 Last night, I got really frustrated about Mastodon's lack of comment control. To me, this feature is an absolute must -- and is critical to community safety. So what did I do? I looked for it on other Fediverse platforms! Then I found that it existed on Streams (see screenshot). When I mentioned that this existed, devs from Epicyon and Pinetta told me that this is a feature they're developing too. Moral: if something doesn't exist on Mastodon, the Fediverse might still have it! 5 comments
To be sure: asking for comment control on Mastodon is fine. Just like asking for QTs on Mastodon is fine. But the problem with feature requests is that you get people incessantly asking, "Why do you want to have this?" And then they pick fights with you on why you're wrong to want it! When I suggested comment control on Mastodon -- back in November -- it got so heated, some dude followed my other threads to mock my autism. Mastodon has too many gatekeepers! One of my biggest frustrations with Mastodon is that too many people -- often who aren't developers -- try to control what I can and cannot do. Quite often these people aren't aware that there's a bigger Fediverse world outside of Mastodon. These gatekeepers can't control what features are available outside Mastodon. Not that they can control features inside Mastodon either -- but they seem to be under that illusion anyway. It's important to normalize the following words: "Hey, Mastodon doesn't have that feature? That's okay! Here's an alternative to Mastodon that has it -- and you can use that alternative to talk to Mastodon!"  @atomicpoet I suppose it doesn't work well with other platforms though. I would expect it to just silently drop incoming comments and it would be massively frustrating. Am I wrong?
But yes, ability to close/restrict comments is something badly needed. Some people like open comments to followers only. |
Gregory's Server
Some folks might ask, "Why not wait till Mastodon adds that feature?"
Because I don't want to wait.
I want it now.
I've already added this as a Feature request in Mastodon's Github months ago:
https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/discussions/21444
The great thing about the Fediverse is that I don't have to wait on Mastodon to give me what I need.
That's because alternatives to Mastodon exist on the Fediverse.