Post
Remember 2022 when the only thing keeping people from coming to the #Fediverse was the absence* of #QuoteToots and it was absolutely essential for #Mastodon to divert all development efforts to get them out?
How's that invasion coming along now that QTs are here?
*they were, of course, implemented in other Fedi platforms, but who cares about those, right?
To me the question is more that if another potential migration to Mastodon starts, will more people stick around this time? https://absolutelymaybe.plos.org/2025/10/30/a-mastodon-migration-from-bluesky-would-be-different/ argues yes, and includes the availability of quotes as one of the the reasons. My thoughts (basically that if a migration happens it's likely to be to fedi as a whole rather than Mastodon-centric) are at https://neuromatch.social/@jdp23/115463881540776188 ... and I don't mention quote posts.
I wouldn't say that the problem back in 2022 was that people didn't come to fedi; it's more that most of the people who came had bad experiences didn't stay. Talking with people who didn't stay (as opposed to talking with people here about their perspectives of why people didn't stay), the lack of quote posts wasn't high on the list. Sure, it was mentioned, but at least with the people I talked to, it was much more in terms of how the discourse around quote posts was part of the overall anti-Blackness that drove people away... I think I have a bunch of quotes about that in something I wrote at the time.
And if you look at Erin's "Mastodon is easy and fun except when it isn't" discussion of why people didn't stay, the lack of quote posts is barely mentioned. How much progress is there on other stuff? Good question ... but it's not like Mastodon diverted all development efforts to get them out; they were able to get a grant from NLNet to fund them, didn't even start on them until after 4.3 was out.
@jdp23 we've been over this already, and most likely because we see different corners of the Fedi, I had a very different view of the QT kerfuffle; what got into my timeline were people complaining about the absence of QTs making the it unusable, and refusing to acknowledge (1) the existence of other Fedi platforms that *did* have QTs and (2) the possibility of other M.O. on Mastodon specifically to supplant their absence.
1/n
@jdp23 And again, in my corner of the Fediverse this was largely independent of race (in fact, many of the complainers were ego-inflated “VIP”s from *white* Twitter that were complaining about how the Mastodon structure and feature-set made it impossible to keep their VIP status here (QTs being a large part of that due to its capability of “stealing the thunder” from the quoted post).
2/n
@jdp23 IMCOTF (In My Corner Of The Fediverse), the discourse around QTs wasn't specifically around QTs, but more in general about whether Mastodon should cater to the clout chasers “VIP”, which would have brough over more people (their followers), even at the cost of opening up to new venues of abuse, which is how QTs were perceived.
3/n
@jdp23 IMCOTF, it was at *this* point that I started seeing that the discourse transitioned into a race thing, as the Black community remarked that they'd been using QT in a non-abusive manner on Twitter and the general response was «nobody gives a shit».
Which BTW was the reason I came out with https://sociale.network/@oblomov/110283781278976674 and https://sociale.network/@oblomov/110469501308245406
4/4
@oblomov hahaha that poll you link to in that post is totally on brand for fedi 🤣 "Oppression olympics" is a thing here as everywhere ... in any given case it's hard to know how much is specifically being triggered and amplfied intentionally by people trying to drive wedges, and how much is just the systemic aspects -- cis white male ablist heteropatriarchy reinforcing itself.
Agreed about the dynamics of ego-inflated clout-chasing VIPs complaining about Mastodon. IMCTOF I had muted them all (and unsurprisingly they aren't the people I've talked to about why they didn't stay) so can certainly believe that they were complaining about QTs. It'd be interesting to know the timing; "Whiteness of Mastodon" talked about QTs in miid-to-late November 2022.
It's complex. On the one hand I see it as good that the cis white clout chasers didn't stay in fedi (even though it meatn that I had to once again mute them on Bluesky). Antibodies FTW! On the other hand, some of the functionality that they pointed to is valuable for others as well, and I think there was a tendency to resist it as something that only VIPs care about (as opposed to looking at the underlying needs and figuring out how to support them in ways that fit in well with the anti-clout ethos).
I've spent over a year trying to get people to see these issues - social and structural not technical
and it feels like bashing my head against a wall
I get the distinct impression people who has some influence (admins, moderators, developers, regular speakers at Fedi conferences) ... just don't want to know.
And this is my personal unscientific opinion - I get the distinct impression they actually like a landscape they've built or contributed to just fine as it is.
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