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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

#41

Post by Ciantic »

The only solution I can think of is smarter algorithms that hide negativity and other unwanted comments. Yes you could limit replies, but that doesn't solve the problem for big accounts, their followers have all kinds of unhinged people who like to ask trivial questions and waste your time.

Some think that by changing a service they can get better replies, but there will be no single service that has "sane commenters". This shouldn't be surprising, I saw in Threads complaints that replies had "Facebook vibe", or a common complaint about Mastodon that there were too many geeky reply-guys.

Services should have good filtering in place. A lot of big accounts don't have time to read replies, and they probably shouldn't for their own sanity, but they probably want to see replies from people they follow, i.e. their peers.

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

#42

Post by b112 »

VHRanger wrote: post #34
Retr0id wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

You don't have to read it? If you hate reading comments AND you can't stop yourself from reading them, go see a therapist. I don't mean this blithely, it's a sign of unaddressed emotional issues, it's a fixable thing and nothing to be ashamed of. It's not "who you are", it's just "a bad behavioral habit".

I'm not going to say you're wrong, but provide a differing perspective.

Imagine that for no reason you can fathom, you hear that Bob claims about you. You don't know why, so you seek to find out, and you feel you should let people know that Bob isn't right!

That's the sort of logic involved sometimes. Is it wrong? Well, likely in the world of "1 million strangers are reading and some are replying" it is. But it's perfectly sensible in a local community, to want to 'set the record straight'.

And this peer-pressure derived desire to not be seen as a 'bad guy', is moderately important in a cohesive society. This desire to be seen by others in our community in a positive light, is just part of how we as animals, form a society.

It's a "good thing", when locally derived. But yes, we need new ways to deal with this I guess.

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

#43

Post by willjp »

This is interesting. I don’t find that she’s hating on the tool at all - I think she’s frustrated by negative interactions that sap her energy, has taken note of that, and is explaining her absence.

I both agree and disagree with some of the comments. Until very recently my interactions with the internet have been fairly shallow and that has protected me in some ways. But I think some people are looking for community, and want to give a bit more of themselves to form deeper connections. I think others are trying to grow an audience - reading the comments is not much different than surveying your customers.

Veronica seems really lovely, and I hope this helps make her life happier.

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

#44

Post by beardedwizard »

VHRanger wrote: post #36
alt227 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fully agree. This person states how they have joined and left many social media networks over the last 30 years. They often quote the same reasons for leaving them (comment toxicity, it not being 'fun' anymore, etc). However they dont seem to have identifdied the common factor here, they they themselves dont like anonymous negative comments about their posts and content. As you have pointed out, there are tools and w…

Yeah it's an emotional skill to develop. But the person first needs to realize they are the pattern.

This assumes an awful lot about a person and what they may or may not need to do.

People don't have to learn to like anything, especially online commentary.

This thread sounds like a bunch of men attempting to invalidate this woman's feelings.

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

#45

Post by ethbr1 »

Almondsetat wrote: post #15
michaelt wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Any medium where you invite commentary from strangers on the internet is going to be full of ignorant commentary. [...] I do not think this is a problem with the tool. You think the design of this medium inherently attracts death threats (which the author mentions, and I assume you've generalised into 'ignorant comments') - but it's not a problem with the medium? To me it sounds like a medium that's giving undue we…

Allowing any person to comment is the most freedom you can give people. If people are free to comment whatever they want and they choose to publish crap then that's just a commentary on human nature, not the tool.

All scenarios where anyone can comment anything are not equal, though.

F.ex. are anonymous comments allowed?

To some degree the platform defines the content it generates.

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

#46

Post by HuwFulcher »

I find that Mastodon has become the mirror-verse version of Twitter/X. I've tried spending time on there but unless if you subscribe to certain political/ideological values then you wont find much to hang around for.

On the flip side I find the discourse on X a lot more varied. There are definitely big problems with the types of conversations that happen on X but I have to go out of my way to find them. On Mastodon it's not that hard, mainly down to it being a smaller pool of content.

ActivityPub/Mastodon is flawed at its core with its concept of federation. They paint a pretty utopian picture of decentralised communities but there really isn't much difference between them. They are mostly part of the same political zeitgeist and if you don't toe the line you get banned. Once you're banned that's it, you've lost your profile, sure you can recreate elsewhere but have to start from scratch.

For the problems alternatives have like Nostr at least they are truly censorship resistant.

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

#47

Post by themaninthedark »

Retr0id wrote: post #29
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.

Just because someone links to and has the ability to commentate on your work does not mean that you need to read/engage/acknowledge the commentary.

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

#48

Post by beowulfey »

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…

I think there is an even simpler solution, and it's the one the author mentions...

stop using that medium to post things.

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

#49

Post by bee_rider »

CM30 wrote: post #30
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 'mess…

It depends on the “old school forum” I think. Most phpbb style forums had limited populations, so they were more like chats with your friends at a bar; people come and go, but if you are a regular, there are some familiar faces, and you will likely be engaging with the same people in the short term, so being incredibly rude is counter-productive.

Really big boards like Something Awful were the ones known for their rudeness.

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

#50

Post by CaptArmchair »

beardedwizard wrote: post #44
VHRanger wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah it's an emotional skill to develop. But the person first needs to realize they are the pattern.

This assumes an awful lot about a person and what they may or may not need to do. People don't have to learn to like anything, especially online commentary. This thread sounds like a bunch of men attempting to invalidate this woman's feelings.

I agree, moreover, this is what the author wrote:

> All that aside, the problem isn’t just “bad comments”, because I’m a grown woman and can take critique. The biggest problem is that a portion of those folks take screenshots and share them with unsavory folks. Not a week goes by that I don’t get some nasty email from someone I blocked on Mastodon. Some of these have been threatening, and it’s gotten to the point where before I toot, I think “will someone threaten to kill me over this?” That’s not fun.

There's a difference between strongly disagreeing with a post, toot, tweet, what-have-you and outright taking things way beyond what could be seen as proper conduct with respect for the human on the other end.

The solution isn't to just accept that under the guise of emotional maturity. It's investing in proper governance and arbitrage, promoting shared values and morals, and providing enough affordances in digital tools that help affirm all of that.

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