Like many women online, I get sexual harassment in waves here on the good ol' fediverse.
Today was a rough day, other days are less rough, all of it is unwelcome, and that's a bigger problem than one online community. I don't expect Mastodon (or any other ActivityPub thing) to solve that problem 100%.
When I see it, I block it. Often enough it's a bad server, and I defederate.
This is something that Black Mastodon has pointed out repeatedly: harassers can set their reply to “followers only” which means only like-minded abusers and the victim see it. It is probably Mastodon’s greatest weakness.
I'm saying I don't want to host it in certain contexts. And I think it'd be nice if the popular server software enabled that.
This would make the choice of "post or stay quiet" a lot easier here. This might encourage more folks from marginalized communities to come here instead of Bluesky or other platforms.
It might help *grow* this space. And I care about that.
Thanks for this explanation! I was wondering, where all of those bad comments where, when scrolling through the comment-section. This really helped me to understand the problem you are facing. I'm hoping for a good solution to be found. You should not have to deal with harassment.
@hamkaas This is the same case as, "set to followers only". No, especially with outreach posts that's literally the opposite of what I'm trying to do, lol.
@AnnyJoe @Radgryd @hamkaas as I previously said, I don't see a point to much on the "followers only" unless I don't want it shared... it's not like my account is private and anyone can follow me at any time and then harass me on those. It doesn't solve this problem.
i wonder... does Mastodon even enable to share blacklist of blocked users? It might be a feature I'd use nearly as often as "follow". Like "hey, i trust this user so i want to ban the same nasty morons as they do". Because.. it's an effort to block someone! On the Mastodon i did it only once. But on boardgamearena... boah, hundreds of bad players (incl. their behavior).
ok, this is the first time i see a proposal about blocking replies on activitypub that actually goes into the nitty gritty detail about how to do it and is based on some understanding. all previous similar suggestions i saw were just screeming into the void that lacked any detail or were plain impossible to implement and that led me to believe it is actually not possible. what you propose makes perfect sense and changed my opinion on that topic.
@Johns_priv people have a right to exist, human rights are universal for everyone; not 'some humans rights'; this is not up for debate,
stop trying to make everyones rights conditonal; stop trying to make it something that can be be tossed out whenever someone fucking feels like it; if "people have a fundamental right to exist" offends you; and is a 'problem' to you, then you are part of the problem; fuck you,
@fromjason @Johns_priv its directed to johns_priv who outright said certain people shouldnt be able to exist and said to fuck off if that "offends me"; may have been banned as i dont see in the thread itself, it was really bad, thats what its directed at, this feature proposal is fine;
Interestingly this broken reply, likely due to a moderation decision, illustrates a problem with federation and loss of context due to moderation factors. A "drop replies" feature would potentially be useful to avoid context errors like this (on compliant servers at least).
sorry you have to deal with this stuff. I always struggle to understand why people do shitty things, when its so much easier not to do shitty things to begin with?
being able to prune specific replies from your thread would be more generally useful than preventing them, so you don't have to preset the thread. You're right, "blocking" and muting functions are really just two kinds of muting.
I don’t know if it’s the kind of thing that would cause you to rebase your whole instance, but I’m pretty sure @Bonfire has this feature.
At the very least, it proves you’re not alone in advocating for this change in the fediverse. It was important enough to the Bonfire crew to make sure it was included for RC 1.
> [Muting posts] stops *me* from seeing it. My server still hosts the harassment in that case
So what you're concerned about is nasty replies being stored on your server, even if you never see them? You want to be able to Mute Replies on a post in a way that stops any replies to it being received by your server. Correct?
> It's sending it to other servers
FYI a reply to your post is sent by the server where it's posted, not by yours. The only thing a server sends is what's posted on it.
💯. I don't get 1% of the trash you do, and managing who shows up in my posts is something I've wanted for years. I'd say that's the number-one feature request I see discussed on here, honestly.
Vicious abuse is a serious problem, to be sure, and a lot of us are deeply, bone-level tired of other forms of obnoxiousness as well: drive-by snark, tone cops, debate trolls, and other pests.
I can't count how many times I didn't share something bc of what I imagined the replies would sound like.
@csilverman I would *love* to be able to tell my server "drop and do not share any replies containing the words 'women' and 'kitchen'". It's not just that *I* don't want to see it, it's that I don't want to play a part in other people seeing it.
Christ. Yeah, exactly—that's the core counterpoint to the "just mute/block" argument. I don't want some troublemaker's nonsense defacing my work. It isn't just offensive to me, it also drives away other people who I do want to interact with.
I've participated in over two decades' worth of online communities at this point, and the "speech at all costs" principle that seems to define the thinking around these things has *never* resulted in better, more fulfilling interactions. Not even once.
I'm not marginalized in any way that really matters, and it'd even help *me*. I'm forever self-censoring - I'll type out a reply, then think "ahh, this conversation doesn't really need my input" and delete it.
There's really two features that should be part of fedi (think you've asked for both before?): ability to limit replies (signal when a post is not starting a public conversation), and ability to disown replies as canonical.
Let others say what they want instead of trying to guess!
I haven't really been paying attention to GoToSocial lately (because I start to think about the colossal task of figuring out how to migrate my domain from one fedi software to another, I keep hoping someone else will do it first and I can copy their homework) but I think they're working on the former at least.
But without support in the wider software it'll just be confusing also.
But even things like we have to tell people "boosts welcome" - why do we live like this? It could be better!
I wonder if a white-list approach could work? As in, you can mark specific users as "allowed to reply", and anyone not marked as such cannot. This way, you could cultivate your own circle of people you trust, so people like you, who get way more abuse than most of us can imagine, could still get some of the benefits of having a social presence and interaction online.
Of course, the downside is that it puts the onus of being safe online on the vicitim. Certainly not a perfect solution.
No disagreeing with those being a useful moderation options but just to seek clarification: If you restrict posts to followers then surely that stops them being boosted and hence non-followers seeing them, unless one of your followers is really shitty and shares you/your post some other way? I appreciate this doesn't help if you do want the post to get to the wider #fedverse but suppess replies. And if someone does harass you, can't you report them and get both your and their instance admin/moderators to block them in future - that would then help to protect other users on the instance?
Haven't tested it and it's not directly related but GoToSocial seems to have managed reply scopes, don't know how that's reflected in apps but yeahg 😀 Mastodon could definitely implement this and get the ball rolling on becoming a spec feature/rule of thumb UX thing. Also showing number of severed connections in a thread would be nice, at least a count of metaphorical Zeus strikes.
I am definitely asking my fellow dudes to moderate their speech, to treat strangers with decency and respect, to be aware of alternate interpretations of their written words, to remember John Scalzi's wisdom ("the failure mode of clever is asshole").
And to just give a shit about other people, quite frankly.
I love this idea. Bluesky has shared blocklists and while they can be used by bad actors, the truth is anything can be, and I'd much rather block preemptively if someone says "hey, this person is a bad actor". Like anything, it needs to be vetted by the person using it, but I've found it saves me a lot of headaches on Bluesky.
Dropping replies is also a great idea and would give servers more ways to be net friendly.
post and drop is a double edged feature. I can see it being useful to hate spammers as well as the hate spammed. Maybe a billionaireless AI moderator to filter these is a better option.
Hate speech is rigorously moderated here, so I don't know how large a problem that'll be. I'm more concerned about disinformation and, more generally, people presenting one side of a complex argument and preventing anyone from expressing the opposite view.
In the early years of the Covid pandemic, we saw lots of anti-vax disinformation. At least, in those days, it was possible to argue against it, so that anyone reading the thread would see both sides. Once disinfo agents can restrict replies, that'll no longer be true.
If Fedi turns into a hall full of people with megaphones, all shouting at one another and blocking replies, it'll kill it for me. I'll be gone. And I'll really miss the place.
@j12i You are, but also GoToSocial is not the dominant player in this space with an excised influence over the ActivityPub protocol and adjacent technologies.
Of course various servers/clients might try send replies anyway — maliciously or through not understanding — and in some scenarios those replies may even end up appearing to other users (on the same instance, say).
But none of that, *none of it*, explains to me why an implement can't simply do ‘if object references object, throw away’.
Hardly computationally burdensome, and I'm no AP expert but I can't imagine it breaks the protocol.
Reply gating. IIRC from the last time somebody (@kissane ?) pleaded for this very reasonable improvement, it surfaced that reply gating (or limiting) has been on the Mastodon to-do list for nearly a decade but Eugen & co have deprioritized it all this time. There were reasons. All the reasons. This was the issue where I started to question how much I like Eugen & co.
This is about the server not returning known subthreads started by people blocked by the post's author, not the viewer.
e.g., if we have A → B → C → D → E, where a → b means “b replies to a”, a...
I really like the concept of naughty-lists for managing or filtering content, but I'm not entirely sold on the name. I think something like 'horasmen' should be part of the name to give it a unique twist. How about calling it 'horaser-list'? It sounds a bit more distinctive and fun. What do you think?
the biggest problem is people requiring proof before believing the experience of others. Yet even with proof, people refuse to believe or care. The issue fundamentally is the lack of respect & an unwillingness to face reality. It’s not like we don’t know this is a thing, so when people say there is a problem…when they reply they don’t see it —it’s about denial and disrespect. There is no more to discuss & proof unlikely to change their mind.
I agree that it’s problematic that we don’t have a way of knowing the scope of abusive posts.
I haven’t seen any of the abusive posts you are referring to. It would be easy to jump the conclusion that you are exaggerating the problem. But instead I choose to acknowledge that I don’t know how bad the problem is.
Part of me wants to know enough that I could have an informed opinion about those posts. But at the same time I don’t want abusive posts to get more exposure than necessary.
I won’t claim to have a perfect solution to any of this. I am thinking that some sort of distributed moderation system with some statistics visible to the public might be part of a good solution.
@kasperd I very much want distributed moderation. I think it's critical, in fact. This already happens in an almost sneakernet-style way with sharing lists, but it's not real time and critically, not official.
I'd like to see an official, sanctioned ActivityPub blocklist server in which groups can control this themselves.
It's still whack-a-mole but you aren't playing it alone.
in a horrible way federation has made the online space even more fragmented and individual. because it's true I have not seen any of the mentioned experiences and perhaps my server prohibited me.
I genuinely didn't know that I also wouldn't see the comments you're blocking. Thank you for posting this thread. I'm sorry harassment is happening to you and so many others. It should not be this difficult to make a safe place for people to just exist.
I'm really sorry that you have to deal with this anywhere. Most of the women in my life - especially fellow gamedevs - don't ever really go public online anymore on social media for exactly the stuff that you mention here (though none of them are on Mastodon).
With you on what you’re proposing & why; don’t have any better answers, but feel if the scope & goal can be tightly articulated, experts could offer best solutions for the time, etc. 🙂
I get why it would make sense to have something like this.
And on old twitter the setting of only allowing people someone followed to reply meant that I - as a nobody small account - could not participate in many discussions as I wasn't allowed to reply.
Hoping this could be a more granular setting than it used to be there.
@cy "I... could not participate in many discussions as I wasn't allowed to reply"
The thing is... nobody (not you or me or anyone else) should be *entitled* to participate, and more critically, *entitled* to another server's hosting resources.
I like granularity too, don't get me wrong, but only because I want to see *more* communication fostered, and flexibility is important there.
Veronica Explains
in reply to Veronica Explains • • •Like many women online, I get sexual harassment in waves here on the good ol' fediverse.
Today was a rough day, other days are less rough, all of it is unwelcome, and that's a bigger problem than one online community. I don't expect Mastodon (or any other ActivityPub thing) to solve that problem 100%.
When I see it, I block it. Often enough it's a bad server, and I defederate.
This impacts the visibility of the comment.
Shannon Prickett reshared this.
🔗 David Sommerseth
in reply to Veronica Explains • • •Why ... just why can't so many people just behave ordinary and decent?
This is just sad. So sad
Veronica Explains
in reply to Veronica Explains • • •So here's what happens practically:
First, I get a disgusting remark (or several) and block/defederate/whatever.
This remark does not pass through to other servers, who often enough *also* are blocking/defederating/whatever.
That means you, dear end-user, don't know that any of this happened.
So when I say something like "harassment is rough today", you're not seeing what I saw.
I personally feel like that's a problem. It gets in the way of understanding the scope of the issue.
R.L. Dane 🍵 reshared this.
Plaid
in reply to Veronica Explains • • •I don't need to see you being harassed to believe that you are when you say it.
I understand that there's clearly a bunch of people who fucking do, because some people can only learn from things they experience directly.
Folks, dudes, please believe women.
ColesStreetPothole
in reply to Veronica Explains • • •Veronica Explains
in reply to Veronica Explains • • •Now, don't get me wrong, I don't want to host harassment and share it around. I get vile nightmare fuel you don't want to see.
Defederating is a good solution. But I feel strongly that Mastodon (as the putative leader pushing the protocol) could do two things.
One would be to make it easier to share naughty-lists full of bad actors in real time. This would help stop issues before they start.
The other is blocking replies.
Je ne suis pas goth
in reply to Veronica Explains • • •Veronica Explains
in reply to Veronica Explains • • •I know, I know. "Blocking replies is impossible". "You can't stop people from disagreeing with you on the internet".
I've heard it all, and don't really care.
Here's my proposal: much like how I can set the post visibility here, I should be able to tell my server to drop any replies to that post.
Not "don't send notifications about replies". Drop them. Don't host them.
And compliant servers would honor that request in the UI.
Shannon Prickett reshared this.
Veronica Explains
in reply to Veronica Explains • • •I'm not asking to regulate your speech, dudes.
I'm saying I don't want to host it in certain contexts. And I think it'd be nice if the popular server software enabled that.
This would make the choice of "post or stay quiet" a lot easier here. This might encourage more folks from marginalized communities to come here instead of Bluesky or other platforms.
It might help *grow* this space. And I care about that.
reshared this
dch reshared this.
Veronica Explains
in reply to Veronica Explains • • •"But how does blocking replies promote speech?"
Good question. Let's imagine selfies.
I don't share a ton of selfies because I get creepy comments.
I would almost certainly post more photos if I could tell my server "drop all replies that aren't from people I follow".
The lack of reply limiting is causing me to self-censor.
reshared this
Shannon Prickett reshared this.
Veronica Explains
in reply to Veronica Explains • • •"But Veronica, you can mute posts containing certain words!"
True. And I do. But that stops *me* from seeing it. My server still hosts the harassment in that case. It's sending it to other servers.
I don't like that. Ethically that feels very bad. And potentially dangerous.
I want more control over what my server hosts. And the fact that I don't have that control? That's a choice from the folks pushing the protocol.
Fin
Papaexmatrikulatus
in reply to Veronica Explains • • •I'm hoping for a good solution to be found. You should not have to deal with harassment.
hamkaas
in reply to Veronica Explains • • •Veronica Explains
in reply to hamkaas • • •@hamkaas I don't see value in private accounts, personally.
If I want to share with friends I have group chats. The entire reason I post on social media is to be social with a broader community.
Radgryd
in reply to Veronica Explains • • •Falling forward 🌵
in reply to Radgryd • • •@Radgryd @hamkaas
This is what I was going to ask.
I see a post to followers only selection, which I've never tried.
So maybe making a distinction between selfies, and outreach posts?
(I don't use real name accounts, and cringe when I see selfie posts. But I understand I'm in the minority on those.)
How about post to followers for selfies, and post to the world for reach out posts?
I understand the thread is about suggesting new solutions to the problem.
Veronica Explains
in reply to Falling forward 🌵 • • •Tomáš Beneš
in reply to Veronica Explains • • •On the Mastodon i did it only once. But on boardgamearena... boah, hundreds of bad players (incl. their behavior).
Diogo Constantino
in reply to Veronica Explains • • •grepe
in reply to Veronica Explains • • •Johns
in reply to Veronica Explains • • •I wish I could just thanos-snap those people out of existence.
Yes. I'm saying harassers don't deserve to exist, if it offends you, fuck you.
Li ~ Crystal System
in reply to Johns • • •@Johns_priv people have a right to exist, human rights are universal for everyone; not 'some humans rights'; this is not up for debate,
stop trying to make everyones rights conditonal; stop trying to make it something that can be be tossed out whenever someone fucking feels like it; if "people have a fundamental right to exist" offends you; and is a 'problem' to you, then you are part of the problem; fuck you,
fromjason.xyz ❤️ 💻
in reply to Li ~ Crystal System • • •I don't have a computer science degree but I don't think people cease to exist if someone blocks them from replying to their post.
@Li @Johns_priv @vkc
Li ~ Crystal System
in reply to fromjason.xyz ❤️ 💻 • • •Veronica Explains
in reply to Li ~ Crystal System • • •@Li @fromjason
Interestingly this broken reply, likely due to a moderation decision, illustrates a problem with federation and loss of context due to moderation factors. A "drop replies" feature would potentially be useful to avoid context errors like this (on compliant servers at least).
Domenico
in reply to Veronica Explains • • •Michael Free
in reply to Veronica Explains • • •sorry you have to deal with this stuff. I always struggle to understand why people do shitty things, when its so much easier not to do shitty things to begin with?
Anger and hate takes so much energy and effort.
Thanks for being public about this stuff.
Matt Chambers
in reply to Veronica Explains • • •😀🚲
in reply to Veronica Explains • • •Sam
in reply to Veronica Explains • • •I don’t know if it’s the kind of thing that would cause you to rebase your whole instance, but I’m pretty sure @Bonfire has this feature.
At the very least, it proves you’re not alone in advocating for this change in the fediverse. It was important enough to the Bonfire crew to make sure it was included for RC 1.
Samuel
in reply to Veronica Explains • • •Strypey
in reply to Veronica Explains • • •> [Muting posts] stops *me* from seeing it. My server still hosts the harassment in that case
So what you're concerned about is nasty replies being stored on your server, even if you never see them? You want to be able to Mute Replies on a post in a way that stops any replies to it being received by your server. Correct?
> It's sending it to other servers
FYI a reply to your post is sent by the server where it's posted, not by yours. The only thing a server sends is what's posted on it.
Chris Silverman 🌻
in reply to Veronica Explains • • •💯. I don't get 1% of the trash you do, and managing who shows up in my posts is something I've wanted for years. I'd say that's the number-one feature request I see discussed on here, honestly.
Vicious abuse is a serious problem, to be sure, and a lot of us are deeply, bone-level tired of other forms of obnoxiousness as well: drive-by snark, tone cops, debate trolls, and other pests.
I can't count how many times I didn't share something bc of what I imagined the replies would sound like.
Veronica Explains
in reply to Chris Silverman 🌻 • • •Chris Silverman 🌻
in reply to Veronica Explains • • •Christ. Yeah, exactly—that's the core counterpoint to the "just mute/block" argument. I don't want some troublemaker's nonsense defacing my work. It isn't just offensive to me, it also drives away other people who I do want to interact with.
I've participated in over two decades' worth of online communities at this point, and the "speech at all costs" principle that seems to define the thinking around these things has *never* resulted in better, more fulfilling interactions. Not even once.
fraggLe!
in reply to Veronica Explains • • •I'm not marginalized in any way that really matters, and it'd even help *me*. I'm forever self-censoring - I'll type out a reply, then think "ahh, this conversation doesn't really need my input" and delete it.
There's really two features that should be part of fedi (think you've asked for both before?): ability to limit replies (signal when a post is not starting a public conversation), and ability to disown replies as canonical.
Let others say what they want instead of trying to guess!
Veronica Explains
in reply to fraggLe! • • •@fwaggle yes! This makes sense to me, and feels like it'd *foster* conversation instead of blocking it.
If folks ask me questions here and I reply, often my reply (with a large following) triggers a lot of unwelcome replies for the OP.
I can limit visibility, of course, but then multiple people ask the same question instead of learning from each other.
Being able to tell my server "drop replies that aren't from the OP" would be amazing for encouraging conversation.
fraggLe!
in reply to Veronica Explains • • •I haven't really been paying attention to GoToSocial lately (because I start to think about the colossal task of figuring out how to migrate my domain from one fedi software to another, I keep hoping someone else will do it first and I can copy their homework) but I think they're working on the former at least.
But without support in the wider software it'll just be confusing also.
But even things like we have to tell people "boosts welcome" - why do we live like this? It could be better!
Thom, ᚩᛈᚻᚳᛗᚢᛡᛁᛅᛞᚪᚳᛗᛚᚢᚦ
in reply to Veronica Explains • • •I wonder if a white-list approach could work? As in, you can mark specific users as "allowed to reply", and anyone not marked as such cannot. This way, you could cultivate your own circle of people you trust, so people like you, who get way more abuse than most of us can imagine, could still get some of the benefits of having a social presence and interaction online.
Of course, the downside is that it puts the onus of being safe online on the vicitim. Certainly not a perfect solution.
jose
in reply to Veronica Explains • • •Ian Jackson
in reply to Veronica Explains • • •MarjorieR
in reply to Veronica Explains • • •If you restrict posts to followers then surely that stops them being boosted and hence non-followers seeing them, unless one of your followers is really shitty and shares you/your post some other way?
I appreciate this doesn't help if you do want the post to get to the wider #fedverse but suppess replies.
And if someone does harass you, can't you report them and get both your and their instance admin/moderators to block them in future - that would then help to protect other users on the instance?
Chris Lowles
in reply to Veronica Explains • • •فيست عيرون
in reply to Chris Lowles • • •@chrislowles yeah, GoToSocial really is the go to option (heh) for someone who wants fine-grained interaction policies *now*.
docs.gotosocial.org/en/stable/…
those who want to stick with mastodon, well, it'll probably be a long wait, so don't hold your breath.
Interaction Policy - GoToSocial Documentation
docs.gotosocial.orgVeronica Explains
in reply to فيست عيرون • • •@Stoori @chrislowles I've had my eye on that one, but my fear is that without it being pushed by the protocol it's not going to be effective.
I think Mastodon has to change their mind about it, and until they do we've got problems.
Tristen Grant
in reply to Veronica Explains • • •He should moderate his own speech before he types.
Simply don't be a dick to others.
Gabe
in reply to Veronica Explains • • •you are inexplicably generous.
I am definitely asking my fellow dudes to moderate their speech, to treat strangers with decency and respect, to be aware of alternate interpretations of their written words, to remember John Scalzi's wisdom ("the failure mode of clever is asshole").
And to just give a shit about other people, quite frankly.
Laukidh
in reply to Veronica Explains • • •yep, Bluesky lets you turn off replies for a post at pretty much any point.
They have kinda crap moderation tools, but they do have that.
Kit Author
in reply to Veronica Explains • • •I love this idea. Bluesky has shared blocklists and while they can be used by bad actors, the truth is anything can be, and I'd much rather block preemptively if someone says "hey, this person is a bad actor". Like anything, it needs to be vetted by the person using it, but I've found it saves me a lot of headaches on Bluesky.
Dropping replies is also a great idea and would give servers more ways to be net friendly.
saxnot
in reply to Veronica Explains • • •yeah the more I think about it the more it makes sense to not be @'ed in some contextes.
Twitter never really made it big in my personal circle of friends but I think on Twitter one can limit / turn off responses? I am not sure
liebach not laibach
in reply to Veronica Explains • • •Lats (314 ppm)
in reply to Veronica Explains • • •C++ Wage Slave
in reply to Lats (314 ppm) • • •@Lats
Hate speech is rigorously moderated here, so I don't know how large a problem that'll be. I'm more concerned about disinformation and, more generally, people presenting one side of a complex argument and preventing anyone from expressing the opposite view.
In the early years of the Covid pandemic, we saw lots of anti-vax disinformation. At least, in those days, it was possible to argue against it, so that anyone reading the thread would see both sides. Once disinfo agents can restrict replies, that'll no longer be true.
If Fedi turns into a hall full of people with megaphones, all shouting at one another and blocking replies, it'll kill it for me. I'll be gone. And I'll really miss the place.
Shared block lists, OTOH, seem like a great idea.
@vkc
Veronica Explains
in reply to C++ Wage Slave • • •@CppGuy
"Hate speech is rigorously moderated here" I'm laughing out loud at that. Thanks for the chuckle
@Lats
Mina
in reply to Veronica Explains • • •This even sounds technically feasible without too much hassle.
Whilst we can't always be sure that all instances would honour such a "reply block", once the big ones do it, a lot is gained.
Smart idea. I wonder why no one has proposed it, already.
Ricki Bowie Knives Tarr
in reply to Veronica Explains • • •Tattie
in reply to Veronica Explains • • •ideally block replies at any point, so if you decide a post has blown up enough and is attracting bad quality replies, you can just lock it.
I've seen people delete good posts for this reason, and it's a shame.
jay 🌺
in reply to Veronica Explains • • •Veronica Explains
in reply to jay 🌺 • • •aitorpazos
in reply to Veronica Explains • • •zbrown
in reply to Veronica Explains • • •I've often wondered why that isn't ‘a thing’.
Of course various servers/clients might try send replies anyway — maliciously or through not understanding — and in some scenarios those replies may even end up appearing to other users (on the same instance, say).
But none of that, *none of it*, explains to me why an implement can't simply do ‘if object references object, throw away’.
Hardly computationally burdensome, and I'm no AP expert but I can't imagine it breaks the protocol.
Dave Thacker
in reply to Veronica Explains • • •Weird Socks
in reply to Veronica Explains • • •Reply gating.
IIRC from the last time somebody (@kissane ?) pleaded for this very reasonable improvement, it surfaced that reply gating (or limiting) has been on the Mastodon to-do list for nearly a decade but Eugen & co have deprioritized it all this time. There were reasons. All the reasons.
This was the issue where I started to question how much I like Eugen & co.
I hope this current push does the trick.
Daphne Preston-Kendal
in reply to Veronica Explains • • •Hide subthreads by blocked users when looking at a post's descendants by ClearlyClaire · Pull Request #18468 · mastodon/mastodon
GitHubProf Prof Prof Dr Dr Sophia✔
in reply to Veronica Explains • • •I hope, that you will find a way, to heal from it and to keep them away in the future.
Debby
in reply to Veronica Explains • • •Just a trash panda
in reply to Veronica Explains • • •Jo with elbows up & chin up
in reply to Veronica Explains • • •kasperd
in reply to Veronica Explains • • •I agree that it’s problematic that we don’t have a way of knowing the scope of abusive posts.
I haven’t seen any of the abusive posts you are referring to. It would be easy to jump the conclusion that you are exaggerating the problem. But instead I choose to acknowledge that I don’t know how bad the problem is.
Part of me wants to know enough that I could have an informed opinion about those posts. But at the same time I don’t want abusive posts to get more exposure than necessary.
I won’t claim to have a perfect solution to any of this. I am thinking that some sort of distributed moderation system with some statistics visible to the public might be part of a good solution.
Veronica Explains
in reply to kasperd • • •@kasperd I very much want distributed moderation. I think it's critical, in fact. This already happens in an almost sneakernet-style way with sharing lists, but it's not real time and critically, not official.
I'd like to see an official, sanctioned ActivityPub blocklist server in which groups can control this themselves.
It's still whack-a-mole but you aren't playing it alone.
saxnot
in reply to Veronica Explains • • •because it's true I have not seen any of the mentioned experiences and perhaps my server prohibited me.
cetan
in reply to Veronica Explains • • •Henrik Sundström
in reply to Veronica Explains • • •Jay
in reply to Veronica Explains • • •Veronica Explains
Unknown parent • • •@verbrecher you're telling a woman to change her behavior if she doesn't want to deal with harassment.
That's... not good
Veronica Explains
Unknown parent • • •Jonathan Lamothe
in reply to Veronica Explains • •@vkc (Veronica Explains) This thread is worth a read. It contains actual practical solutions to a host of problems I've heard about many times over.
I hope of gets serious consideration.
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Warthunder
in reply to Veronica Explains • • •Su_G
in reply to Veronica Explains • • •iamdtms
in reply to Veronica Explains • • •cyborg
in reply to Veronica Explains • • •I get why it would make sense to have something like this.
And on old twitter the setting of only allowing people someone followed to reply meant that I - as a nobody small account - could not participate in many discussions as I wasn't allowed to reply.
Hoping this could be a more granular setting than it used to be there.
Veronica Explains
in reply to cyborg • • •@cy "I... could not participate in many discussions as I wasn't allowed to reply"
The thing is... nobody (not you or me or anyone else) should be *entitled* to participate, and more critically, *entitled* to another server's hosting resources.
I like granularity too, don't get me wrong, but only because I want to see *more* communication fostered, and flexibility is important there.
Sebastian Lauwers
in reply to Veronica Explains • • •Veronica Explains
Unknown parent • • •@verbrecher that works for you, but like, not everybody?
My literal job involves being a public figure. Responding with "don't be so public" isn't exactly helpful and isn't appreciated.
coucouf ⏚🚫
in reply to Veronica Explains • • •