I agree with Cory Doctorow (@pluralistic) that micro-posting WordStreams (see https://mastodon.nzoss.nz/@strypey/112821798550875330) are a medium in themselves.
I like the challenge of breaking my thoughts down into discrete chunks that can be expressed in 500 characters or less. I like the fact that people can comment on a specific chunk, by replying to that post. Which isn't possible in the blogging medium, where comments can only hang off the entire wall of text.
(1/?)
What I realised recently - and Corey probably figured this out already - is that this doesn't work so well in replies. Why not? If my reply is a series of posts and I @mention the people I'm replying to in every one, I can flood their notifications.
Now that I understand how overwhelming and annoying this must be, I apologise to everyone I've done it to. #MeaCulpa
But it's hard to go into any detail in 500 characters. Nuanced replies almost always need more. So what's the solution?
(2/?)
From now on, I'm going to discipline myself to @mentioning people only in the first post of a WordStream (1). So they only get one notification per stream of posts.
I'll also try to make that first post a TL;DR, and continue to use numbering - eg (1/5) - so people know there's more to unpack if they click on it. I'll probably also put the numbers at the top so they're more obvious.
If I forget, please feel free to remind me.
(3/?)
(1) Again, see https://mastodon.nzoss.nz/@strypey/112821798550875330
This is what I can do to mitigate notification flooding in the current software. I'll do my best to remember and follow this discipline.
But it would also make sense for app developers to tweak their software, so that I *can't* inadvertantly flood people's notifications. Even if I forget.
When Bob @mention's Alice in replies to his own posts which already @mention her, the app only needs to notify Alice of the first post.
If I remember, I'll post this in the Fediverse Ideas repo later.
(4/4)
@tetrislife
> would ConversationContainers by @streams help?
Quite possible. Another reminder that I need to give it a test.
@streams