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#quotetoot — Public Fediverse posts

Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #quotetoot, aggregated by home.social.

  1. @Mark Andrew 🇨🇭 I guess that, more often than not, the only new developments that are widely welcome are those that happen on Mastodon, that still don't make Mastodon feel different, and that don't introduce features to Mastodon that are (considered) bad on 𝕏.

    This alone is the reason why many Mastodon admins hold on to older Mastodon versions for their dear lives: They want to boycott new Mastodon features which they don't like, but they don't have what it takes to soft-fork or even only hard-fork Mastodon and remove the new features.

    Now, when it comes to developments in the Fediverse outside of Mastodon, they tend to be even more nerve-grating for Mastodon users because they often aren't in line with Mastodon and its culture at all. That is, many Mastodon users don't even notice that these features exist unless these features directly hit their timeline. But once they do, they're considered bad new developments even though they've actually been around for much longer than Mastodon itself.

    For example, quote-posts and full-text search. Mastodon users tend to be staunchly against both because they're used to harass and dogpile minorities on 𝕏. If at all, they're only okay with these if they come with an opt-in, and/or if server admins can turn them off entirely.

    If only they knew that Friendica has had both since May, 2010, five years and eight months longer than Mastodon has even existed. That Friendica has been search-indexing and able to quote-post any public Mastodon toot since Mastodon's very launch. I guess they'd demand the immediate destruction of Friendica or at least its complete and permanent defederation.

    #Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #QuotePost #QuotePosts #QuoteTweet #QuoteTweets #QuoteToot #QuoteToots #QuoteBoost #QuoteBoosts #QuotedShares #QuotePostDebate #QuoteTootDebate #FullTextSearch #Mastodon #Friendica
  2. @TeflonTrout :bc: he/him @Sharp Leaves Still, forcing Mastodon's culture and Mastodon's unwritten rules upon literally everyone in the Fediverse is bad.

    Maybe you haven't heard about this yet, but: The Fediverse is not only Mastodon. It has never been only Mastodon. It didn't even start with Mastodon. And it doesn't entirely work like Mastodon either.

    For starters, this means that just because you see it on Mastodon, it didn't necessarily originate on Mastodon.

    There are places in the Fediverse that are vastly older than Mastodon, and that are very different from Mastodon. Thus, they have their own culture, based on their own technology and their own features and where their users came from, and largely without any influences from Mastodon.

    The oldest still existing server software in the Fediverse is not Mastodon from 2016. It's Friendica (https://friendi.ca, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friendica, https://joinfediverse.wiki/Friendica). Friendica is essentially a mixture of a Facebook alternative and fully-featured long-form blogging. No Twitter or Mastodon influence anywhere. And Friendica first came out in May, 2010, five years and eight months before Mastodon.

    Friendica did not intrude into the Mastodon Fediverse that was created by Eugen Rochko as a Mastodon-only network. Mastodon was born into an already existing Fediverse that consisted of at least Friendica, Hubzilla (https://hubzilla.org, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubzilla, https://joinfediverse.wiki/Hubzilla) and GNU social (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_social; now defunct).

    Here's how Friendica differs from Mastodon in ways that may disturb Mastodon hardliners:
    • Mastodon is hard-coded to 500 characters. This character limit is deeply engrained into Mastodon's culture.
      Friendica doesn't have an arbitrary character limit; it's limited by the maximum size of the database field for the post text. Currently, this is 16,777,215 characters. Thus, Friendica doesn't have keeping messages short in its culture, it never has, and it never will.
    • Mastodon users tend to be eager to block anyone who doesn't cut long posts into pieces of no more than 500 characters each.
      I know at least one Friendica veteran who blocks everyone upon first strike who does cut long posts into annoying strings of tiny chunks.
    • Mastodon introduced a CW field in 2017.
      Friendica has had the exact same field as a summary/abstract field since its own beginning in 2010. That, and Friendica has always had a much more efficient way of handling CWs, one that Mastodon itself adopted with version 4.0 in October, 2022. Thus, by its technology and culture, Friendica users despise misusing their abstract field to force the same CW upon everyone out there with a hot, flaming passion.
      So if you see someone "misusing" the CW field for "a subject or a summary or whatever that is," that might not be a clueless Mastodon user. Instead, it might be a Friendica user who has been around for a dozen years longer than you, who is used to living by Friendica's culture, and who knows tons more about the Fediverse than you do.
    • Friendica users are much less likely to add alt-texts to their images. That's for two reasons.
      One, Friendica's culture is not an idealised version of pre-Musk, very-left-wing Twitter's culture. It does not include attacking and punishing everyone who doesn't add 100% hand-written, 100% accurate, sufficiently detailed alt-texts to their images.
      Two, Friendica handles images drastically differently from Mastodon. Mastodon always has a nifty little entry field for alt-texts whenever you attach an image. On Friendica, images are embedded into posts rather than attached to them, like in a blog post. And oftentimes, you literally have to program the alt-text into the raw image embedding markup code.
    • On Mastodon, it's considered intrusive and reply-guying to reply to someone who hasn't mentioned you, and to whom you aren't mutually connected. You couldn't possibly have received the toot that you're replying to otherwise.
      On Friendica, that's perfectly normal. Friendica doesn't show you single messages by default. It always shows you the entire conversation thread, all the way up to the start post, with all branches. Thus, neither Friendica's technology nor Friendica's culture rules out replying to any comment in the thread.
    • Mastodon has only just introduced Twitter-style quote-posts a few months ago. With a safety feature that only works on Mastodon and GoToSocial for fear of that feature being used for harassment and dogpiling just like on Twitter. And because literally everyone on Mastodon comes from Twitter, it's actually being used for harassment and dogpiling.
      Friendica has had that very same feature since its inception in 2010, over a decade and a half longer. It has never not had this feature. It has always been able to quote-post any public message in the Fediverse. But since Friendica is not entirely populated by former Twitter users, it hasn't been used for harassment or dogpiling even once. It's only used to forward content. For most of the time, it literally was the only available way to forward a message.
    • Mastodon users tend to be very protective and defensive about their allegedly Mastodon-only Fediverse.
      Friendica users are used to being able to connect with everything that moves and then some. It's one of Friendica's key features that it speaks a whole lot of protocols, not just ActivityPub.
      Whereas Mastodon users see Mastodon as a "decentralised walled garden", Friendica users see Friendica as the gateway to the whole federated social Web plus some places that aren't, strictly speaking, federated.
    • Mastodon users will staunchly insist that "Fediverse" and "Mastodon" essentially mean the same because they believe they do. They will attack anyone who claims otherwise.
      Friendica users will staunchly insist that there's a huge difference between "Fediverse" and "Mastodon" because they actually know there is one. They will lecture anyone who claims otherwise.

    Of course, from a Mastodon point of view, it's both tempting and fully justified to tell the Friendica users that this is the Mastodon Fediverse, and that they will have to adapt the Mastodon culture and abolish their own culture or be thrown out. But for one, Mastodon's culture doesn't fit Friendica's technology.

    Besides, that'd literally be like European settlers holding Native Americans at gunpoint and forcing them to give up their own culture, adopt European culture and convert to Catholic Christianity or else. The only difference is that European settlers, unlike the Mastodon users, did not think that they were there first, and that everyone else is an intruder.

    I mean, sure, go ahead and attack anyone who doesn't strictly live by Mastodon's culture and Mastodon's rules if you think you have to. But prepare for a whole lot of defence and even counter-attacks from Pleroma, Akkoma, Misskey, Iceshrimp-JS, Iceshrimp.NET, Sharkey, GoToSocial, Hollo, snac2, Mitra, Socialhome, Friendica, Hubzilla, (streams), Forte and the rest of the non-Mastodon Fediverse.

    CC: @Jan Wildeboer

    #Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #AltText #AltTextMeta #CWAltTextMeta #CW #CWs #CWMeta #ContentWarning #ContentWarnings #ContentWarningMeta #CharacterLimit #CharacterLimits #CharacterLimitMeta #CWCharacterLimitMeta #500Characters #QuotePost #QuotePosts #QuoteTweet #QuoteTweets #QuoteToot #QuoteToots #QuoteBoost #QuoteBoosts #QuotedShares #QuotePostDebate #QuoteTootDebate #Fediverse #Mastodon #Friendica #NotOnlyMastodon #FediverseIsNotMastodon #MastodonIsNotTheFediverse
  3. @Brett Coulstock You should care if you think that Gargron has invented the Fediverse as a pure Mastodon network. If you think that e.g. Friendica and Hubzilla came into the Mastodon Fediverse after the fact. If you use this thinking as a justification to force Mastodon's rules and Mastodon's culture upon Friendica and Hubzilla users because you take them for intruders in a place where they don't rightfully belong.

    Because Friendica and Hubzilla did not intrude into Mastodon's Fediverse. They were in the Fediverse before Mastodon.

    You should care if you think that posting more than 500 characters is bad behaviour as it goes against "the Fediverse culture".

    Because that "Fediverse culture" is only Mastodon's culture. And the culture on Friendica and Hubzilla, which pre-dates Mastodon itself by years, knows no character limits.

    You should care if you think that Gargron is evil for introducing quote-posts to the Fediverse.

    Because it was actually Mike Macgirvin, creator of Friendica and Hubzilla, who did that. In 2010. 16 years before now. Almost 6 years before Mastodon was even made.

    And because just about everything that isn't Mastodon could quote-post Mastodon toots before Mastodon users even considered quote-posts evil.

    You should care if you wish for "the Fediverse" to introduce certain new features. Like reply control. Or better list handlings. Or groups. Or even only more characters.

    Because "the Fediverse" does have all these features. Just Mastodon doesn't have them. But Mastodon is not the Fediverse.

    You should care if you don't want "the Fediverse" to ever introduce certain features. Like a higher default character limit. Or text formatting.

    Because the Fediverse already has such features. As in, it can use these features in posts which it then sends to Mastodon. And there's nothing, absolutely nothing that Mastodon and its users can do against it. Except for muting and blocking.

    You should care if you find it easier to use "Mastodon" and "Fediverse" synonymously, and all this "nitpicking" about when it's "Mastodon" and when it's "Fediverse" enrages you.

    Because it enrages users in the non-Mastodon Fediverse when people say right into their faces that they toot. And/or that they're on Mastodon and therefore bound to the exact same rules and the exact same culture as everyone else on Mastodon. And they will so very much not let you have your way.

    All these are things which, unfortunately, those who have never experienced anything else in the Fediverse than Mastodon will hardly ever understand.

    #Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #Fediverse #Mastodon #QuotePost #QuotePosts #QuoteTweet #QuoteTweets #QuoteToot #QuoteToots #QuoteBoost #QuoteBoosts #QuotedShares #CharacterLimit #CharacterLimits #CharacterLimitMeta #CWCharacterLimitMeta #500Characters #NotOnlyMastodon #FediverseIsNotMastodon #MastodonIsNotTheFediverse
  4. @craftxbox No, it's about more than every other Mastodon user thinking that the Fediverse equals Mastodon.

    Most of the rest still think (or they think they know):
    • The Fediverse started with Mastodon. Gargron has invented the Fediverse.
    • Everything that isn't Mastodon is either designed as a Mastodon add-on (Pixelfed, PeerTube etc.), or if it clearly isn't that, it's an intruder into the Mastodon Fediverse.
    • If Mastodon doesn't have a feature, the Fediverse doesn't have that feature. This also means that if they succeed at keeping Mastodon from introducing a feature that they don't want, the whole Fediverse will never have it.

    There are Mastodon users who wish for "the Fediverse" (they mean Mastodon because that's all they know) to introduce some feature, blissfully unaware that this feature is all over the Fediverse outside of Mastodon.

    There are Mastodon users who "know for a fact" that Mastodon has just introduced quote-posts to the Fediverse, including an opt-out that works Fediverse-wide. They're blissfully unaware that a) Friendica and Hubzilla have been able to quote-post literally every single last public Mastodon toot since Mastodon's launch in 2016, and b) they both still are, opt-out or not.

    And then there are those who spend two years or more thinking the entire Fediverse is a 500-character microblogging service, and who shit brix in sheer terror and hammer on the block button in sheer panic whenever a "toot" with more than 500 characters shows up in their timeline.

    And, of course, those who try hard to force Mastodon's culture and Mastodon's rules, both of which are geared towards Mastodon and Mastodon only, upon users of server applications that are very very much not Mastodon. Because they think that Mastodon culture = Fediverse culture. And who, at the same time, fight everyone who suggests they do something that isn't inline with their perception of Mastodon's culture and rules.

    #Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #Fediverse #Mastodon #QuotePost #QuotePosts #QuoteTweet #QuoteTweets #QuoteToot #QuoteToots #QuoteBoost #QuoteBoosts #QuotedShares #CharacterLimit #CharacterLimits #CharacterLimitMeta #CWCharacterLimitMeta #500Characters #NotOnlyMastodon #FediverseIsNotMastodon #MastodonIsNotTheFediverse
  5. CW: Uncomfortable truth about the Fediverse that'll totally scare Mastodon users; CW: long (over 2,400 characters), Fediverse meta, Fediverse-beyond-Mastodon meta, quote-post meta, character limit meta
    When you see it, you'll shit brix: The Hubzilla timeline.

    The "it" that you're supposed to see is:
    • The Fediverse did, in fact, not start with Mastodon.
      There was something in the Fediverse before Mastodon: Mistpark was there almost 6 years before Mastodon, Hubzilla was there 10 months before Mastodon.
      Mastodon came into an already existing Fediverse with servers and users and content and a culture.
      The Fediverse has never been only Mastodon. And it will never be.
    • The Fediverse had quote-posts almost 6 years before Mastodon.
      (Accurate implication: The non-Mastodon Fediverse can quote-post any public Mastodon toot with no problems, and it has always been able to do so, for as long as Mastodon has been around.)
    • The Fediverse had groups almost 6 years before Mastodon which still doesn't even support groups.
    • The Fediverse had better lists than Mastodon lists almost 6 years before Mastodon.
    • The Fediverse had reply control almost 6 years before Mastodon where people are still waiting for some kind of reply control.
    • The Fediverse had permissions almost 6 years before Mastodon where the concept of permissions is completely unknown.
    And if you've really paid attention:
    • The Fediverse had no character limit to worry about almost 6 years before Mastodon came along with only 500 characters.
      The Fediverse had 16,777,215 characters almost 6 years before Mastodon had 500 characters.
    • The Fediverse had full rich-text formatting almost 6 years before Mastodon.
      The Fediverse could generate bold type, italics, underline, code blocks, bullet-point lists etc. without any Unicode trickery. Almost 6 years before Mastodon was there. And more than 12 years before Mastodon could even only display that stuff.

    Although it should be blatantly obvious: This here is not a Mastodon toot. This post comes from Hubzilla directly to your Mastodon apps.

    #Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #Fediverse #Mastodon #Mistpark #Friendica #Hubzilla #FediverseCulture #QuotePost #QuotePosts #QuoteTweet #QuoteTweets #QuoteToot #QuoteToots #QuoteBoost #QuoteBoosts #QuotedShares #Groups #FediGroups #FediverseGroups #Lists #ReplyControl #Permissions #CharacterLimit #CharacterLimits #CharacterLimitMeta #CWCharacterLimitMeta #500Characters #TextFormatting #RichText #NotOnlyMastodon #FediverseIsNotMastodon #MastodonIsNotTheFediverse
  6. @Justin Crozer @Stefan Bohacek @Lentävä Kalakukko @Roni Rolle Laukkarinen Whenever I see Mastodon users talk about "culture" in a Fediverse context, I have to wonder: What exactly do they refer to when they talk about "culture"?

    Is it Fediverse culture? As in, overarching, software-independent Fediverse culture?

    As in, taking into consideration that Fediverse server applications that aren't Mastodon, e.g. Misskey or Sharkey or Friendica or Hubzilla, have different cultures than Mastodon?

    Recognising a post or a comment from one of these applications, acknowledging that it comes from a place with a different history, a different set of features and thus a different culture than Mastodon and refraining from enforcing Mastodon's unwritten rules against it?

    Or does "culture" only refer to Mastodon's culture? Does it reject or completely disregard all cultures in the Fediverse that aren't Mastodon's and demand the whole Fediverse adopt Mastodon's culture and only Mastodon's culture?

    Do these "bad eggs" include users who post more than 500 characters at once (which, by the way, is perfectly normal everywhere outside of Mastodon)?

    Do these "bad eggs" include users who reply to people who haven't mentioned them first, and whom they aren't mutually following either (which, by the way, is perfectly normal in large parts of the non-Mastodon Fediverse, too)?

    Do these "bad eggs" include users who quote-post Mastodon toots that must not be quote-posted (because they've had quote-posts for much longer than Mastodon, but without a no-quote flag so they can't see Mastodon's no-quote flag)?

    Do these "bad eggs" incllude users who "misuse" Mastodon's CW field for summaries (because they have literally had the exact same text field as a summary field for seven years longer than Mastodon has had it as a CW field, and because having a summary field makes a whole lot of sense if your character limit is not 500, but over 16.7 million)?

    Do these "bad eggs" include users who use more than four hashtags in one post (because, unlike Mastodon, the places where they are have filtering as well as automatically having messages hidden behind CW buttons deeply engrained into their cultures, but this requires the appropriate keywords to be present)?

    If so, then this explains why only Mastodon users can enjoy significant reach on Mastodon: Everyone else is mass-blocked for misbehaving by Mastodon's standards.

    #Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #QuotePost #QuotePosts #QuoteTweet #QuoteTweets #QuoteToot #QuoteToots #QuoteBoost #QuoteBoosts #QuotedShares #QuotePostDebate #QuoteTootDebate #CW #CWs #CWMeta #ContentWarning #ContentWarnings #ContentWarningMeta #CharacterLimit #CharacterLimits #CharacterLimitMeta #CWCharacterLimitMeta #Fediverse #Mastodon #NotOnlyMastodon #FediverseIsNotMastodon #MastodonIsNotTheFediverse #MastodonCulture #MastodonCentricity #MastodonNormativity
  7. CW: The Fediverse has quote-posts right now, it can quote-post Mastodon toots with no problems, and no Mastodon switch will change that; CW: long (over 4,500 characters), Fediverse meta, Fediverse beyond Mastodon meta, quote-post meta
    One of the worst aspects of Mastodon's plans to introduce quote-posts with a switch:

    You keep having to tell Mastodon users that the Fediverse is not only Mastodon. That (insert a long list of Fediverse server applications here¹) have had quote-posts from the beginning. That they're all in the Fediverse. That they're all fully federated with Mastodon. That they can all quote-post any Mastodon toot they can possibly receive or import. And that they will be able to quote-post any Mastodon toot they can in the future, regardless of Mastodon account settings.

    Up until this point, they were fully, firmly convinced that they're 100% safe from quote-posts on Mastodon. Either because they could not for the lives of them imagine that anything in the Fediverse has them. Or simply because they "knew" up until this point that the Fediverse is Mastodon. And if Mastodon introduces an opt-out or opt-in switch, this switch will mean absolute, 100% water-tight safety from quote-posts.

    But for the Fediverse outside of Mastodon, the quote-post switch will be completely useless. Again: These lots of Fediverse server apps have had quote-posts before Mastodon introduced them. They had quote-posts before Mastodon invented the opt-in or opt-out switch. I mean, at least two of them have had quote-posts since before Mastodon even existed! So how are they supposed to support a proprietary, non-standard, Mastodon-specific switch which probably won't be documented anywhere before Mastodon rolls out quote-posts?

    I'll tell you what'll happen.

    Mastodon users will deactivate quote-posts for their accounts or not activate them in the first place. Non-Mastodon users, not knowing about the status of that switch, will quote-post them regardless with zero resistance. Upon which these Mastodon users will shit brix. And they'll call for either blocking that obviously rogue Mastodon user instance-wide, or blocking that user's instance, or Fediblocking that user's instance.

    At this point, someone else who is not on Mastodon either will chime in and tell them: That particular user is, in fact, not on Mastodon. The Fediverse is not only Mastodon. That user is on Friendica. No, Friendica is not a rogue Mastodon instance. Friendica is not Mastodon at all. No, Friendica isn't a Mastodon fork either. Friendica has nothing to do with Mastodon. In fact, Friendica is older than Mastodon. On Friendica, quote-posts are perfectly normal. Friendica has had quote-posts for longer than Mastodon has even existed. And so forth.

    Cue the Mastodon user shitting brix again, foaming with anger and calling for a Fediblock of all of Friendica.

    In fact, I'm pretty sure that if Mastodon's quote-post feature and the rest of the Fediverse disregarding it leads to more awareness of the non-Mastodon Fediverse and its non-Mastodon features on Mastodon, it will also lead to demands for being able to completely block everything that isn't Mastodon, either on an account level (and then on by default, of course) or on an instance level or both.

    Oh, by the way: The ability to completely lock out entire Fediverse projects already exists in the Fediverse right now, too. It's exclusive to two other Fediverse server apps that aren't Mastodon, both of which introduced this feature in September.

    ¹Here's a probably incomplete list of still-active Fediverse server apps with quote-posts which, yes, can quote-post Mastodon toots right now and will be able to quote-post Mastodon toots regardless of opt-in or opt-out:
    • Pleroma
    • Akkoma
    • Misskey
    • Firefish
    • Sharkey
    • Iceshrimp
    • Iceshrimp.NET
    • CherryPick
    • Neko
    • Catodon
    • Meisskey
    • Tanukey
    • Metaskey
    • Mitra
    • Friendica
    • Hubzilla
    • (streams)
    • Forte
    And both Threads and the Bridgy Fed Bluesky bridge support quote-posts, too.

    (Inb4 both Oliphant and The Bad Space trying hard to catch all instances of the server apps mentioned above to blocklist them all.)

    #Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #Fediverse #NotOnlyMastodon #FediverseIsNotMastodon #MastodonIsNotTheFediverse #Mastodon #Pleroma #Akkoma #Misskey #Calckey #Firefish #Sharkey #Iceshrimp #Iceshrimp.NET #CherryPick #Neko #Catodon #Meisskey #Tanukey #Metaskey #Mitra #Friendica #Hubzilla #Streams #(streams) #Forte #Threads #BridgyFed #Bluesky #QuotePost #QuotePosts #QuoteTweet #QuoteTweets #QuoteToot #QuoteToots #QuoteBoost #QuoteBoosts #QuotedShares #QuotePostDebate #QuoteTootDebate #FediblockMeta #Oliphant #TheBadSpace