting years ago.
What’s wrong with quote posts?
quote dunking I guess?
If I infer from context clues, quote dunking is commenting disparagingly to frame the quoted tweet? I left Twitter in like 2011.
I’ve never heard the phrase but I’m 10000% positive that’s what it means.
90% of interesting tweets are quote tweets they lead to the twitter version of chainthreads
Bluesky has a feature where you can stop someone from quoting your post if you don’t like what they are saying.
Yeah, but how effective is it really?
I’m glad they’re adding it; I also hope that they take Bsky’s ability to detach yourself from the quoted post too.
They will have that it’s in the article
