“The problem is, there’s a certain type of pedantry that has followed the internet through its various forms, especially in more technical channels, and it often creates a negative experience because it seems to be driven by ideology or disdain for people who don’t think the same way.” https://tedium.co/2023/11/21/mastodon-reply-guy-problem/
Curious to hear if others on here are experiencing what’s described in this piece. I enjoy most of the replies I get on here (though I never have time to respond to most of them, I like reading them)
I do think Mastodon could use more safety/audience limiting tools though, like what Ernie describes. Esp for larger-ish accounts on here who get a lot of replies, it would be nice to limit conversations on some posts. I would also love a real DM inbox on Mastodon! but that might be a pipe dream 😅
"If they [convo improvement features] prove successful, we’ll be bringing them to the experience on the web as well."
As a middling new presence, I'm hoping the data supports keeping the first feature (Reply thoughtfully) but not the second (Hey, you're replying to an older post).
I was reminded once not to tag you into a thread, which was annoying but valid. But if I'm replying to an old post, its because I deliberately dug it up. So I don't need that extra step.
@Gargron@taylorlorenz I applaud some promising ideas here, but I get nervous when I see things like “we can prevent some awkward situations, such as explaining something to an expert in a given field.” While the intent is clear, how are you going to implement that. Who will be the expertise referees? Who decides when an actor’s credentials are even relevant or appropriate to a given context.
@Gargron@taylorlorenz I get the intent. But are you suggesting that some keywords or algo forces the replier to read the bio before their post is accepted? ExTwitter has been injecting some of those behaviorial intercepts now. But they seem far more annoying than effective at calming down the reply tonality.
@Gargron@taylorlorenz OiC, only the first time. I suppose that might help in some contexts, but in my experience, it’s just as likely to give the “reply-guy” more to work with when composing their snark or insult. Still, kudos for any and all experiments.