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I'm closing up shop on my Mastodon for the foreseeable future

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Re: I'm closing up shop on my Mastodon for the foreseeable future

#21

Post by keikobadthebad »

esperent wrote: post #7
keikobadthebad wrote: post #3

I did not hear 'reply guy' before joining mastodon. If you're posting short messages with a reply text box, you can expect to get replies, and the replies are going to reflect how your post was received, no matter how it was sent. It works both ways - I replied to a post from an artist really enraged with AI and pointed out it's no different from a human artist seeing art and incorporating it into their style; that r…

I think it might be good for you to reflect on what this "reply guy" thing actually means, and why it is (IMO) a good idea to use it to judge your comments before replying to someone, if you care in any way about empathic online discourse. For example, the artist: their livelihood is directly threatened by AI, if not now then probably in the near future, and they are responding by posting about their fear. It's trans…

Well, I don't disagree it's good to see the other guy's point of view.

But the author and whoever deals with their complaints are not interested in any other point of view - literally, there was no reason given on the ban and when I challenged it, no response.

> Make your own post proving how right you are

It's really not like that, my wife is involved in the creative arts too, this has been discussed and considered here a lot. I was active 20 years ago and learned a lot about how 'the cancer' GPL became legally normal. Even if it was like that, how is a one-shot platform perma-ban encouraging that outcome?

Re: I'm closing up shop on my Mastodon for the foreseeable future

#24

Post by Yotsugi »

AlexandrB wrote: post #14
esperent wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it might be good for you to reflect on what this "reply guy" thing actually means, and why it is (IMO) a good idea to use it to judge your comments before replying to someone, if you care in any way about empathic online discourse. For example, the artist: their livelihood is directly threatened by AI, if not now then probably in the near future, and they are responding by posting about their fear. It's trans…

What you're describing is an echo chamber. If that's something you want there are better ways to get it than a public, general purpose venue like Mastodon. To flip the script a little, would this "Reply Guy" standard also apply when someone with family in Israel posts support for the Israeli government's actions and gets a bunch of replies about how Israel is committing a genocide? I kind of suspect that "Reply Guy"…

[flagged]

Re: I'm closing up shop on my Mastodon for the foreseeable future

#25

Post by rpgbr »

keikobadthebad wrote: post #3

I did not hear 'reply guy' before joining mastodon. If you're posting short messages with a reply text box, you can expect to get replies, and the replies are going to reflect how your post was received, no matter how it was sent. It works both ways - I replied to a post from an artist really enraged with AI and pointed out it's no different from a human artist seeing art and incorporating it into their style; that r…

>If you're posting short messages with a reply text box, you can expect to get replies, and the replies are going to reflect how your post was received, no matter how it was sent.

A reply text box should not be an invitation to trash other the person who posted it. This notion that if you're posting in public you're submitting yourself to harassment is pretty bad.

Re: I'm closing up shop on my Mastodon for the foreseeable future

#26

Post by dsign »

Here's my "reply-guy" comment of the day: if you are posting about where you buy your wall decoration and you get negative feedback, well, maybe it's not worth to tell strangers where you buy wall decoration.

But sometimes somebody puts a lot of effort on creating things for other people to enjoy. It can be a youtube video, a tutorial, a technical opinion. Or curl[^1].

Feedback provided on such an effort often takes a minuscule fraction of the work the creator put in, and they can be really nasty.

I just think that providing opinions should require some effort. An affordable amount of effort, but not too low. Maybe if I do something worth of notice someday, I'll invite feedback by creating a public Minecraft server and asking people to log in there and post their comments on the book at coordinates 1000, -58, 1000.

[^1]: https://daniel.haxx.se/blog/2024/04/22/curl-is-just-the-hobb...

Re: I'm closing up shop on my Mastodon for the foreseeable future

#27

Post by oytis »

keikobadthebad wrote: post #21
esperent wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it might be good for you to reflect on what this "reply guy" thing actually means, and why it is (IMO) a good idea to use it to judge your comments before replying to someone, if you care in any way about empathic online discourse. For example, the artist: their livelihood is directly threatened by AI, if not now then probably in the near future, and they are responding by posting about their fear. It's trans…

Well, I don't disagree it's good to see the other guy's point of view. But the author and whoever deals with their complaints are not interested in any other point of view - literally, there was no reason given on the ban and when I challenged it, no response. > Make your own post proving how right you are It's really not like that, my wife is involved in the creative arts too, this has been discussed and considered…

It's totally OK to not be interested in other points of view. What got you banned from mastodon.social, not just blocked from commenting to that specific account though is I think the personal position of mastodon.social maintainer (and the author of Mastodon) regarding generative AI.

Re: I'm closing up shop on my Mastodon for the foreseeable future

#28

Post by CM30 »

a_bonobo wrote: post #16

What's interesting here is that many of 'us' and the current mainstream say that Internet toxicity is due to The Algorithm, the methods of Facebook/twitter that maximise engagement leading to constant negativity and toxicity. Mastodon's big selling point during the big move away from Twitter/X was the absence of The Algorithm, it was supposed to be a friendly, geeky thing, free from monetised outrage. But I've seen i…

It's really just down to the size of the site/service and Dunbar's Number. Whenever a site or service gets big enough that you can't really know everyone who's active there, then it tends to spiral towards toxicity. Hence why big forums used to be a lot crazier/dramatic than smaller ones, why social media platforms tend towards becoming a cesspit over time, and why the means of which a platform is run matters less than people think civility wise.

Re: I'm closing up shop on my Mastodon for the foreseeable future

#29

Post by Retr0id »

lrvick wrote: post #5

Any medium where you invite commentary from strangers on the internet is going to be full of ignorant commentary. If this is something that stresses you out, probably best to disable comments from anyone you do not follow. Simple as that. I do not think this is a problem with the tool. I do think over-exposure to internet commentary is toxic. Like alcohol, it is a poison that is only fun if you are capable of moderat…

> disable comments from anyone you do not follow

A good chunk of what I publish online doesn't have a comment section at all, but the moment someone posts a link to HN (or reddit, or...), suddenly it does.

Re: I'm closing up shop on my Mastodon for the foreseeable future

#30

Post by CM30 »

keikobadthebad wrote: post #3

I did not hear 'reply guy' before joining mastodon. If you're posting short messages with a reply text box, you can expect to get replies, and the replies are going to reflect how your post was received, no matter how it was sent. It works both ways - I replied to a post from an artist really enraged with AI and pointed out it's no different from a human artist seeing art and incorporating it into their style; that r…

Personally I supect it might be due to differing expectations as to what social media conversations are. I think those who weren't super active on forums and other old school chat systems think of them as closer to a chat between friends in a bar than between randoms on the street, and struggle to handle the idea that anyone in the world can reply at any point.

But that's kinda the thing. As you said, the whole 'messages with reply text box' design is set up to encourage responses from whoever wants to respond, and social media services are closer to a soapbox in Speaker's Corner or maybe Times Square than a chat between friends at home or in a restaurant.

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