The apostrophe 's is an act of violence against proper grammar. =P

@Gargron wow, interesting take, never seen it that way. well reasoned.

@Gargron
Totally with you on this one Eugenio.

@Gargron

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.

@Gargron good decision

@Gargron oh this is a server thing that admins can enable/disable? Curious, is there a list of features like this?

@Gargron 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.

@Gargron I like consideration being given to what might cause bad behaviour

@Gargron Seems like a good choice. Thanks.

@Gargron I’m using quoted retweets a lot to add (positive) commentary to a discussion point. Retweeting and then replying to that retweet is not very effective. Sure, it can be abused - but so can every other thing. I really miss something like quoted retweets here 🙁

@Gargron totally agree!

@Gargron in favor🙌🏼

@Gargron this makes me very happy. "isn't this awful?" QTs just spread awfulness.

@Gargron 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

@Gargron I can't get the search function to work

@Gargron no quotes for answers, no hearts for likes and no fascists around. I'm like 🤞🙏

@Gargron this is the correct take.

@Gargron „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“

Ok!

😄 Just needed an example.

@Gargron well need the quote to add hastags to things. maybe we cloud add only this.

@Gargron What's about the coneccetd toots, if someone wants to expand an opinion - thessis ?

@Gargron Makes sense. Is it possible to get a plugin or something, to remove Greengrocers' apostrophes? 😁

@Gargron but you can also spread good ideas, don't you?

@Gargron 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.

@Gargron totally agree

@Gargron I really appreciate this explanation

@Gargron Totally agree with that!

@Gargron 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.

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

thanks.

@Gargron

> 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.

@Gargron 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.

@Gargron I typically use quotes as a means of adding commentary to a retweet. But I see your point. It is performative most of the time.

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

@Gargron I think that turned out to be a very good choice!

@Gargron 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.

@Gargron 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.

@Gargron 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

@Gargron Thanks for explanation. I've been missing that feature, but I see the wisdom of your choice now!

@gargron

The people at twitter who created the quote retweet think the quote retweet turned out to have made twitter a much worse place to be.

“The biggest problem is the quote retweet,” Goldman told BuzzFeed News. “Quote retweet allows for the dunk. It’s the dunk mechanism.”

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/alexkantrowitz/how-the-retweet-ruined-the-internet

@Gargron good decision. You can still reply and boost your own post to make it more visible.

@Gargron I agree.

@Gargron @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!)

@Gargron 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).

@Gargron Fwiw I always saw it as a way to credit the original post while staying out of the reply thread. A way to use the original as a jumping off point for a new post, maybe tangential, without hijacking the discussion or being argumentative. I understand how it can be co-opted but it doesn’t seem especially geared toward abuse. I don’t see it as a “problem” that’s it’s not here, but…

@Gargron Interesting, are you the sole arbiter of such things?

warum es kein Quoting in Mastodon gibt

@Gargron sad but true.

@Gargron same here.

@Gargron amen to that

@Gargron Very good choice :) It keeps the virtual conversation in a flow and streamline. It is a very respectful to write people and not about them. It creates much better conversations. Thank you very much. 🙏🏻

@Gargron This post is toxic behavior, denying user's a feature because you refuse to listen to them! Great way to highlight why a lot of FLOSS software has trouble with wide spread adoption!

@Gargron maar alles is performative

@Gargron 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.

@Gargron I think I really like this.

@Gargron ah it makes sense. It’s true that QT often bred toxicity.

@gargron accepted^^

@Gargron I think this is good. Thanks for sticking with this philosophy!

@Gargron excellent point and excellent design choice

@Gargron 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.

Dit antwoord op een veelgestelde vraag, hierboven, schreef oprichter van Mastodon in 2018

@Gargron
a great decision, allowing, promoting way better communication.
thank you.

@Gargron
I appreciate this and tout this as a feature that is worth switching for. Mastodon is about conversation with one another.

@Gargron One of my favourite #mastodon features is the absence of the quoting feature.

@Gargron 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.

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

@Gargron 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...

@Gargron 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.

@Gargron I support this decision

@Gargron 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.

@Gargron 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.

@Gargron 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.

@Gargron 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 👍🏾

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

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

Thank you for being a light in these dark times.

@Gargron 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.

@Gargron 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.

@Gargron @shanselman people will just screenshot, then.

@Gargron
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.

@Gargron Thank you Eugen. Don’t give toxicity a place in the #fediverse

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

@Gargron Eyeopener 👍

@Gargron Very Good chiite indeed

@Gargron very good choice indeed

@Gargron ...but but but Misskey has them

@Gargron ...but but but Misskey has them

@Gargron 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.

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

@Gargron Agreed. A subtle but oh so appreciated non-feature. Thank you.

@Gargron @adamdavidson thank you! This is one of my favorite things about Mastodon (and one of the things I dislike the most about Twitter)

@Gargron this is one of the BIG things of why I like it here

@Gargron I love this. Thanks.

@Gargron no thank you!

@Gargron @supergrrl7 check this out

@Gargron Thanks for that. The QT function is the main driver of toxicity over at the Bad Place.

@Gargron Making decisions is nec and good. Decision made, fair enough. But I can't help but point out that the justification for it is full of holes. Sure quoting can be used for ridiculing awful comments (I wouldn't call that good btw), but it can also be used to avoid pulling replies off-topic, muddying the discussion. I often used quoting to give people their space and avoid confrontation. There are also great features in Mastodon that can be abused. Tech is just a tool.