“Disable replies” feature #8565
Comments
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I'd be curious to hear from the thumbs-down people why they feel this is a bad idea! |
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I strongly support this suggestion. One additional suggestion: Could we have privacy settings for replies? In my ideal world, users could set three settings:
This would let someone receive some replies, but still retain some control over the number (especially if combined with approving follows). |
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I think this is a very positive suggestion in part because it would reinforce something I like a lot about Mastodon's culture: It is very welcoming to strangers joining in to a conversation (and making new Internet friends). In contrast, Twitter has a strong culture of "what are these randos doing in my mentions?". That culture seems fairly toxic—not only does it explicitly push people away from some conversations, it also makes people who don't want to annoy anyone significantly more reluctant to join in conversations—even when their contributions would be welcome. I'd very much like to see Mastodon avoid this same dynamic. Why do I think this feature would help avoid the dynamic? Wouldn't it just give people more tools to keep strangers out of their mentions? No. What this feature would do is allow users to enforce something with technology instead of social pressure. The result of implementing this feature would be that people who don't set No Replies are explicitly welcoming replies—if you see a post that allows replies, you can be certain that the original tooter welcomes those replies. In contrast, right now or on Twitter, users have to guess about whether their reply would be welcome. |
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I used to get a lot of unsolicited advice/criticism etc. in my mentions on Mastodon until I locked my account, way worse than on Twitter, so yeah - I think giving people the tools to make their lives easier and reduce the work involved in just posting something a bit controversial would be extremely helpful. Mastodon-the-project talks a lot about anti-abuse features and curating a safe environment for yourself and whatnot, and we have a lot of tools now that make communication start with consent. I think this feature would be in line with that, giving people a tool to withdraw consent to respond. I think for me I wouldn't need such granular control for the don't-@-me. If I wanted only my followers to be able to reply, I would probably set the post to followers-only anyway. But that's me! |
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@codesections I was wondering a lot about reply "reach" (dislike the word "privacy" here) of the replies. I really miss replies on the public timelines - this is what I like on Pleroma that those get displayed there. I think that "no public timeline" could be the default setting for a reply if most people are concerned. @Cassolotl thanks for calling me out, I'll consider that. For now I believe the emoji is quite an appropriate reaction. |
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@codesections one thing that struck me once I re-read my reply. I think it is a pretty common case when two people are engaged in the exchange about something and not necessarily want to have somebody else joining in. How could this be solved (apart from switching to DMs of course)? |
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I see why it's needed but I am just a tad concerned it could be used for dogpiling. Scenario:
I still like the idea, so perhaps two potential ideas for a solution here:
I think I like 2. better here, since it would also enable the "public, but limited conversation" functionality (i.e. having a public conversation but with only select parties, as opposed to using DMs for that). |
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@rysiekpl, I really like your suggestion 2. I hadn't considered that threat, but you spotted it and came up with a great solution. And that fits in well with how DMs currently work—anyone @ mentioned in a DM is included in the DM. So I think this would fit well with existing UX conventions. |
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@rysiekpl but still even if solution 1 or 2 is implemented, people can still @ Person A ... (threat scenario 2), or am I missing something? |
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@saper Like any abuse-reducing move, there are ways to circumvent it that take a little more effort. Like how we can't quote-toot, but we can take screenshots of toots in order to draw negative attention to them. I remember when people used "but a bad actor could refuse to honour delete requests" as a reason to not have a "delete toot" option. Sure, abusers will find a way to abuse, but making abusers have to work harder is still a good idea. Any barrier to abuse that has no downsides for good people is a good thing! |
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@saper these were not two threat scenarios, this was a single scenario with two steps. And both solutions I propose solve it, since there is no way to dogpile on Person A by @-mentioning them but disabling replies (thus not giving them a chance to respond).
@codesections exactly. |
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ah, now I got it @rysiekpl - quite clever :) Having said that I don't like this feature since this, again, creates artificial barriers in the conversation on the site. I was thinking about something similar to this issue - to add an expiration date (say a week by default), after which it is no longer possible to respond or to boost the message. It could be useful to prevent spreading of messages that have only limited temporal importance and making sure old requests for help do not get boosted around forever, creating chain toots. |
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Chiming in to say that besides liking this feature, I'd look forward to the Mastodon UI reflecting other AP platforms' choice in what they do with replies. For example, you can disable comments on PeerTube videos, and Write.as accepts no comments by default. Having some way for other platforms to set that preference on a per-post or per-user basis, and a visual indication of it in Mastodon, would be great. |
I really don't feel it does, @saper. It's as if you said DMs create artificial barriers in the conversation on the site. In fact, DMs create even stronger barriers! But they're useful and needed. So is this feature. Most people will not use it for most things. But when it's needed it will be there. Question is how to express this correctly in the UI/UX, but this is something that can be worked out, obviously. |
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@rysiekpl You are right of course, but I am that kind of person who does not understand one-way channels on Telegram, always looking for a reply button there. Internet is a read-write medium to me :) |
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Strong agree. I would like to have a way to make this default, at least for myself. I know, for example, when I toot about some annoyance/opinion with technology, I'll be bombarded with unsolicited advice/criticism that is one of:
500 characters is just not enough room to expand on the whole problem space I'm working with, so it's necessarily insufficient for seeking advice even if that's what I'm doing. I could just avoid the whole block/mute dance and disable replies on the majority of toots where I'm really not looking for a response in that medium. |
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Strong disagree. This bolts on strongly counter-intuitive features, in direct contradiction to the product’s strengths, because some users don’t understand what the product is for. The Mastodon front end facilitates conversation, not broadcast. In addition I’m unsure how you could enforce this outside of the Mastodon front-end itself. The entire setup is based on privacy and selective conversation. If users want to avoid most replies, there are tools to cultivate your conversation partners better. But this hypothetical feature introduces a ton of problems from a UX perspective and is the wrong solution to a user problem. I think the tools are in place as it is; we can simply highlight their efficient use better. |
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What's the point of disabling social features of a social network? |
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Different people seem to have different ideas of what Mastodon is for, and none of them are alone. It's not as clear to me as it is to some that Mastodon has a single set of things it's for. For me, it's broadcast-default like microblogs were originally made for, before Twitter twisted it into an impression-focused machine to please advertisers. For others, it's conversation-default. Neither is wrong, but they are incompatible. |
A whole bunch of social features have been removed to discourage harassment, dogpiling, etc. Like, we don't have full text search, we don't have quote-toots, we don't have replies show up in the public timelines any more, etc. Why would someone want to turn off replies/comments on any platform? It's a common feature on social networks and blogging platforms, that people use for various reasons, a lot of them outlined in the comments of this issue. |
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This also has disadvantages: unjust statements go just unchallenged and left "as-is". Some people just vent out but they should be aware they do it publicly. |
If it's code-of-conduct-breaking, that kind of stuff can be reported. But if it's "unjust" people still have a right to withdraw consent for replies, no? The downsides (some people say some bad things and get blocked and if it's bad enough they'll get reported) don't outweigh the upsides (lots of people who are sick of speaking about their experiences/problems and getting trash in their mentions can save themselves a lot of work and anguish). I get the feeling that you are approaching this from a very different perspective, because unsolicited awfulness is a very common experience for me, and to me it is an easy choice. Do you not get a lot of annoying responses when you talk about stuff that's important to you, or if you do, do you find it super easy to deal with them? Edit: What I'm trying to say is, I think the good that could be done by introducing this feature would far outweigh any bad, but I am coming from the perspective of being a person who has to work quite hard to reduce the quantity of unsolicited 'splaining, criticism, advice, abusive comments, etc. So when someone who doesn't need the feature can simply ignore it, and people subject to a lot of that crap (especially marginalised people) could benefit from it a lot, and Mastodon claims to be a software that gives marginalised groups ways to reclaim their power and keep themselves safe, it seems like a very easy decision to introduce a beneficial change that would give a lot of people some peace of mind. |
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I am sorry, I don't think the admins and code of conduct should be invoked every time "someone is wrong on the Internet". Yes, I am that kind of person that responds to random messages on the timeline. Sometimes it is greeting new people, sometimes some discussions going on. I seek actively engagement. I guess my usage is totally different than yours (I thought you have left the network...). I must say my signal-to-noise ratio is very high on Mastodon. I follow some people who annoy me with their opinions to challenge my point of view and I respond to them very carefully. I might have even respectfully responded once or twice to the "do not @ me" messages, since that was a right thing to do. The thing is, how those two radically different visions can be combined on one network. There are some platforms (Wikipedia, for one) which have extreme ability to create communities with people of radically different worldviews to work together on one goal with relatively minimal friction. They don't do it by cutting out features; just people have common topic/issue to work on it and present different views. I don't think that one-sided unchallenged venting off contributes to general health of the community. |
If "someone is wrong on the internet" then the world doesn't end if you can't reply, though!
I did leave for a couple of months, and I appreciated the break. It gave me time to think things over, and while I was mulling I thought of some ways to reduce the negativity I kept getting, and I'm giving it another try. I'm gradually making things better for myself on Mastodon, and it might still not work out but I'm at least going to give it a try!
Well, I'd say, don't follow people if they regularly post with don't-@-me if that frustrates you. And if you don't want to use the don't-@-me setting and you get replies from people who annoy you, what I would do is just mute them or block them. I think all of that can happily co-exist if you give people the right tools.
It's interesting that you bring up Wikipedia as an example, I had to stop editing there too when someone kept undoing my perfectly valid edits and the justice system in place there basically ignored me... :P Wikipedia is a great example of a site that has very little "friction" and the users themselves deal with rule-breakers. If we're aiming for that, we too might end up with a userbase that's 84% male and has a serious sexism problem... |
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This is a federation issue therefore it should be handled by ActivityPub, not Mastodon. And based on this comment, other AP platforms already have this feature so it makes sense for it to be standardized. |
I want to put these two comments next to each other to highlight something: Right now, there are some people who use Mastodon for broadcast, and are annoyed by "random" users "butting in" with unsolicited advice/criticism. There are other people who use Mastodon to start conversations with strangers, and who welcome the ability to have new people join in. I don't think that either of those approaches are right or wrong (disclaimer: I'm in the second group). But I think they're (frequently) incompatible. Even worse, as an outsider, it can be very difficult to know which group someone else is in. It's very easy to accidentally view someone as starting a conversation when they just wanted to broadcast—which leads to hurt feelings. It's just as easy to mistakenly view someone as broadcasting when they wanted to start a conversation—which leads to missed opportunities for human connection. This feature would neatly solve both of those problems. If people want to broadcast, then they can; if people want to start a conversation, they can do that too. And all the rest of us can know what someone wants just by checking their toot settings (and without having to guess). |
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@zcdunn is this a part of a protocol or just what I call "client convention" (the way a client interprets incoming data) ? The spec seems to be pretty vague: https://www.w3.org/TR/activitystreams-vocabulary/#audienceTargeting Also:
I think there is nothing on the protocol level that prevents to set |
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@codesections That's very insightful thanks! Sometimes I wonder what a broadcast mode really is. It reminds me of some corporate Twitter accounts. I think I have some issue with dealing with people who want to take air time but refuse to listen. |
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Ahh yeah, corporate Twitter accounts! I think I'd probably hate them less if it wasn't possible to @ them at all - there would be no pretence that anyone might listen or reply... |
This is kind of bizarre to read. What gives you the impression that someone's refusing to listen when they broadcast? Even the things we get the word broadcast from have mechanisms for feedback! But that doesn't mean people responding have to sit there in the booth with me. I don't understand where you're coming from. |
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Yes, today @Gargron mentioned that in a post → https://mastodon.social/@Gargron/109623910323239777 |
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For abuse-prevention reasons, I feel like it makes sense to allow people to disable replies on posts before implementing QTs. 🤔 |
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Is there already an update on this? /cc @Gargron |
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@SebastianBerlin It's on the roadmap under Exploring (as in, they're considering it) with the phrase "Restrict who can reply to a post", if that helps? I don't know any more than that, sorry! |
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it's more or less stalled on protocol talks right now. the current roadblock is trying to make it work for both reply-based systems and comment-based systems, and maintaining compatibility between the two. the proposal currently assumes that only the direct parent (the author of the post you are replying to) has any authority. this won't work for systems where the authority is with the root post's author, or with some other third-party in charge of moderating a conversation. basically, we need a way to signal a "thread" or "conversation", then declare that someone "owns" that thread or conversation... but we may or may not also need a way to signal that there is no thread or conversation, and in such cases, who do you ask for approval? how do you handle cases where the thread or conversation changes or is dropped? again, see the discussion around FEP-5624 if you're interested in the technical details: https://socialhub.activitypub.rocks/t/fep-5624-per-object-reply-control-policies/2723/32 |
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@trwnh Thanks, this is a really helpful update! |
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#14762 is a possible duplicate of the same issue... |
so mark it as a broadcast. IRL we differentiate all forms of communication. it is not social media if it doesn't follow social conventions of communications. so mark it as a broadcast and leave it be. that's why, BTW we need reply-posts. it's a way of forking a post into its own conversation thread. |
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This feature would be a great benefit for users while also reducing the required work load of admins and moderators |
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Please, at least make this "planned" on the roadmap. This may bring even more attention from the contributors. |
I have to disagree with this. Consider a scenario where someone is asking for help, for example asking for donations to a 'gofundme' page or something like that, but there is a group of people who actively hate this person. As an example I have actually seen personally, lets say they had gone through horrific trauma as a child, and they draw artwork intending to show how horrific their trauma really was... And they have a group of people vehemently screaming at them because they (the people who hate them) believe the artist is glorifying the trauma. This is exacerbated by the fact that the artist is willing to draw commissions for people who underwent similar trauma, but who aren't artists (hence why they post their art publicly). The person asking for funds would want their message to be spread wide, and NOT be edited with fake links (to, for example, maliciously set up fake gofundme pages that fund the trolls that hate them). So, they would want the boosted posts to be legitimate boosts. But they also don't want to have any replies on their posts, because of the nasty claims being made by the group of people who vehemently hate them. I really wish this was only a hypothetical scenario. |
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We have two separate issues here:
This is about the message integrity, and such issues are usually solved with the use of cryptographic signatures to prevent fake messages. Do you have an example of this being broken?
This is the issue discussed at length in this bug. I wonder how this per-message setting would help to avoid nasty claims. If the vulnerable user sends another message that has replies enabled, wouldn't that allow those who hate them to reply with their nasty stuff anyway? I think a per-message setting is of limited use here. Or is the vulnerable user forced to always disable replies in all their communications? |
A message that goes viral or gets a lot of boosts will get a lot more negative replies (if replies are on) than other posts they have previously made that are unrelated. People reply to the post that is in front of their faces. Most of the time if a post has replies off, the nasty-replier gives up and wanders off. A small percentage might hunt out other posts with replies on to harass with, and a small percentage might just post an original post tagging the user, but turning off replies for one individual post that is getting a lot of negative attention deals with the bulk of the abuse. Speaking from experience. |
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Yes, the disabled comments feature is a much needed feature on Mastodon and is one of the main reasons why a lot of Facebook, Youtube, and other mainstream platform users have not made the switch to using Mastodon. The feature would be most useful in situations where a page's main role is sharing news articles, to prevent backlash and nastiness in the comments section of said articles. I fully support this much needed feature request. |
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Highly support this feature. Adding controls for limiting "Reply Guy" behaviour (unsolicited, unwanted, irrelevant, or contrarian replies from non-mutuals) encourages healthier forms of engagement, and removes barriers to posting for many users. |
What are you talking about, @saper? In the scenario I outlined, I was specifically saying that making no-reply posts be unboostable means that people will need to spread the information without boosting, i.e. copy/pasting the information into their own toots. Malicious actors can pretend to be spreading the information in good faith, but actually be spreading fake links to gofundme pages that fund the haters. My comment has absolutely nothing to do with cryptographic signatures or anything of the sort, and is entirely about whether no-reply toots should be boostable or not. Hence my giving a real life scenario of when a post should be boostable, but also shouldn't have replies enabled. |
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I think this is a great idea, as it gives more user choice. I understand the worry that adding this feature has potential to create a ‘broadcast only’ medium but think the counterbalance of federation and moderation rule that out. More power to the user. More choice to the user. |
Locks don't prevent people from getting into homes so we might as well not have them. |
I'm not sure that I do. The Fediverse is becoming more and more diverse. It seems pretty normal and okay to me that due to the diversity of connected software some posts won't be interactive. Lots of media is broadcast-only, it's no big deal. :D |
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strongly support this feature being added. it’s my post, i should get agency over it. period. |
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One of the strengths of Mastodon is that it allows users to seamlessly shift between different ways of engaging with the community around them, instead of binding them to a single mode of operation. We can choose post by post how public we want to be - do we want this advertised on the public timelines? do we want to keep it off that space but still boostable? do we want it not boostable? Yes, anyone can screenshot a DM ... but sending a DM instead of a full-public post is still a meaningful distinction. By giving us all this control over the way others can interact with our posts, we can participate more fully in the space. Restricting replies by post, partially or fully, fits right into that. This clearly will help folks already on fedi participate. It's a good thing. |
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kinda neutral on this tbh. i don't want people being able to broadcast misinformation or bigoted crap without being challenged, but it kind of evens out considering it'd make a bunch of people feel much safer posting and also it's something you take for granted on many other platforms |
Given that I'm seeing this very widely and strongly asked for specifically by folks in marginalized communities (whom are also most likely to be targeted by bigoted crap) - they seem to think the pros outweigh the cons, and so I think that's worth listening to. |
That's what the block and report button is for. Allowing disabling replies is letting the user choose how they want interactions to go. People will subtoot and vaguepost anyway. |
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Just a remark about blocking people who make a problematic reply. After the user is blocked by the OP, the reply becomes invisible for the OP (because of the block), but other users (local or remote) can still see the reply (also when loading the post in an incognito window). So blocking doesn't work. I even made an issue about this: #15631 Unfortunately tagged as a suggestion, but I consider this a bug. |
and others
Most blogging systems and some social networks like Dribbble (possibly Instagram?) have a “disable comments/replies” feature. I wonder if it could be of use in Mastodon?
Adding a “Disable replies” checkbox in the privacy controls when posting a message would remove the reply icon (and possible other related UI) to the toot once it is posted. It won’t prevent the person to be contacted about the toot, but will not make it a one-click affair any more and might be an explicit way to dissuade potential comments about it.
If someone is posting something personal/controversial/etc in order shoutout/vent/etc about without the aim of starting a conversation, it could be useful.
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