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I don't feel as strongly about quote posts as I did in 2018. Personally, I am not a fan, but there is clearly a lot of demand for it. We're considering it.
in reply to Eugen Rochko

I hope you don't add it, but if you do, at least give us the option to block quoted posts from people, please.
in reply to Eugen Rochko

I would love it. I miss it when I want to point out a toot and when I feel the need to add something to it why I want to point that toot out.
in reply to Eugen Rochko

You're never going to make everyone happy. I'm happy with Mastodon either way. Keep up the good work
in reply to Eugen Rochko

You could wonder why people keep having the need? Is it because they don't understand how mastodon works?
in reply to Eugen Rochko

call 'um toots the way the gods intended coward. 'posts' my arse.
in reply to Eugen Rochko

TY! It was a very useful feature to be able add to a conversation without feeling like we were spamming ppl's replies. But I can see why you chose not to have it here given the way ppl abuse it.
in reply to Eugen Rochko

please consider the idea of giving consent to be quote tweeted.

Thanks for all the hard work and happy new year.

in reply to Eugen Rochko

If you do add it, you should make it so people can opt to have their posts “quote posted.” If the setting is on, people can do it. If not, then they can only boost.

You can even have it apply per post settings as well. Just a few suggestions.

in reply to Eugen Rochko

the ones demanding it are all from twitter.

Quote post isn't engaging, its used in an inflammatory way in most cases.

Those that want it should learn how to engage with the posters, not quote post.

In my opinion, I would not want to see the environment be altered here due to twitter migrants who want what they had there. But hey thats just my opinion.

in reply to Eugen Rochko

They are just links with good previews. Instead of creating a separate concept for it, make link previews work better! scott.mn/2022/12/30/quote_toot…
in reply to Eugen Rochko

If we did do it we'd like to make it something you can opt out of, in a similar way to how we plan to allow disabling replies. It's not entirely trivial.

reshared this

in reply to Eugen Rochko

i think people are just used to having what they are used to, maybe invent something new that achieve similar goals without the drawbacks?

I’d rather not have it
Reasoning here: mastodon.social/@kangaroo5383/…

in reply to Eugen Rochko

I personally don’t use them for sport, or direct my approach or message through them or that way… that’s just me…

It may feel a little “busier” on the feed, but if there is a way we can opt out of seeing them/having the feature… then I’m that person.

in reply to Eugen Rochko

yes, I really think enabling that feature while allowing users to opt in or out is the win. ✌️
in reply to Eugen Rochko

I think not having quotes is the best thing about here. On the bird site my time line was full of people quote tweeting the extreme right to rant about how bad they were. This massively increased the rights reach. Without quote toots my time line is calm and I can believe the human race is not totally lost
in reply to Eugen Rochko

opt out as the person being quoted or the person following an account that uses quotes?
Also kudos, I personally like (and miss!) Quotes and respect that you are revisiting your position! 👍
in reply to Eugen Rochko

I think this "quote toot" option, whatever it is, should be OPT-IN rather than opt-out. It should not be on by default.

I still think it isn't needed. You can link to any toot via URL anyway.

in reply to Eugen Rochko

Do you think having quote-replies enable by default or disabled by default would be best?
Would it be an account-wide setting that could be changed on a per-post basis as well?
in reply to Eugen Rochko

I liked an idea I heard from @alasaarela where he considered being able to do either a quote-boost (above) or a comment-boost (below), depending on the situation.
in reply to Eugen Rochko

donc l'un des fondateurs/développeurs de Masto revient sur sa pensée initiale et pense mettre en place les citations, comme sur Twitter, mais avec la possibilité de ne pas les autoriser individuellement...
Pourquoi pas...
in reply to Eugen Rochko

Providing an opt out option is a great idea. It is an important feature to give the original post more power. It will also reduce negative use of the #QT.

Yet ANOTHER feature #Mastodon has over #Twitter_Exit

in reply to Eugen Rochko

add the ability for users to filter them out and they can just go on as if the functionality was never added
in reply to Eugen Rochko

Overt harassment is one of the reasons quote-tweets are harmful.
Opt-out could solve this, but ONLY if it's retro-active, and deletes already existing quote-toots.

The other, far more common, way the feature is harmful to Twitter is that it encourages people to believe that amplifying harmful voices is the correct and proper way to respond to them. But in practice, Twitter has shown that amplifying harmful voices, even to criticize them with a brilliant bon mot, normalizes the harmful voices and helps them gain acceptance.

I don't think that opt-out solves that problem, because the most harmful voices are the ones most eager for any kind of attention, so of course they'll opt in.

in reply to Eugen Rochko

it's not trivial at all! Doing it safely, will take a lot of people hours to actually moderate, and software support for actually doing that moderation... and more!

The reasons for not having them are valid. So are the reasons for having them.

I would strongly suggest seeking guidance from folks like @timnitGebru and others she recommends.

We can make a difference and build software that supports human efforts to do better. We just need to listen, and listen again.

in reply to Eugen Rochko

I don't know how I feel about that.

We don't want to become like Twitter. Or do we?

in reply to Eugen Rochko

Could you start with quote-posts for only your own posts? That would already be quite useful
in reply to Eugen Rochko

the problem I see is that if someone posts something spiteful or disgusting it gets amplified. Even though lots of people will QT with stuff like 'I can't believe they posted this' it still gets seen by more people than it deserves and the hate poster is happy that they're getting attention.
in reply to Eugen Rochko

I hope you won't add it. It will not make Mastodon a better place.
in reply to Eugen Rochko

I don't personally use it but thank you very much for designing it with the possibility of us having the option of opting out of it.
in reply to Eugen Rochko

I appreciate you and your team listening to the discussion and reconsidering your position. I hope you'll be able to implement the multi-level permissions that have been suggested — not just on or off, but the ability to limit QT to followers, followed, and/or mutuals would be greatly appreciated as well, but if that's too difficult, just a simple on-off setting would be better than nothing.
in reply to Eugen Rochko

urgh.. so this is the start of pandering to the crowd that just wish Mastodon was a perfect clone of Twitter instead of being something different >_<
in reply to Eugen Rochko

great!

I hope those.

- opt-out per posts and default setting
- option not to get mention by quotes and default setting
- option not to fetch quotes by following and default setting

in reply to Eugen Rochko

Question out of interest: What is the argument against an opt-in solution? So that by default the quoting of posts would be disabled (so the current state) and the administration of a Fediverse instance must activate this?😅😇😊
in reply to Eugen Rochko

Thank you so much. I came into your replies to ask for an opt-out, and you've already considered it.

You have my thanks, and I complement you on being a thoughtful (and apparently good) developer

in reply to Eugen Rochko

Fantastic! Honestly that's all I need. I get that it has useful purposes but not all of us like going "viral" from QTs
in reply to Eugen Rochko

:fistbump:

Hell, it may have been as trivial as to make quoted posts appear above the booster. But I'm not sure myself. Good to have you on board with changes!

Sorry to see people bashing your old toot. Apparently, they are yet to learn that opinions are not immutable.

in reply to Eugen Rochko

I'm still not a fan tbh, but we'll adapt like with any change. Personally I strongly favor an opt-in rather than opt-out. Maybe run a poll on those options? 😎
in reply to Eugen Rochko

can it be made into a fifth level of visibility, a bit like:

Quotable
Public
Unlisted
Followers-only
Direct

That way, If I want to allow something to be quoted far and wide, I can set it accordingly.

in reply to Eugen Rochko

this seems like a measured and reasonable approach, thank you. As a Johhny-come-lately, QT is the one thing I miss the most from my near decade on the birdsite. In my fandom community, we mostly used it to boost while gushing over the thing we were boosting, or to add our perspective to a thing we saw. I get that it can be abused, but with the real live moderation here, that kind of bs can be nipped in the bud, and we could be free to gush in peace. 🥰🥰🥰
in reply to Eugen Rochko

I sympathize with the argument I've seen that it feels like the added portion to the quoted post adds very little, usually. But I think that it's no less trivial than any given random user's sparsely viewed posts anyway, and alas, I and clearly many others are still trying to find a way to share posts and our replies to them in an intuitive way.

One way I've seen is someone replying to a post and boosting their reply. On birdsite, replies and QTs were super separate threads, but maybe on Mastodon they could be implemented as a type of reply that simultaneously boosts (at least from a UI design perspective) both posts together? What I mean is a reply that shows in my followers feeds and displays the replied-to post above it, thread style. Perhaps this could also help with the issue of implementing permissions controlled by the original poster.

in reply to Eugen Rochko

I would leave, quote posts are a tool of bullying and harassment, and nothing more
in reply to Eugen Rochko

can you opt out seeing quote toots? Because they often are performative acts of anger. "See how angry i am about this toot". Not seeing this kind of content is the main reason for me to stay here.
in reply to Eugen Rochko

But I think that's part of why it's important to implement it. There are plenty of people, including myself, talking about putting in some sort of patch that server owners can install to allow this sort of quote-and-reply boosting, and even a couple of implementations that have been done. One of the problems is that people who for whatever reason don't want that happening can't opt out, and another one is that there isn't a standardized method for it. I think having the central repo add it would do a lot in terms of setting a standard, even if people continue to make alternate versions: at the very least, I think we'd respect that opt-out feature.
in reply to Eugen Rochko

if anything, make it opt-in. I still don't think we need it though, I like the current pattern of reply + boost, it keeps it in the conversation.
in reply to Eugen Rochko

haven't read ever reply but I would suggest, if one one has already, to implement an option for admins to disable such feature for an instance. Maybe even prohibit other instances from quoting.
in reply to Eugen Rochko

I'm surprised. I would have assumed that post-Gamergate (2015) insights about the undesirable social use of QT to encourage dogpiling etc. would become solidified following the Infodemic (2020), Jan6 (2021), and the disclosures made by FB civic integrity PM and whistleblower Haugen (2021-2022). Just last week, this article specifically pointed to QT as a problem, and to decentralized social platforms as our hope: theswaddle.com/how-the-interne…
in reply to Eugen Rochko

agreed that it's not entirely trivial ... glad to hear that you're looking at it.
in reply to Eugen Rochko

I can guarantee that those complaining there isn’t a QT feature will not be happy if they’re not able to QT because that person had opted out.

But 100% agree that we should be able to opt out. I expect most people will be switching it off.

in reply to Eugen Rochko

Thanks for looking at this, I'd like to have it, but also agree with concerns about it being a vector for dog-piling.

Its a complicated one, we can link toots now, but quoting definitely changes all the human behavior around it.

Maybe also let instances enable/disable posting quote toots, and enable/disable if the quote is shown or just a link?

in reply to Eugen Rochko

The negative effects of enabling this will far outweigh the positive.
in reply to Eugen Rochko

Please consider using opt-in as a default approach rather than opt-out. It is so much cleaner for new people to first understand what the ramifications of certain features are before opting in, than having a laundry list for new people where you say "quick turn of search engine indexing, quoting, this that and the next thing". Opt-out makes onboarding more daunting, and it is used so cynically on commercial offerings to extract value.
in reply to Eugen Rochko

QTs strip context. If we do QTs, they should probably note whether quote is part of thread or discussion.

The goal should be to show the right amount of info to emphasize that the reader should look further and not simply take the most immediately quoted toot at face value.

in reply to Eugen Rochko

Shouldn't notification by quote be opt-in rather than opt-out? I've once seen a screenshot by a victim who was bullied through a QT on Twitter by someone who the victim doesn't know. The first notification seemed to be enough to make a big damage to the victim.
in reply to Eugen Rochko

it’d be great being able to opt-out it on account-level, as well as post-per-post basis
in reply to Eugen Rochko

How about this for QuoteToots?

By default only posts with hashtags can be quoted (after all, they are intended to be fairly public).

Accounts can change to AlwaysAllow if they are, for instance, a news or campaign organisation or just want their Mastodon experience to be more public.

Accounts can change to AlwaysBlock if they are concerned about abuse or wish their Mastodon experience to be more intimate.

#QuoteTweet #QuoteToot #QuotePost #Mastodon

in reply to Eugen Rochko

I'm fine like this, but in case you will change your mind, would you please consider the option of a feature enabling admins to disable quote replies at instance level? This will allow to remove at local level a potentially toxic feature whose absence was wisely enforced by design up to now. Thanks!
in reply to Eugen Rochko

QTs weren't something that I thought about until coming here and reading your and others thoughts on the negative points about them. Which convinced me to be opposed to them.

So if you so add the feature I'd prefer an opt-in rather than opt-out.

I'm not sure opt-in would work though because I guess people wouldn't opt-in in enough numbers to make it useful for those that do want it.

in reply to Eugen Rochko

thank you. I don’t want that hot take culture to take over here.
in reply to Eugen Rochko

I'd strongly prefer an opt-*in*. With the fast growth of Mastodon the risk of misuse might be bigger, so switched off as standard seems safest.
in reply to Eugen Rochko

> If we did do it we'd like to make it
> something you can opt out of, in a
> similar way to how we plan to allow
> disabling replies.

I think, I would be annoyed by not being able to respond. Could we have a filter for this kind of toots?

in reply to Eugen Rochko

I've only seen journalists asking for it, so opt-in would make sense I guess?
in reply to Eugen Rochko

disabled replies is one of the more frustrating features of Twitter.

On Mastodon, you can already only ask the people who are following you. Disabling replies leads to public posts with questions you can’t answer.

in reply to Eugen Rochko

personally not a fan of quote replies, being able to opt out of them sounds good in theory, but then if a user opts out they then run the risk of losing possible engagement on a toot, from someone who might only engage because of the quote reply function.
in reply to Eugen Rochko

Why not simply expand the preview of a link to a toot so that it also shows the text within Mastodon?

Like for this one. It should not only show your name and photo but also the toot text:

mastodon.social/@Gargron/10962…


I don't feel as strongly about quote posts as I did in 2018. Personally, I am not a fan, but there is clearly a lot of demand for it. We're considering it.

in reply to Eugen Rochko

Perhaps you can have an opt-in system that allows quote boosting if the quoted writer allows it. The settings could be:

Allow quote boosts...
* Always
* Never
* With my approval

in reply to Eugen Rochko

THANK YOU. This is really important to make Mastodon safe for all users.
in reply to Eugen Rochko

I think this would be a bad idea, and for exactly the same reasons you ruled it out before.
It seems to me those looking for this are new here (as I am). They are just the loudest voices, as no one shouts much to retain a status quo. It's not needed, if they want they can put the direct link to a toot in their text.
It will be used to dunk on users. Of that there's no doubt
in reply to Eugen Rochko

's plan to modify Mastodon to disable replies strikes me as profoundly misguided and likely to make fighting disinformation and lies more difficult.

No one who makes a public statement should have either the right or means to constrain replies -- whether positive or negative. If it is within one's right to speak, it is certainly within another's right to respond.

in reply to Eugen Rochko

I wish you wisdom. I do personally not miss the functionality and am, after eight weeks of tooting, quite convinced that your arguments for not implementing it are as valid now as they were then and increase the value of the platform. Just my two cents, mind.
in reply to Eugen Rochko

There is clearly also a lot of demand to *not* implement something like that.

#QuotePosts

in reply to Eugen Rochko

I prefer the ‘opt in’ alternative. Let those who want it get it, don’t force those who don’t want it to get rid of it.
in reply to Eugen Rochko

Just a suggestion: An opt out/in setting not just with "allow/disallow" but with the values "allow all users, only allow followed users, only allow mentioned users, disallow all users" as an account setting with the option to change it per toot.
in reply to Eugen Rochko

please consider this approach which could solve many of the cons of this feature: mastodon.social/@bigzaphod/109…
in reply to Eugen Rochko

This is the right thing to do. Add the feature and allow users to disable if they so desire ✅ 👍
in reply to Eugen Rochko

His can you opt out of it? That doesn't makes sense given that you can just link it as a workaround.
in reply to Eugen Rochko

But please.. please.. not like Twitter does.

It seems so bad that if other people take the content of the original poster and gets more reach with that without some 'credit' or something..

On Twitter it was always the 'famous' people who ripped the tweets of others and got popular with it.. That seems so wrong

in reply to Eugen Rochko

This sounds like a good compromise. I'd like to have a quote function. Then I can explain, why I boost something and it's helpful for people who follow me to engage with me as well.
in reply to Eugen Rochko

I do believe that the absence of quote-tweets is something that really makes a conversation healthier here. I still remember Twitter introducing quote-tweets and it starting slam-dunks from all sides of the spectrum.
in reply to Eugen Rochko

Honestly, I'd be more for quote posts than turning off replies. Turning off replies is how people put disinformation out while limiting the ability of others to comment. I think its one of the more problematic things the bird site ever did.

I see corporations and hateful people limiting replies far more often than I see it from any other group.

in reply to Eugen Rochko

Sounds great! An account wide preset combined with granular control on each post would be nice.
It's sad that quoting on Twitter was often used in a bad way, but sometimes I just want to post a "Hey, look at this artist!" with a bit more context for my bubble. It works without quoting but it feels like when you're in a conversation and can't pull out your phone to quickly show people what you're actually talking about.
in reply to Eugen Rochko

I don't have strong feelings either way. I tended to use it on Twitter in a positive way: perhaps to support an opinion, or often to boost a new initiative or book, giving my opinion on why it's worthwhile. However, I have seen too many pile-ons started by QTs, and I quite understand why many people here are against them.

So if it is introduced, I think the default should be opt-in. Make it as easy as possible for people to have a good experience.

Thanks for listening.

in reply to Eugen Rochko

More than just opting in on having your posts quoted, I hope we will be able to opt out of seeing them in our Home timeline. One of the under discussed worst aspects of quote tweets is mutuals using them bring stuff you try to avoid into your timeline. Like popular accounts you don’t necessarily want to block or mute, but don’t follow, but since folks want to add their two cents there they are.
in reply to Eugen Rochko

I am making good use of the filter to hide bird site links and would really appreciate a tic-box there to opt out of seeing quotes or being (ab)used via quotes. I appreciate that others would see it more positively though.
in reply to Eugen Rochko

as a victim of harassment, I strongly support quoted posts.
Users will always be cited by people at other instances by copying and pasting the post URL. But if I am not warned about it, I cannot check if the quote is a loyal comment or plain defamation.
in reply to Eugen Rochko

As a first-pass, the privacy setting of the post should be sufficient: if the post is public (i.e not unlisted, not followers-only), then it's fair game for QPs. If, for whatever reason, the original author wants to limit access after-the-fact, then changing the privacy setting for the post from public -> unlisted would achieve the desired effect

From an implementation standpoint, QPs could be implemented as a fully-rendered embed of the output from the /embed API endpoint

in reply to Eugen Rochko

But in true 2022/2023 fashion... Make it a poll that only Patreon members can vote on.

(This is a joke btw, please do not draw your pitchforks 🙏 )

in reply to Eugen Rochko

Not sure how that would help, you can still quote post with a screenshot and that doesn't address if someone retracts or edits a post. I'd rather have that chance to fix or clarify a post the someone quotes then just blocking it.

What's the logic in blocking quote posts?

in reply to Eugen Rochko

yeah I would expect it to take some time to implement this in a better way that adds the right friction / boundary-control points
in reply to Eugen Rochko

could you also please make it so that a quote-boost of a public toot CANNOT be locked/private or instance-only? I think that would do the most good toward reducing harm and discouraging the negative use cases seen on Twitter.
in reply to Eugen Rochko

Could instances choose to disregard the opt out setting though? Then it becomes moot with all the issues that can follow? I get that quoting is convenient but the same can be achieved with a bit less convenience and by using the link to a particular toot?
in reply to Eugen Rochko

Please look at issue 20673. It's got a lot of noise but good work on how the logic for this could work. See my comments (buried somewhere near the middle at this point) for good summary.
in reply to Eugen Rochko

Does this need a change in the ActivityPub protocol or can this be a mastodon only change? (Sorry my technical understanding here is limited)
in reply to Eugen Rochko

I remember why you did not want the quote posts and I still think you was right.

I understand that Twitter users feel more comfortable to be on a similar "environment" but this is not Twitter and some of us we are here exactly for that.

in reply to Eugen Rochko

that would be great! Then people who don’t want it can duck the downsides and it can foster communication, growth, journalism, etc. I’m delighted to learn you are considering this!! Please do it.
in reply to Eugen Rochko

That's a brillant way appropriate to the culture of Mastodon! Thanks for your thoughts, efforts and for all of your great work! 🌟🙏🏼
in reply to Eugen Rochko

I’d wait out the current moment. I joined, and said ‘where’s the quote post?’ It’s not necessary, and if someone really feels the need, they can comment in their own toot and post a link. There are a lot of new users who need to live with/use the app as it is before deciding. Demand may fade.
in reply to Eugen Rochko

What about making them a #QuoteReply (roughly equivalent to a repost with additional reply text)? This avoids the problem of splitting the conversation, instead encouraging interaction with the original poster. See here for proposal and discussion: fediphilosophy.org/@keithwilso…
in reply to Eugen Rochko

is there any way to make it easier to see the captioning for the visually impaired, when composing it? I have visual issues myself and find it hard to see the letters when composing. They seem to be partially covered by the keyboard and the white font makes it difficult for me to see on top off the image. I’m new here and it could be the way I have set it up. Thank you 🙏
in reply to Eugen Rochko

Great!

I advise it to make it opt-in by default and make the opt-out/opt-in question configurable for server admins in config/setting.yml. I also would make bots always opt-out.

I also have a related idea about account presets. That people can choose at sign-up (or later if they want) what kind of account they want with associated settings. The account preset 'journalism and media' would e.g. enable QT's, enable discoverable, enable search indexing, etc. On the other site will the account preset 'as private as possible' enable all privacy features, post visibility to followers only, lock account, etc. Just an idea that popped out in my head. Maybe I need make it a Github issue.

in reply to Eugen Rochko

rather default setting was off for that feature with an “opt in” option. QT is not that desirable. If you’re going to re-blog a post, commentary should come after the “RT” not as a header as is current with QT on the bird site. And remember, we called them Re-Tweets and had to copy paste and append RT manually.
in reply to Eugen Rochko

Much respect for considering this!

As a long time consumer of online communities, my sense it that the real danger with Quote Posts isn't harrasment (which can happen plenty of other ways), but they help basic misunderstandings to accelerate into angry conflict.

Giving the user the choice should greatly address that concern w/people who don't want that drama. The worst dog pile I was under came via friendly accounts after one person amplified one misunderstood one post in a thread.

in reply to Eugen Rochko

good. Everyone I've communicated with who wants it also wants it to be opt-in, on a per-post basis.
in reply to Eugen Rochko

I would say stick to no explicit quote tweet behavior but handle it however you handle the preview of links to mastodon posts and potentially allow masking of the preview
in reply to Eugen Rochko

A user-controlled option would be wonderful. Thanks for considering!
in reply to Eugen Rochko

Also, please include a feature to stop seeing any further QTs of a given post. If everyone is dunking on the same awful post, I don't want to have to see the same awful post over and over again
in reply to Eugen Rochko

I clicked on the OP to suggest that you could definitely implement it in such a way that would uphold your original reasoning for not including it. Glad you've already put thought into it.
in reply to Eugen Rochko

Question: what happens if someone quote posts a post that from an instance that has been banned on my instance?

Is this going to become a method that people use for #fediblock evasion?

What about quoted posts of people I've muted / blocked?

I think this is a much more difficult feature to implement in a large scale federated environment.