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Strangers offering unsolicited advice or derailing conversations should be familiar to all who use social media. In our new #Mastodon for Android update, we’re testing a new feature aimed to curb these behaviours:

https://blog.joinmastodon.org/2023/11/improving-the-quality-of-conversations-on-mastodon/

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Eugen Rochko
@Furball @targrus Just click "Got it" or "Don't remind me again" in such a situation.
in reply to Mastodon

happy to derail here to maybe prioritize fixing bugs, instead of feature creeping.

https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon-ios/issues/396#issuecomment-1313949488

in reply to AliveDevil

@AliveDevil That's a different app. Our update includes bug fixes though, as always.
in reply to Eugen Rochko

@Gargron
In the article there is a mention of the iOS app, so I‘m not far off-topic.
in reply to Eugen Rochko

Yes please DO some bugfixes.

After the new update, the "standard" Mastodon Android App is almost unusable.

Something seems to be wrong with the power management on smartphones or so.

I'm no expert but it almost killed my battery.

Which is much more of a "unpleasant experience" to me than strangers trying to explain something (who I can block in the worst case).

👉👈 🥺

This entry was edited (1 year ago)
in reply to Mastodon

will the reminder be shown every time a user replies to the same stranger?

If so, I'm just wondering if 2 ignore options would be useful:

Don't remind me again
Don't remind me again for this user

Apologies if I'm misunderstanding the functionality.

in reply to Connel Hooley

@connel The reminder is only displayed once per stranger. The second option disables the reminders altogether.
in reply to Mastodon

This is disappointing at best, and anti-community at worst. Spontaneous conversations are what makes the social part of the Web (and other parts of the Internet) great, and why we're here today.

If someone thinks that a person unknown to them, who replies or comments on something you post, is "a stranger offering unsolicited advice" in a negative way, then something is drastically wrong somewhere.

in reply to DJ Adams

@qmacro If it's unclear, there's nothing actually preventing you from writing your reply. In fact, clicking "Got it" takes you to the compose screen. It only reminds you you're about to speak to someone who doesn't know you, and who they are.
in reply to Eugen Rochko

@Gargron Thanks, but it's not the UI, it's the thinking behind the UI, it's the anti-conversation concept that is at the heart of what I find unfortunate about all this.
in reply to Mastodon

this is awesome, have you thought of letting people customize the prompt for folks replying to them? I think different folks have very different issues they seem in their replies
in reply to Julia Evans

@b0rk This has been discussed but it requires backend / federation changes, so for now this is not customisable as it allows experimenting with the feature quickly.
If the results are good and we find the best form for this feature (it will most probably evolve), then we might do it.
in reply to Renaud Chaput

@renchap @b0rk Another idea to consider is showing the profile text of the person being replied to. There one could say things like "Read my FAQ before replying." or "Please no advice unless I specifically ask for it."
in reply to Eugen Rochko

@Gargron
Thanks for implementing it so quickly then! 😜
I did read the blog post but managed to miss that part the first time.

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