that this is one of the most popular posts on mastodon currently is a clear indication of how widely pervasive the reply-guy problem is here, and that its not just a few obnoxious person that contribute to the problem
-
@ben_hr haha no its not at all. reply-guys is not about the act of replying, its about the content of the reply and which signal it sends
also replies by people who are mutuals should be seen as different again as well, if youre mutual there is much greater leeway of the types of comments that are acceptable imo
-
Peter Toft Jรธlvingreplied to Laurens Hof last edited by
@laurenshof I would imagine people to consider such a reply appropriate in much the same situations as tl;dr, which I agree isn't very often.
My own interpretation of its popularity - and the reason I boosted it - is to convey the frustration felt being excluded from a discussion and (perhaps even more relevant) signal paywalled content as unconvincing when presented as part of an ongoing discussion by virtue of it being inaccessible.
-
Laurens Hofreplied to Peter Toft Jรธlving last edited by
@joelving archive.ph exists
but the bigger problem is still the need to let the other person know this via a reply. if you feel that youre not part of a discussion because of a paywalled link (a framing i have issues with, but lets assume that for now), why not the more simply reaction that the discussion is not for you and simply move on? the large majority of posts are not catered towards me, and thats completely normal
-
@laurenshof Remember when Mastodon added reminders about basic social/online etiquette?
Mastodon tackles the problem of 'reply guys' with its latest feature | TechCrunch
Mastodon's latest update is tackling a problem Twitter users know all too well: the scourge of the "reply guys." A colloquial term for the men who
TechCrunch (techcrunch.com)
Honestly, they should remove the "Don't remind me again" option, and add it to the web interface as well.
-
Emelia ๐ธ๐ปreplied to Stefan Bohacek last edited by
@stefan @laurenshof I would definitely like to see this in the web UI. Though I'm not sure what it'd look like.
But Iโd probably argue majority of the "reply guys" aren't using the official apps or the web UI.
-
Stefan Bohacekreplied to Emelia ๐ธ๐ป last edited by
@thisismissem @laurenshof That's an interesting hypothesis.
Still, maybe just a little reminder that says "Life is short, not every post needs a reply" when you want to respond to someone who doesn't follow you might help.
-
FediThing ๐ณ๏ธโ๐replied to Ben Harris-Roxas last edited by
Reply guy means rude/patronising/unconstructive replies rather than replies in general?
Or is there an issue with positive non-patronising replies too? (Genuine question, would like to know if there is!)
-
Emelia ๐ธ๐ปreplied to Stefan Bohacek last edited by
@stefan @laurenshof yeah, but it's still a difficult design thing, like where would you put that in this design? There's not really enough room for it.
A modal dialog would probably appear clunky if it were only to go back to the sidebar to compose the reply.
-
Tom Casavantreplied to Emelia ๐ธ๐ป last edited by
@thisismissem @stefan @laurenshof maybe as like a text placeholder, like how twitter used "Whats happening?"
-
Emelia ๐ธ๐ปreplied to Emelia ๐ธ๐ป last edited by
@stefan @laurenshof In the bluesky reply form, with it being a modal, it'd work quite well, since there's more room, and you could even do it as an interstitial between clicking reply and seeing the composer.
I think there's some plan to change the composer, but I don't know what those are, but I know the Mastodon team are aware of current limitations around the composer form.
-
Emelia ๐ธ๐ปreplied to Tom Casavant last edited by
@tom @stefan @laurenshof the users' handle is already prefilled, so that wouldn't work.
-
Stefan Bohacekreplied to Emelia ๐ธ๐ป last edited by
@thisismissem @laurenshof Yeah, I'm not really a designer, so I don't have an easy answer.
But I do appreciate that you're seriously considering the idea!
-
Laurens Hofreplied to FediThing ๐ณ๏ธโ๐ last edited by
yeah the reply being condescending/patronizing/creepy is what makes it replyguy behaviour, it is not about a reply from a man in general
-
@stefan @thisismissem i appreciate you taking it seriously Emelia, (and your work in general), but I don't think this is a problem that you can design your way out of
think you can only fix this by the community at large coming to a conclusion that this behaviour is unacceptable and should be called out. which is a bit of a challenge, to put it mildly, seems the wide consensus seems to be that this behaviour is fine lol
-
Emelia ๐ธ๐ปreplied to Stefan Bohacek last edited by
@stefan @laurenshof I think eventually we'll see the composer move into a modal dialogue, at least for replies, but that's probably something @samhenrigold will figure out
-
@laurenshof @stefan yeah, software can help nudge community culture, but can't change community culture by itself, that's on all of us.
-
Stefan Bohacekreplied to Emelia ๐ธ๐ป last edited by
@thisismissem @laurenshof Absolutely agree that you can't fix this with technology alone, but I like the idea of little "nudges".
Not sure how much this would help, but considering how big of an issue this is, maybe worth trying?
-
Emelia ๐ธ๐ปreplied to Stefan Bohacek last edited by
@stefan @laurenshof you probably could create an issue for it, but I also think it's something the mastodon team are already investigating.
I think something that'd be really good to see is a documentation section on "UI guidelines & recommendations for client apps"
-
malena / bikes not bombsreplied to Laurens Hof last edited by
@laurenshof @joelving it points to a more substantive and really irritating group of replies: โyou, a stranger, need to perform labor so that I can possess your contentโ
this group includes the people demanding you Google for them, demanding you contact authors and get โmore dataโ, demanding you go to archive ph instead of them etc
The root ideology is communitu without boundaries or consent
-
malena / bikes not bombsreplied to Laurens Hof last edited by
@laurenshof i agree & thx for saying it. i think this culture is starting to shift because more and more of us are naming it and resisting it. Iโd like to make little Instagram like images that link to a blog that explains the whole problem and taxonomy, so when someone does one of these, I can just reply with the image or link, mute and move on