I've been looking into Mastodon, but the culture there is quite puzzling. A majority of posts and images are hidden behind content warnings. I opened a bunch of them and wasn't sure why they were even hidden. My first impression is that Mastodon seems to be a Twitter-style version of Tumblr for snowflakes that need trigger warnings on everything. It makes me afraid to post because someone might take offense. Am I missing the point?
There is a ton of convention behind mastodon usage that isn't enforced or even suggested by the technology and that gets everyone very riled up if you don't do it right. It's very insular and cliquey that way. You discovered the most obvious one.
ReplyDeleteI was the witness when this happened for the first time. When Mastodon was launched the Japanese quickly picked it up and became very popular there, especially among hentai manga artists. When those artists post their H drawings people especially those on the western part of the world were complaining so the devs took measure by implementing content warning. And IIRC before it was implemented the connection to some Japanese Mastodon servers were briefly cut while the devs were figuring out the solution.
ReplyDeleteHalfey Halphstein If the CW's were Iimited to NSFW content I'd understand, but they aren't. For example: if you mention a different social network you seem to need a CW.
ReplyDeleteJeffry Johnston It's up to the user to set the warning. It's not done automatically by the system.
ReplyDeleteJeffry Johnston Yup, this is the cultural component that's not built into the technology. People started using the content warning for something different and now it's expected behaviour even though the technology gives you no cues.
ReplyDeleteBrad Murray Thanks for the confirmation. I guess Mastodon just isn't a match for me right now.
ReplyDeleteIt's a sign to me that the developers are not that interested in the needs of the culture that the software supports and that's a bit of a red flag.
ReplyDeleteMost of these 'warnings' are just by defult. People are too lazy to select it every time, and flip the general warning switch in their setings - so each and every of their posts gets marked.
ReplyDeleteBrad Murray Not everything about the usage is due development/developers. keep in mind, Mastodon is a decentralized system and every instancs may or may not enforce local guidelines, which in turn doN't touch any other instance.
ReplyDeleteFreedom comes always with a taste of chaos.
Hans Franke if a culture has developed to misuse a feature to solve a problem then a responsive dev culture would identify the real problem and solve it with a feature option. In this case people clearly want long text and images behind a see more tag but the dev team is content with the cultural solution. Consequently the culture becomes increasingly hostile to new users.
ReplyDeleteBrad Murray You mean like twitter doing more than 140 chars? It'll never be enough.
ReplyDeleteJust ignore it. The culture is what the users make it. And you're a user.
ReplyDeleteIMHO. CW is appropriate in a very few cases. eg NSFW and spoilers or joke reveals. In all other cases, the correct response to something somebody feels should be behind CW is for them to unfollow you or block you.
Julian Bond I agree with what you're saying, but I sought another opinion from a long time Mastodon user. They told me if I wasn't using CW I was causing emotional harm to others.
ReplyDeletetheir problem, not mine. If they get disturbed by postings about the 'birdsite' aka Twitter, then they can block me and move on :)
ReplyDeleteSo far I've yet to encounter this CW issue you've mentioned though.
Then again, I think I have my client configured to always show CW content regardless, since I'm not a fragile snowflake.
Mastodon users often use NSFW button just to make update smaller in timeline.
ReplyDeleteEven I like more, when there are not visible big pictures in timeline (openspace in my job).
Even admin of one server recommended me to use NSFW for long updates to not "steal" timeline.
ReplyDeleteRegarding "harm other users" - there are Mastodon server with almost no rules what to publish. You can be rude and it's fine on this server.
ReplyDeleteG+'s abrevated display is a definite plus, isn't it?
ReplyDelete