[elliotpage]

This post is fascinating- it uses "I" and "We" so interchangeably that it is almost dizzying.

I want to ask them: what do you want? If you run your own Mastodon server you have a large degree of control over how that is run and federates, so can customise your experience. To continue the analogy, you can stop people invading your house party.

Then there is the cultural lamentation and the "no-one asked if I wanted that" line, which is wild because cross-posting has been around for as long as there have been platforms. It just happens.

[mangecoeur]

I felt this as well - ok so this person feels a bit 'assaulted' by the sudden surge on incoming people... but it seems bit silly to create open instances and then be shocked when people actually want to join them, especially when mastodon (AFAIU) makes it relatively easy to create private spaces if that's what you prefer.

As for cross posting - re posting and re-mixing other people's content has been pretty much the basis of the internet since forever. Again, if this is something you're not happy with you should better create private forums for just your friends, that's a totally fine thing to do. Much like if you want an intimate house party you only invite your friends and eject any gatecrashers who try to sneak in.

Perhaps the clue is in the 'anarchism' bit - in anarchist circles when you have a smallish and relatively close group you can manage a very positive and supportive atmosphere without rules and protocols. But as things grow you lose that, inevitably, as having more people means needing more formalized ways of handling issues. I can see how it feels like losing something but on the other hand you have to question the wisdom of an approach that is basically guaranteed to fall apart as soon as it becomes a bit popular.

[pmw]

> in anarchist circles when you have a smallish and relatively close group you can manage a very positive and supportive atmosphere without rules and protocols. But as things grow you lose that, inevitably, as having more people means needing more formalized ways of handling issues.

This is eloquently explained in The Tyranny of Structurelessness: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tyranny_of_Structurelessne...

[recuter]

  I've been thinking of metaphors to try to understand why I've found it so upsetting. This is supposed to be what we wanted, right? Yet it feels like something else. Like when you're sitting in a quiet carriage softly chatting with a couple of friends and then an entire platform of football fans get on at Jolimont Station after their team lost.

  *They* don't usually catch trains and don't know the protocol. They assume everyone on the train was at the game or at least follows football. They crowd the doors and complain about the seat configuration. It's not entirely the Twitter people's fault. They've been taught to behave in certain ways.

It ain't their fault its the way they were brought up.

I/We/Gaia would like those gross football fans to not exist on their planet. There is only I/We/Gaia. Not asking what Gaia wants is bad. There is only I/We/Gaia. (https://asimov.fandom.com/wiki/Gaia)

  I struggled to understand what I was feeling, or the word to describe it. I finally realised on Monday that the word I was looking for was "traumatic".

  Suddenly having hundreds of people asking (or not) to join those conversations without having acclimatised themselves to the social norms felt like a violation, an assault. I know I'm not the only one who felt like this. The tools, protocols and culture of the fediverse were built by trans and queer feminists. Those people had already started to feel sidelined from their own project when people like me started turning up a few year ago.

There is only I/We/Gaia.

[colinsane]

> cross-posting has been around for as long as there have been platforms. It just happens.

there’s a range between “something i posted to my public newsletter/blog” and “encrypted signal chat message”. for most people, crossposting is OK in the former, but a clear norms violation in the latter. ultimately, this can only be enforced culturally — and yet most of us still expect that as viable: “it just happens” is the thinking of a selfish CEO who does something blatantly unethical and defends himself by claiming “but i didn’t technically break the law!”

Mastodon is somewhere on this scale — and quite likely at least slightly closer to the chat end of that scale than twitter is, taken in whole. it also has features to signal what is appropriate (e.g. it’s more of a violation to cross-post something with a lock icon next to it than with an unlock icon than with a globe icon). but new users aren’t likely to have a strong understanding of this visibility setting, so it’s even more the case that a norm violation might be obvious to one section of the userbase while the (unacquainted) norm violator is completely unaware.

yeah, defederating is a solution. in a similar sense that getting a restraining order is a solution to IRL disagreements. it’s more pleasant for everyone if you can reach shared norms and only deploy the stronger tools against those who actually mean you harm.

[jefftk]

> Mastodon is somewhere on this scale — and quite likely at least slightly closer to the chat end of that scale than twitter is

Even for public posts? Which show up in the federated timeline for thousands of people you don't know, are visible to anyone who loads your profile, and can be shared by URL? To me that sounds very close to a blog post (no need to ask for permission to share) and not much like a direct message (definitely ask first).

[colinsane]

here's how i see it:

- a blog post is something i put out there for a wide audience to read, take something away from, and bring back to disparate communities. it's a prompt to start many discussions, with no expectation that i'm in or even aware of those discussions.

- a public fediverse post is me opening a conversation directly with the readers. i'm dropping some idea in front of the other people at the bar, particularly the guy next to me with whom i've already exchanged pleasantries (my followers), but bonus if people near us overhear and want to join the conversation (maybe i'll make some new connections).

it's this difference in distance between me and the recipient (both spatially and temporally). if a reader screenshots my words -- name attached -- and brings that elsewhere, that risks a faux pas: that's more likely to be them talking about me behind my back (why take the conversation elsewhere when i'm right here in this moment speaking with you? and why do so in a way which attributes me while artificially raising the barrier to obtaining context?)

there's nuance here, for sure. someone with 50 followers might expect the bar-like experience, whereas someone with 5000 followers might accept that they're seen more as a spokesperson. screenshot-sharing (author's complaint) is different from posting the URL to an aggregator is different than sharing the URL in a group chat. most people i know out here are more interested in growing a dunbar-level number of connections than in becoming a spokesman. if you're crossposting i think that's the judgement you'd want to make first.

[jefftk]

> if a reader screenshots my words -- name attached -- and brings that elsewhere

The author wasn't just objecting to screenshotting though, but to linking ("some people had cross-posted my Mastodon post into Twitter"). Which seems basically the same as boosting, which is (I think?) normal no-consent-needed Mastodon behavior?

(I wrote more as a post: https://www.jefftk.com/p/mastodon-linking-norms)