@Gargron i have a tendency to seriously abuse the quote function on twatter as many others do so yeah, good call

@Gargron lindissimo falou tudo

@Gargron that's actually the smartest thing ive ever read thats srsly amazing twitter could never :toot:

@Gargron Very much appreciated, Gargamel. 👍

@Gargron Funny thing, I already can do the same in Mastodon: toot my message with a link to the original toot. I don't need to notify the author of the quoted toot, anyway.

It may be not as visually clean, but it works.

@Gargron very beautiful said everything

@Gargron now im reflecting and yes quoting can be really toxic bc it can lead to a wave of ridicularization of what people say or show on social media i use it a lot there (not in this way of couse lol) so it will be missed but i can fully understand why

@Gargron I am a fan of your approach 🎩

@Gargron This is a good decision. More than just spreading bad ideas, quoting encourages snark instead of sincerity. It's so toxic on twitter in part, I believe, because of quote tweets.

@Gargron quote rts was one of the most toxic things to happen to twitter. it was a real tipping point into nastiness!

@Gargron hey this policy actually fuckin rules

@Gargron linda falou tudoo

@Gargron Thank you for the well considered decision.!

Quoting is the equivalent of talking about someone to others while the person is standing right there. It's condescending and juvenile.

@gargron people'll just screenshot anyway, and at least with quote toots someone KNOWS what's being said about them; with screenshots, it's all behind the back

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

@Gargron but what is a boost, if not a quote?

@Gargron Can I just thank you? It bothers me when people quoted my bird site post to alert their audience that my opinion was stupid. It could be used for replying to a common question which you want your entire audience to see (if you're a YouTube content creator for example), but other than that, it just makes the site worse.

@Gargron the funniest tweets are still the one quoting another

@Gargron
What I would want a quote feature for is to say "@third_party you will like this" without bothering the original poster with the extra ping of a reply. What do you suggest as an alternative?

@Gargron I've never thought about that, but you are right. That's what we all can see in Twitter actually.

@Gargron
Though I disagree with you, I respect your decision 😏

@Gargron what abou a DM????

@Gargron But it is very useful to translate messages, so you can share things you read in an other language.

@Gargron
I'm not sure I agree. Quoting wasn't a problem in the Usenet days IMO.

@Gargron
Good idea.
I want the option to always see the the toots on my TL. None of this "see more".

@gargron The main reason I'd like to boost+quote is to be able to, for example, boost a cosplay picture and tag a friend so they get notified about it (while also sharing it with my followers).

What's the proper way to do this on Mastodon?

(From anyone; I'm just not sure :)

@Gargron I don't know that this will achieve the desired result, but I appreciate that you're trying, that you're thinking about what makes people adopt toxic behaviours. Thank you.

I think one of the biggest challenges is signal:noise ratio. When I read Twitter with RTs hidden (thanks, Twidere) it isn't all that bad.

@Gargron @maloki the only toots i ever usually quote are my own

@Gargron I had no idea it was used this way.

@gargron

>a deliberate choice against a quoting feature

>it inevitably adds toxicity to people's behaviours

JUST KIDDING LOL

@Gargron People tend to use images to accomplish that... or so it my experience anyway. A quote would be a boost where you would be able to explain why you boosted a post.

I still find it as a sensible decision. Even if it is just a tiny bit more cumbersome to add an image. That tiny bit might just be enough to limit the use of it that way.

The biggest reason though why we don't see much of that kind of shit on Mastodon is the culture of the network.

@Gargron: I've made a deliberate choice against a quoting feature because it inevitably adds toxicity to people's behaviours.[...]

(https://mastodon.social/@Gargron/99662106175542726)

I think that a "reply with quote" could be sufficient middle ground.

@Gargron eugen our savior

@Gargron If applied as it is on birdsite, I find it makes following conversations much more difficult as it severely messes with threading. So unless you're willing to dig back into the history, post-by-post, it's easier to simply take the person's word that they're not taking things out of context.

So both from a useability and toxicity point of view, quote-toots would be a bad idea unless done in a dramatically different way.

@Gargron really good idea. I think it may only fail for bots. Example: I follow a bot that autoposts articles from a big newspaper and want to talk about one of the articles with my followers. Replying will not put the post in my main timeline and the bot will also hardly engage with my toot.

@Gargron

*takes screenshot*

*pastes in new toot*

Pfft what a tool

@Gargron thanks for clarifying your position on this. In my experience operating my own personal and professional project Twitter accounts, I have found quoting to be an indispensably useful tool. Particularly in the professional context, my usage of the feature is entirely constructive.

Under what conditions would you reconsider the implementation of quote toots? If a correct PR were put together by others than yourself? If that PR had overwhelming support by Mastodon users?

@Gargron i see, but what's the best way to add a personal comment to a toot, that you wanna share with your network? link to the toot? copy it?

@Gargron @amenthes That may answer your question you had a few days ago

@Gargron I agree

@Gargron 'performative' is not an illegitimate function to those who 'entertain' with social network not just commune or communicate

@Gargron That's indeed smart logic. Thank you for being such a mindful leader. #UnderHisEye

@Gargron that is what I thought your reason, for not allowing it was. Good reason imo

@Gargron I do this on the bird site and I need to stop. I appreciate that it’s not here

@Gargron thanks for being so mindful! 👍

@Gargron very good decision.

@Gargron you are right, people tend to overdo quotes on Twitter (myself included), but isn’t that more of a UI problem than anything else? I mean, even if the official UI won’t support quoting, what will stop 3rd party client from introducing it to their user base?

@Gargron I would like to quote and express my appreciation

@Gargron this is such a quotable toot. #Irony

@gargron *quotes* I like this.

@Gargron Eugen when can we have smooch toots?

@Gargron i don’t understand. Since when do people think about ways to make things not be terrible?

@Gargron I miss the good uses (eg: quoting to highlight some detail I love in someone else’s work), but I love that you’ve made this decision for the reasons you have. I don’t miss the bad faith, performative quoting and the trade off seems worth it.

@gargron will I get a federal ban if I screenshot this and rant on it for 30 toots?

@Gargron It's way healthier. Also, why do people want a twitter clone?

@Gargron A+ #1 awesome

@Gargron I like that. Conversations over performing. Yay. Well, maybe a little performing. I can’t lie.

@Gargron I agree ! :agree:

@Gargron I appreciate the explanation. It helps me understand the logic, but also thinking through how I've used quote tweets in the past.

@Gargron I respect that. Used to use it so I wouldn’t clog up the person’s feed with my comments and at the same time share the person’s points with my friends. Would rather the feature not exist if it means preventing toxicity.

@Gargron In my experience, RTs on Twitter were abused far more than quotes. I saw people RTing things all the time that were alarmist or reactionary. The single-tap retweet allows people to propagate stuff thoughtlessly, and my Twitter experience got a lot better after I turned them off.

Quotes tended to be more thoughtful—they forced people to think a bit before speaking and explain, “this is why it’s relevant”. That makes them HARDER to abuse, IMO. Would MUCH rather have quotes than retoots.

@Gargron This is a really bad take. Like, tremendously bad.

Managing the behaviors is a way better solution than removing a legitimately useful feature.

@Gargron This is awkward when I want to translate a quote. I guess we'll figure out a workaround.

@gargron thank you so much. I get the possible positives of quote-posting but the reality of it is exhausting and harassment-encouraging

@Gargron Hear, hear!

@Gargron This is the approach recommended by Spolsky back about 15 years ago for the same reason. It should be recognized as a best practice.

@Gargron This is VERY well thought out, and makes me re-think the way I was using Quote on birdsite.

@Gargron What about the scenario “boost and add info/context”? Often I want to explain why I am retweeting something and do so in the same tweet. Quote works well for that.

@Gargron oh my god, Thank you so much for that.
Something funny about that feature on YA is that I actually use it for crossposting things right here!

@Gargron : well, I've checked my Twitter account and I mostly use this feature to explain to my audience why they should go read a thread of tweet.

@Gargron Quoting is natural inclination when someone do not get reply mechanism at the first place. Once someone learns replies and how to follow them then there is no need for quoting. Hence, my belief is that this decision is good but in the same time there shall be some explanation somewhere on how to use replies and more... how to view them. Something that can be easily quotable in the messages when detected that some user do not get it.

@gargron i like this. Good explanation. Thank you.

@Gargron Fair. Takes some getting used to, but I mostly used quotes to boost stuff rather than criticize.

@Gargron
Cool

@Gargron I don't reply anymore. I just mute or block.

@Gargron I like your reasoning. From a user point of view, it’s always more difficult to lose a feature and have to adjust without it, but your explanation makes a lot of sense when I think of my Twitter experience.

It's really a drop in the bucket of "things that were wrong with the birdsite" but quote tweets were one of many MANY things that just weren't thought through. The dunking culture just because unbearable. (I am guilty of perpetuating it at times. It was just so damned tempting.)

@Gargron I can understand your reasons. TBH I used them more to provide context and examples to my points, often quoting myself or people who agreed with me. But I can see how it contributes to toxicity.

That said, I'd be super interested in the feature if you'd ever reconsider.

@Gargron
Mostly agree, though quoting also allows people to comment & talk with their mutuals while not getting in the OPs face. E.g a friend boosts a comment saying "this is the best movie ever", you might want to respond to the friend saying "oh, that surprises me, I felt x (something your mutual usually hates) was a problem", but saying that to the OP, someone you have no relationship with, would be kind of obnoxious.

@Gargron Thanks for the explainer.

What do you suggest doing in the case I want to interact/reply with the author, but I ALSO want that all my followers see the convo.

Does the .@ (reply with a dot) work over here?

@Gargron There could be a problem of people taking screenshots of texts and commenting on them anyway. So this is kind of like a quote but in my eyes even more problematic, because the quoted account doesn't get notified. So there is no chance for them to see it and to respond appropriately (like answering, blocking, or reporting). I see your point quotes can lead to problematic behaviour but out of this 2 bad alternatives maybe it is the less bad?

@Gargron You are so right about this. I keep thinking about how terrible quotes on Tweeter are and coming back to this toot.

@Gargron that seems to be the way it is used on Twitter much of the time (not all) - have you ever considered a quote function wherein they're restricted to particular instances? i.e. I can only quote a toot of a user in the same instance as me & it only shows up in the said-instance. The instance could even choose to disable the feature if it wants

@Gargron interesting point. Does make sense for sure.

@Gargron makes super sense. Thanks for clarifying. @DilliDurAst

@Gargron Right decision.

@Gargron this is an excellent policy

@Gargron Appreciate your point of view.

@Gargron that's super cool really. Hate people quote tweeting with emojis instead of RTing on that birdsite

@Gargron thanks for making it about conversation and not about grant standing. Kudos!

@Gargron This feature on twitter would have saved @sanjayuvacha 😜

@Gargron 👏 👏 👏 👏 👏

@Gargron 👍

@Farzivakeel

@Gargron This sounds like there is just one person deciding what should and shouldn't Mastodon-the-software look like. I'm curious to what extent that is true.

@Gargron 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

@Gargron 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.

@Gargron this is a good call and I think about and appreciate it often