10 days ago I put down in writing my (low) expectations for Mastodon supporting QTs <https://sociale.network/@oblomov/110295026893193313>. With the recent growth of interest in #CalcKey, a platform that supports the feature, I'm already seeing my prediction come true, with high-profile accounts engaging in #UselessUseOfQT instead of plain old boosting or more in-depth out-of-band commentary. And that's still from a relatively small platform. When this his the larger Mastodon servers it'll be a shitshow.
Here is a reply I posted in a conversation last week, linking to some of my earlier reflections on #Quotes.
https://mastodonapp.uk/@the_roamer/110295818181787571
Whatever #QT functionality is added to the Mastodon toolbox, at the very least we must maintain an awareness of the deeper reasons for trying to avoid Quotes.
It is troubling to find so many fellow new Mastodians being genuinely surprised that anyone might not want to have Quote functionality. Institutional memory vanishes fast.
For me at least, it's not that I'm surprised people might not want to have #QT People have all sorts of different opinions with regard to both cosmetic and operational sides of UI.
The part that's a bit surprising to me is that Mastodon would be so solidly choosing that side that would intentionally disempower its own users, keeping the feature away from users who feel it improves their experiences here.
The flight from Twitter represented a chance to do better, to find a new path on a new platform, so it's especially surprising to see so many complain about top down issues at Twitter while also insisting on the top down choice not to provide QT functionality to users who want it.
Better would have been to implement the feature along with functionality letting people filter out QTs if for whatever reason they don't want to have anything to do with them.
As part of my original bet <https://sociale.network/@oblomov/110295026893193313> I have it going that none of the efforts being made to make Mastodon more appealing to Twitter user will have the desired effect concerning onboarding levels, AND it will have extremely high costs in terms of quality of life for those that actually appreciate Mastodon for what it represents _in contrast to_ Twitter. Political analogy: “left”-wing parties chasing the center and losing their supporters without gains.
Ultimately with this kind of attitude we all lose: the Mastodon network will end up even more heavily centralized, full of features made to attract users that will abuse them and likely get bored to chase the next shiny corp silo when it comes around, and the entire culture that supported Mastodon so far will die out, _maybe_ going back to fringe corners of the Fediverse that were untouched by the “center chase”.
I would go the opposite way with that: more flexibility for people to tailor their experiences in ways that bring them value also suggests that like-minded people would form increasingly distributed communities.
Want to have an experience that involves no QTs? But major instances don't support you in that preference? Great, set up on another instance, exactly in the process of getting away from centralization.
I wouldn't even say it's center chase since it's not like people are required to adopt any particular experience, given the distribution of instances.
So I really think you have this one backwards.
Another thing to keep in mind is that your personal preferences for what counts as quality are themselves not shared by all.
An awful lot of us might find the quality of discourse much better even as you say, "See! Worse!" just because you personally don't like it.
But hey, that's the great part of this federated system. We have more ability to make things work the way we each prefer.
We're not so bound to the one size fits all experience, whether that's fitting you or fitting me.
@volkris @the_roamer
since the main reason why @Gargron finally changed his mind on QTs is to appease the “this will make Mastodon more appealing to the Twitter users” crowd, it is _exactly_ center chasing. And as I've already said, the mere existence of the feature will lower the quality of discourse _everywhere_. Yes, it's just a prediction. You can bookmark this post and tell me I was right when it'll happen.