Relaxing treatment of non-notes by Mastodon

[julian]

@[email protected] yes, there are pros and cons (but mostly pros!)

The one con is that microblogging tends to encourage a more bush-like tree, with many separate conversations that can trace their lineage back to a root node. A forum with a linear interface can and does struggle at times with that use-case.

The solution is, of course, to fork out a subset of the conversation into a new topic/context, but there is currently no as:Fork activity, and therefore no support *sheds tear*

[darius@friend.camp]

@trwnh @erincandescent dark magic that I leave to Christine

[omz13@mastodon.social]

@thisismissem @trwnh @julian @pfefferle @manton @samsethi @renchap @andypiper Beware those stop gap solutions that become permanent instead of temporary in nature.

[mario@hub.somaton.com]

@julian

promote the "Open Original Page" button

This will only work for as:public

[Nilesh Trivedi]

@julian I recently got interested in building topic-first discovery of content/conversations (Slack/Discord-like groupchat rather than "microblogging" which emphasizes recency and user identity). I ended up relying on Mastodon's hashtags (which users can already subscribe/follow), and elevating them in the user interface (a Slack-like sidebar which lists user's followed hashtags). But this bakes in certain expectations about topics/hashtags - how permanent and universal they are. Forking out a subset of the conversations into a new "topic" raises so many questions. "Topics" really is a big can of worms.

Another frustration I ran into with Zulip requiring a "topic" for every new thread was, how much user friction it introduces. Discord solved it by automatically inferring a topic or thread title whenever a thread is created. Would like to see more of this (more organized content, without burdening the user but still allowing them to re-organize).

[johnonolan@mastodon.xyz]

@julian @thisismissem @hongminhee @pfefferle Our primary view for longform content (articles) is an inbox/reader list of posts - where it makes sense to show a preview (as inboxes and readers do) before opening. Preview requires an object, so as:Note felt like the most logical object to fit there. We're mainly using this for Ghost<>Ghost atm.

[johnonolan@mastodon.xyz]

@julian @thisismissem @hongminhee @pfefferle Separately, Mastodon are doing great work and have a non-stop barrage of feature requests (often: demands) from all sides, and everyone is convinced theirs is the most critical (ofc).

We've chatted to them about long-form, and they're well aware

They don't need importance impressed upon them, but they certainly do need funding and PRs — so I think you're very much on the right track there!

[pfefferle@mastodon.social]

@julian I totally agree with @renchap that it is important to keep the user on the platform of his/her choice! I like the idea of having a better "read more" UX or maybe the lightbox idea.

But to have the best possible experience and to improve the engagement, you should not force the user to leave the platform.

Otherwise it feels very much like subscribing to an RSS-Feed with only excerpts, where you always have to leave the reader for reading the whole text!

[pfefferle@mastodon.social]

@julian @thisismissem @hongminhee @johnonolan but that's no longer completely true. You can send a `summary` if `as:sensitive` is false

only if `as:sensitive` is set to true, the `summary` will be used as content warning.

[thisismissem@hachyderm.io]

@pfefferle @julian @hongminhee @johnonolan

And if as:sensitive isn't set..?

[pfefferle@mastodon.social]

@thisismissem @julian @hongminhee @johnonolan then Mastodon uses the `summary` as summary.

[thisismissem@hachyderm.io]

@pfefferle @julian @hongminhee @johnonolan

Hmm.. I wonder what @samsethi was hitting into the other day then? He said something about summary marking posts as sensitive incorrectly

[kevinmarks@xoxo.zone]

@thisismissem @pfefferle @julian @hongminhee @johnonolan @samsethi did this change in a recent Mastodon version? Have client apps caught up with it?

[pfefferle@mastodon.social]

@KevinMarks @thisismissem @julian @hongminhee @johnonolan @samsethi that is a good point! Maybe it is a client app thingy!

[lkanies@hachyderm.io]

@johnonolan @julian @thisismissem @hongminhee @pfefferle except the maintainers have made it clear they do not want PRs unless you get pre-approval from them for your implementation plan or whatever.

[thisismissem@hachyderm.io]

@lkanies @johnonolan @julian @hongminhee @pfefferle for big stuff, yeah, talk to the maintainers before implementing — that is consistent for any open source project.

[johnonolan@mastodon.xyz]

@thisismissem @lkanies @julian @hongminhee @pfefferle yup, 100% — You can't just walk into someone's house and start re-arranging the furniture and expect them to be pleased.

Always good to start with bugfixes & smaller things to learn the codebase, and for maintainers to get to know+trust you.

Once you've showed that you're going to stick around, you generally get more freedom and approval to take on larger things.

Source: Years of contributing to WordPress, long before Ghost

[thisismissem@hachyderm.io]

@johnonolan @lkanies @julian @hongminhee @pfefferle I can also attest that that's the case with Mastodon — I did a heap of small contributions before being able to drive bigger changes.

[lkanies@hachyderm.io]

@thisismissem @johnonolan @julian @hongminhee @pfefferle that’s good to hear. Because… that’s not the way I see them talk about it. Literally every time someone talks about doing a PR, there’s a request for consultation beforehand. I’ve never seen that in any other community.

(It’s true that my OSS contributions were mostly quite a while ago. And a lot of them were to the project I started, which I absolutely did not run that way.)

[lkanies@hachyderm.io]

@johnonolan @thisismissem @julian @hongminhee @pfefferle it’s only rearranging the furniture if they accept the PR, as you know.

OSS is supposed to be about permissionless innovation, so it’s weird to have to get permission first.