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Technology Connections

(one last one last point)

Another thing I want y'all to know - the reason I've been boosting my replies to annoying folks lately?

It's to try and give a signal to those folks *and others* that I find that behavior unacceptable.

That is something this platform desperately needs - like it or not, some of the features of other platforms allow the crowd to signal what's good and bad. That is its own form of moderation. Like giving digital side-eye.

Its absence here isn't all good.

27 comments | Expand all CWs
Pxtl

@TechConnectify I think there's a subtle difference between Masto and Xitter: in X, you'd get notified if somebody retweeted a reply. So if you retweeted your own reply in an argument, it looked egotistical. Masto doesn't treat likes/retoots of toots that are replies to your toots as worth notifying about, so I'm much more willing to use the "retoot" button on my own replies to put them into my followers' feed.

I still think they should make that more visible and explicit tho.

gudenau

@TechConnectify I figured that was what you were doing, some instances do have that feature but the Masto project doesn't want it because of its history of abuse on other platforms.

I'm not sure that's a good reason anymore given people pile on either way.

Technology Connections

@gudenau I'm glad you figured that out.

A whole lotta "just ignore them!" folks don't seem to understand that they're asking me to ignore a wasp nest as the wasps keep stinging me.

The nest needs to be dealt with.

immibis
@gudenau @TechConnectify Mastodon is stupid for that. Pleroma gives me a lot of features that were deliberately excluded from Mastodon, like search.
Cris

@gudenau @TechConnectify what feature is being referred to here? I've only occasionally ever used twitter, so I'm kinda only familiar with how things work on mastodon

Edit: for anyone who didn't catch it in the discussion thread, it seems like they're referring to quote tweets

Aaron A Brown 🌱

@TechConnectify i'm not social aware enough to parse the dynamics of 'the ratio' but it seems to be a big signifier of derision elsewhere, is that a related mechanism to what ypure trying?

2xfo

@engarneering @TechConnectify
On Twitter, the Ratio was your retweets divided by your replies. The expectation is that people commenting without sharing means you've angered them

Most of what I've seen on Mastodon in the last year tells me that it's probably not a great metric here, but maybe we don't have enough celebrity due to the issues raised above.

old man and the cbowns

@TechConnectify was thinking about this over coffee, idly hoping the reply-guys wouldn’t scare you off the platform. I think those boosts are perfect: it’s a way of expressing a social norm to your followers (and I think most of us agree with you!) so keep ‘em coming!

Charles Gillanders

@TechConnectify I love your videos and your comments and I love the occasional snark I’ve seen on both Twitter and Mastodon. If the presence of too many ignorant boorish reply guys makes you stop posting here I for one will miss you but you have to look after yourself, no-one should expect anyone else to put up with that kind of crap just for their entertainment.

Kantor

@TechConnectify my feeling is that lazy mode filtering should be a plugin or a bot, not part of the Mastodon. The latter should make the platform pluggable and let people choose their algo

jz.tusk

@TechConnectify

Not so much on your posts, but I've started replying "Mute" to people just before I mute them (that is, when the muting is for them being jerkish, not when I'm just not interested in their stuff).

As it is, jerks have the power to take over a discussion. We have to find ways to push back.

Chancerubbage

@jztusk @TechConnectify

I regularly mute people I love to follow and read; I don’t think a value assessment should be attached to that action, nor assumed to be there.

Bill Phillips

@TechConnectify I 100% agree with you, but... as someone watching you and all these reply guys, it is like being stuck in a bad business meeting

I can yell about Robert's Rules of Order and criticize people all they want, but it will only add to the noise and make the problem worse

I try to add good vibes because I dig what you do, and I also dig your critical commentary on this platform, but I can't even nudge those folks

Kyle Brown

@billjings @TechConnectify this is my experience as well. I was kind of having an argument yesterday with someone who completely lacked the self awareness to understand what they were doing.

So trying to push back on stuff just stresses me out without having even the slightest impact on the other person

Katja (lawyer?) Antares, a 🐈🐉.

@TechConnectify I'm sorry to hear you're running into the results of… … …eight years of the Mastodon project's lead ignoring or half-assing every single safety suggestion made by numerous volunteers on the project. ☠️

You're entirely right to be annoyed, really. In hastily trying to be Not Twitter, while being led by designers who didn't truly understand what was wrong with Twitter, the resulting product created all sorts of new annoyances and harassment techniques. It's not good!!

Mike Johnston

@TechConnectify
It seems like Mastodon and fedi in general is great for "scream into the void and occasionally have a meaningful engagement with a stranger" but terrible for many reasons for anyone with a popular following. Which also means it will be terrible for any brands or companies trying to have some kind of social media presence.

I'm glad you're here but I understand if this isn't the right fit. Hopefully something that will get fixed over the years to come.

@TechConnectify
It seems like Mastodon and fedi in general is great for "scream into the void and occasionally have a meaningful engagement with a stranger" but terrible for many reasons for anyone with a popular following. Which also means it will be terrible for any brands or companies trying to have some kind of social media presence.

Scott Jenson

@TechConnectify Yeah, I only have 3K-ish followers but I still see what you describe. The original mastodon greybeard crowd just LOVE to reply-guy that 'you're doing it wrong'.

I do hope you can weather the storm as I very much enjoy your posts and hope you stay. But I totally understand if it's too much. Just hoping life-finds-a-way

SewBlue

@TechConnectify Fellow engineer here, who had also ruffled feathers unintentionally for similar reasons. Our confidence can be our undoing.

It's funny, I remember these exact types of issues with Live Journal. Without an algorithm driving engagement, people would get very protective about their space. Why are you being an ass to me on my page? This is my space! Vs don't ever read the comments! It's a cess pool!

I wonder too if the lack of ability to comment when you boost adds to this. Rather than boost with a "I like my dim lights, what the heck is he talking about?" They respond directly to you rather than shouting about you to the void.

So instead of (sort of) snickering behind your back they are taking potshots in your personal space. And it stings more because their confrontation is pointed at you rather than the void.

At least that is my take. Mastodon doesn't give the haters the option to do anything except blast back in your face.

@TechConnectify Fellow engineer here, who had also ruffled feathers unintentionally for similar reasons. Our confidence can be our undoing.

It's funny, I remember these exact types of issues with Live Journal. Without an algorithm driving engagement, people would get very protective about their space. Why are you being an ass to me on my page? This is my space! Vs don't ever read the comments! It's a cess pool!

Technology Connections

@sewblue I agree completely.

I understand the aversion to quote-toots given the harassment angle, but they were also very valuable in shaping culture, discourse, and expectations.

They were an opportunity to learn *from the crowd* whereas here, every piece of feedback is direct.

And in my position, some people delight in taking pot-shots. It sucks.

I know for a fact that's happening all the time in my YT comments, but the system design there makes it so I'm unaware of it. I want that here.

MinekPo1

@TechConnectify @sewblue something I see from time to time folks doing is a "DIY quote toot" , I think there was something similar on early twitter not sure tho , is writing a comment with "RE: [link to post]" at the end + mentioning the user so they get a notification about it . Not perfect but it exists ig , also hope its not something you mentioned already :neofox_sweat: , sorry if you did

Also yes I know its not something which solves all your problems hope it didn't feel like that >-<

Melvin Gundlach

@minekpo1 Some clients also display those as quote toots.

SewBlue

@TechConnectify It needs to be fixed at the structural level. Every major player here that I follow (normal people with decent follower count mind you, vs celebrities who likely have account managers) has had your exact issue. Mastodon becomes awful for them, while for us nobodies it's great and friendly. Working as designed.

No amount courtesy rules are going to fix a structural issue.

This will kill Mastodon long term if it isn't fixed. Driving off the medium sized accounts due to toxicity is still toxicity. Wish I had a fix, other than being liberal with the block function.

I naively thought this place would be great because the bad actors and bots could easily filtered out. Had not anticipated that each of us in the right circumstances can be a bad actor. Once again, humans aren't archetypes, behaving consistently and easily designed around.

@TechConnectify It needs to be fixed at the structural level. Every major player here that I follow (normal people with decent follower count mind you, vs celebrities who likely have account managers) has had your exact issue. Mastodon becomes awful for them, while for us nobodies it's great and friendly. Working as designed.

Darrell Bowles

@sewblue @TechConnectify I think that part of that is because mastodon never considered that there would be huge disagreements between users. It was crated before the twitter issues were a thing.

Lukeyd

@TechConnectify do you have any insight into how Twitter worked to auto (?) filter out all the crap?

Abe the Honest

@TechConnectify yikes. Sorry to hear that. I like your posts here but the situation you describe is exhausting. Unfortunately, from what I've observed, many of the fediverse tools scale very poorly for big communicators like you. I've been following some of the devs discussions about future stuff that may help you but they kind of muddled with philosophical questions and while I think is positive someone is doing that to tech, makes implementing these things you need slow.

Bluefox Longtail

@TechConnectify I'm a very small account and don't face many of the same issues I know you do, but I never understood why people don't just curate their own feed as you expressed. Even on the other platforms, it wasn't exactly hard to make a feed you like.

Some people are just out there looking for a fight, and I don't get it. Even when folks show up on my timeline with positions I disagree with, I shrug my shoulders and keep scrolling or go listen to music or read a book, or something. Masto isn't my life. No one should feel the need to disagree vehemently with someone unless they're productive about it.

Open discussion is a good thing, but picking fights isn't. An issue with Mastodon is that it wasn't prepared for toxicity and has very few means of avoiding it. The noble, albeit naïve assumption was that everyone could get along, and when communities were smaller and more closed, that made sense, but with post-Twitter growth, it can only get worse.

@TechConnectify I'm a very small account and don't face many of the same issues I know you do, but I never understood why people don't just curate their own feed as you expressed. Even on the other platforms, it wasn't exactly hard to make a feed you like.

Some people are just out there looking for a fight, and I don't get it. Even when folks show up on my timeline with positions I disagree with, I shrug my shoulders and keep scrolling or go listen to music or read a book, or something. Masto isn't...

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