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Technology Connections

@das_g @colinstu I want it to be somewhere between completely open for anyone to yell at me and completely closed off.

In real life, this happens naturally. When there's a crowd of people around having a nice conversation and some asshole shows up to throw rocks at the host, that asshole faces repercussions because the crowd sees it and respects the host.

That just does not happen here at all.

20 comments | Expand all CWs
haikushane :d20:

@TechConnectify I think that doesn't happen because no one else sees the trolls, since we're not following them... That's the system working.

Technology Connections

@shane please tell me you understand that the system "working" sucks ass for me.

Jimmy replied to Technology

@TechConnectify @shane Responding so I can try to understand better...

I think you're pointing out there's a scale issue with public replies that most people with a few hundred followers won't experience.

And the existing mechanisms aren't automatically excluding rude or pointlessly argumentative replies and pile-ons.

Because of federation/mastodon not enough people see the replies to help moderate interactions to improve social behaviour.

Am I close to following things ok?

Technology Connections replied to Jimmy

@JimmyKip @shane You're following them pretty much exactly.

There is too much in my notifications for me to manage, a lot of it I would hope would be hidden behind a content filter because it stings to see (and that's going to have to be automatically because it's not like jerks recognize they're being jerks, and if they do they probably want to be) and nobody else sees that stuff so it's left with zero consequences.

Jimmy replied to Technology

@TechConnectify @shane You mean you're saying you can't come up with a regex filter that captures jerks replies, but not thoughtful interactions!? ;)

I think I agree with what you're saying in that case. What you're describing is not a problem for me as I mostly post to an echo chamber on my instance, and a good engagement is a handful of boosts / replies :)

Until you posted about these issues, I dont think I knew I wasn't seeing replies to your posts. Might chat to my admin.

Technology Connections replied to Jimmy

@JimmyKip @shane to clarify, I'm not necessarily saying that those posts don't show up. My understanding is that this is improving.

But the replies are just a big giant bucket, and unless you want to look through the whole thing and scroll down to the very bottom, you're probably not seeing the stuff that's irritating me. Because all of that stuff ends up in my notifications unless I turn them off which defeats the whole point of this place

Jimmy replied to Technology

@TechConnectify @shane Right, I understand that part.

For a high engagement poster, you've probably got the added problem that once a discussion is started people will reply with comments to your first post that others have already made, and you've already addressed further in the thread of replies that they haven't seen / read yet.

And whether intended or not by the responders I can easily see how the end result is an unpleasant flood of replies either way.

Jimmy replied to Technology

@TechConnectify Have been considering what limited options exist to help with the problem, and you're right they're not great.

I suppose there might be a way to post generally and have replies to those muted/filtered out entirely.

Then when posting for discussion to do so under a hashtag you follow with notifications on.

But that's ugly & kludgy and while it might work, if its the only slightly useful option I can think of then that is kinda the whole point of the problem.

Lana Sarah Aurelia

@TechConnectify @das_g @colinstu

i mean you still get mobs of assholes ganging up on individuals. just that in real life you can't block.

and just in case anybody wants to say "just walk somewhere else" not always possible.
ahem school. And as for others will see the jerk for what they are: teachers saw what was done to me and didn't give a shit. until I tried to lash out.

I mostly think it is less a computer science problem, and more a cultural/sociology problem. Though I do concede that technology can shape behavior. I would also argue that fedi is better than twitter at this, but then again, I don't really leave my corner

@TechConnectify @das_g @colinstu

i mean you still get mobs of assholes ganging up on individuals. just that in real life you can't block.

and just in case anybody wants to say "just walk somewhere else" not always possible.
ahem school. And as for others will see the jerk for what they are: teachers saw what was done to me and didn't give a shit. until I tried to lash out.

I mostly think it is less a computer science problem, and more a cultural/sociology problem. Though I do concede that technology...

Patch Arcana

@TechConnectify @das_g @colinstu Even in the wide-open public square mental model of a possible use of fedi/activity-pub-based tools, it's not all that unreasonable to turn to someone who has come up to your conversing group purely to be disruptive, and tell them how much of which particulates they can pound, in which manner and what direction.

duk

@TechConnectify@mas.to @das_g@chaos.social @colinstu@birdbutt.com Part of this discussion feels similar to @jwz@mastodon.social's points about reply control and the discussion around what a top-level post is supposed to actually be
https://www.jwz.org/blog/2023/08/mastodons-mastodonts/

Kenneth Henderick

@TechConnectify @das_g @colinstu I think it would be nice if users can just make replies as they wish, just like on twitter. Then clients (the apps) could have support for filtering algorithms, just like ad-blockers in browsers. The client loads replies, feeds them through some (can be built-in, based on a ruleset, or some fancy ai run on some server) engine that filters out all shitty replies. Don't want a filter? Great. Want to filter nsfw? Great. Want to filter shitposts? Great

jz.tusk

@TechConnectify @das_g @colinstu

This. So much this. All of this.

das-g

@TechConnectify I'm not sure the comparison with "real live" holds up so well.

Sure, most conversations *you and me* experienced offline so far have been civil. But human history has no shortage on pogroms, lynch mobs, public stonings, outright group-conducted massacres. And while that might seem like whataboutism, it goes to show that group dynamics online or offline can be a blessing or a curse, depending on the circumstances.

@colinstu

das-g

@TechConnectify But I completely agree that for online, the software, the platforms are part of these circumstances, and that we have to design them such that they lead the group dynamics to moderation, not to escalation, and such that everyone has the freedom to—without too much effort—ignore what isn't good for them.

@colinstu

Technology Connections

@das_g @colinstu oh, to be clear, I know things go sideways in real life too. In fact they can go much more sideways than they can online.

But I brought this up because fundamentally I believe there are no social systems built into this platform right now. Replies just go into a big bucket. We have deliberately made likes not really matter. So there is no way for anyone to signal any issues except by directly replying which is not tenable.

Expert Plus 🍀 replied to Technology

@TechConnectify @das_g @colinstu y'all, need to calm down.

How did it come to murder and death?

I've read your conversation.

I think, I agree with someone who said before - yes, it's quite annoying that sometimes replies are hidden before "read more" button.

At least in Twitter.

From the other side, for those of you, who wants a "private party" why won't you.......like what???

On Mastodon, you can limit who can see your post.

If you want only your followers to see, set your post to "only followers" or if you want invite only those who do you want to, you can always set it to a "Visible to only who mentioned" mode.

So, nothing stops you to do a private party thing.

Any other questions?

@TechConnectify @das_g @colinstu y'all, need to calm down.

How did it come to murder and death?

I've read your conversation.

I think, I agree with someone who said before - yes, it's quite annoying that sometimes replies are hidden before "read more" button.

At least in Twitter.

From the other side, for those of you, who wants a "private party" why won't you.......like what???

das-g replied to Expert Plus 🍀

[Can't reply to venera.social/display/85a863ed, thus here:]
@expert Re "murder & death": Well, mas.to/@TechConnectify/1115173 stated that in RL, people would stop someone throwing stones at someone else, and I thought: «Unfortunately, that's not always the case. Sometimes the crowd, too, will pick up stones and throw them.» And my post that resulted from that thought very much seemed like it'd warrant an amended content warning, especially considering the rules of the instance I'm on

[Can't reply to venera.social/display/85a863ed, thus here:]
@expert Re "murder & death": Well, mas.to/@TechConnectify/1115173 stated that in RL, people would stop someone throwing stones at someone else, and I thought: «Unfortunately, that's not always the case. Sometimes the crowd, too, will pick up stones and throw them.» And my post that resulted from that thought very much seemed like it'd warrant an amended content warning, especially considering...

das-g replied to Expert Plus 🍀

[Can't reply to venera.social/display/85a863ed, thus here:]

@expert re "private party": I guess not so much in the sense of an invite-only party, but in that of a party on private property or organized privately, thus a party where the host is shown some respect and can lay down some ground rules. However, that currently seems to be more the role of instance admins than of thread OPs.

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