@SamYoung841
This toot is a perfect example of why I would like to have #QuoteToots. They'd allow me to share & support posts with additional thoughts, why they mean something more to me than "just" a boost.

https://mastodonapp.uk/@SamYoung841/109529034871895178

#BlackHistory #BlackMastodonn

Agree totally. Not having a quote-boost is very frustrating and I don't buy any of the reasons given for why it's somehow good that I can't quote boost. It mostly feels very patronizing "you'll just dunk on people we know how you are"

I mean, why not let everyone quote boost and take it away from anyone who abuses it? Or just block those people.

If individual users can opt out of being quote boosting WHERE is the issue?

I think volunteer admins shouldn't have to *take* access from people who abuse something that really is designed for abuse. Being able to conveniently take credit for sharing something someone else did is unhealthy for the public. There's a simple way to #boost voices. Why insist that it is necessary for others to add a comment before sharing? Or is that the only reason to share?
Reply to the person who posted. Encourage others to do the same. It's #community

And I think people who claim QTs specifically encourage or "are designed for" abuse should provide solid evidence of that notion. Have any experimental evidence of that? Or have you just "seen people do it"?

Because I've seen people being brigading assholes on Twitter years before QTs were a thing there.

I think people who demand 'solid evidence' rather than doing the work to learn for themselves just want to reply before having anything new to say. You said you like QT, I say they were used to abuse me in the past and I like that they don't exist here, and that in my experience we are better to just let the original person get the replies and the boosts and reboosts. If you like someone's picture that doesn't automatically mean you should be able to write on it

How is being able to block people from using QT on your posts not sufficient?

We could even make it an opt in rather than opt out system.

Humans are easily manipulated, especially when we think we are in control. QT encourages people to pile on even if they don't mean to. It enables taking someone else's picture and putting a concept to it that is counter to what the originator wanted *their* work to say, and it rewards people for adding something easy to the hard work someone else did. Just bc we WANT to say something on top of someone else's post, doesn't make it welcome. Reply if you are interested in conversation

Even if it is anecdotal or a lived experience, some supporting evidencen is needed to support such a broad and sweeping generalization.

And you could have learned about this by checking out things I've already said, but because it was inconvenient to you, I needed to repeat it all. So you wouldn't have to read a profile or view past toots.

Convenience kills communities. Take the effort to get to know people and have a real conversation. Don't just QT and then pat yourself on the back because you found something clever someone else said or did and shared it. Just boost it for *their* sake, if you are able.

But I've noticed that things I boost and reply to (and even if I re-boost my own reply as well) do not get as much attention as they would if I had used a quote to put it in context.

The alternative that is tempting (especially for images) is to simply copy the image to my own post, say what I want about it and link back to the artist or photographer. But, this isn't as nice for them as a quote so *I* won't do it.

But others will. It's one of the reasons the feature exists.

These toots don't get buried the way twitter deliberately buried things that were less profitable. If people are willing to be assholes, they'll be assholes. Making it easier to be an asshole isn't the solution. Lifting up other voices without adding your own to get as much attention as they would if you could QT. If everyone lifted the original instead of quote tweeting their own opinion attached to it, the original will shine just fine on its own. I see old toots ALL THE TIME.

If someone can add something to my post that makes more people care about it, they deserve the attention because they have shown more people why it matters.

That could be done with a single word.

Or a whole essay.

This is an interesting discussion, and I haven't formed a strong opinion yet.

I used #quoteTweets quite a bit on the other site; here, it's more work to reply and gets me less attention, but it also feels more like a sincere conversation and less like a soapbox.

I didn't think I had an opinion since I saw the abuse at Twitter as a twitter thing.
But after being here a while I realize how differently people behave when it isn't so easy to be an asshole on a whim. It's much more time consuming to form a genuine connection than to QT something easily and quickly. And that's the genuine beauty of it.

People here aren't that different. A different population, more academic-- but I've still been attacked here with just the most blatant racism.

Moderation is what helps with that. Not keeping people from quoting tweets.

And once more:

You really do not know what is best for me. You aren't protecting me or helping by restricting how my posts are shared.

What is wrong with an opt-in system? By default it's off but if we want to be quoted by others we can turn it on?

Moderation is key, and reporting any racist toots, any hate in general, is absolutely critical.
And once more:
Bringing Twitter to Mastodon is not necessary for building community. Community happens in real life when people have real conversation, and when we help others raise their own voices up. It's easy to do that here, as well. Reply and boost.
The rest seems like clinging to a familiar but flawed methodology because it's what we know.

OK a modest proposal.

The people who attacked me used replies. Replies are in fact used in *most* attacks by the far right. More than 90% I'm certain.

Therefore, we should get rid of replies because being able to reply to a post lets racists attack me. Mastodon is NOT twitter. Twitter has replies so Mastodon should not. Very logical.

If you choose to deliberately misunderstand, or rephrase my words to make me sound stupid, the conversation normally ends.
I give you the benefit of the doubt that you are sincere, and just understandably frustrated.
The entire premise of QT is based on feeding people's worst impulse - attention seeking.
Racists ruin ANYTHING which is why instances need to be held accountable when racists show up.
Saying we should get rid of reply because racists might reply is disingenuous.

I don't believe that the entire premise of QT is based on attention seeking; that's what I find so frustrating about the QT discourse.

I can see the harmful uses.

But it's just *true* that there are also non-harmful and valuable uses that aren't really captured by boosts+replies.

The other day I just wanted to quote-post someone talking about their 36 hour cinnamon roll journey with "I am thinking about making rolls using the steaming method" and instead of either summing up what they said, or running the chance that my readers will have no context and be unwilling to click into the link...I just didn't engage. And that happens frequently.
I think the interaction we lose is far weightier than potential issues.

If I were in that situation, I would boost their toot and then reply to them about the steaming method. If I really wanted to encourage my followers to click the link, I would then post something along the lines of “I just boosted a link to a great cinnamon roll making method, although I would steam them,” or whatever contextually made sense in that instance. Slight adjustments can lead to engagement

Yeah, I've been doing that. But after thinking about it for a long time what I really miss about quote boost is the feeling of collaboration. Of making a mash-up. Combining my ideas with art, or seeing someone give the perfect line to make one of my drawings into a hilarious meme.

By making posts these isolated articles that are more difficult to contextualize it's hard to create something NEW that is better than either post would be on its own.

May I know why are you boosting your own replies to other threads?

@boynux If you don't boost your own replies they will never show up in the feeds of your followers. This was also true, but to a much lesser extent on twitter. The only people who will see the reply are the person you replied to, anyone who was tagged or anyone who goes clicking down into the conversation.

Thanks for taking time to reply
You can choose your replies to be public or unlisted. If unlisted they won't show up on other instances but public's would. But overall isn't it the intended behavior of replies? As they are not much useful out of context.

@boynux I believe followers see all posts except for "mentioned people only" and then filters get applied afterwards (including the option to mute boosts). True for vanilla mastodon as far as I know.

Have either of you played around with other types of fediverse software? I've been poking into friendica but nothing interesting to share about it yet that's relevant to this discussion.

I'm running Pleroma instance, it's pretty low maintenance and light. Tried Mastodon but didn't like it, primarily because it's bloated with lots if resources intensive software and services. Go Green 💚

Also have account in Pixelfed and Bookwyrm both have ActivityPub implementation.

Haven't tried Froendica yet, thanks for mentioning it, will check it out.

@futurebird

To your original comment, yes, you are correct. So the only way to avoid spammy boosts here is to mute, but that would be a disadvantage that we lose all the boosts. But no better option at the moment.

@futurebird

Yes, Froendica is written in PHP, can't be better than Ruby. Thanks, but no thanks 😉
@futurebird

@boynux

Haha, I don't share your language preferences. At the risk of opening up a can of worms could you share your top point(s) about why you prefer Ruby over PHP?

I was told by my Friendica admin that it is is low resource and easy to self host. I agree that if you don't need the computing resources better not to consume them.