I've made a deliberate choice against a quoting feature because it inevitably adds toxicity to people's behaviours. You are tempted to quote when you should be replying, and so you speak at your audience instead of with the person you are talking to. It becomes performative. Even when doing it for "good" like ridiculing awful comments, you are giving awful comments more eyeballs that way. No quote toots. Thank's
I was just answering a question that multiple new people asked me, it's not like I *just* made the decision. Didn't expect this toot to blow up of all things haha. This has been my position since that feature was requested for the first time more than a year ago
@Gargron lindissimo falou tudo
@Gargron that's actually the smartest thing ive ever read thats srsly amazing twitter could never 
@Gargron Very much appreciated, Gargamel. 
[UNMOVED] @Gargron Funny thing, I already can do the same in Mastodon: toot my message with a link to the original toot. I don't need to notify the author of the quoted toot, anyway.
It may be not as visually clean, but it works.
@espectalll @Gargron it even puts in a preview card, AFAIK (albeit not in timeline views)
@espectalll @Gargron that's fine but it shouldn't be default behavior
@espectalll Like, having it be included in the UI as a button, so that more people can do it without any thought or extra work.
@trwnh I personally think the worst part of quoting on Twitter is sending a notification to the author of the quoted tweet - it'd probably not be a bad thing for anyone you only end up addressing only your public.
@trwnh I personally think the worst part of quoting on Twitter is sending a notification to the author of the quoted tweet - it'd probably not be a bad thing for anyone if it's made in a way that makes you only talk to your followers.
@trwnh Yes, I know, toxic behavior, sure. I'm still unsure. Oh well.
@espectalll Well, it almost seems worse to NOT notify you when someone is talking about you -- the easiest answer is to make it non-obvious. Toots already show previews, so you can still talk about it to your followers, but that makes it a conscious decision rather than something you do absent-mindedly.
@Gargron (also, now that I notice: could you make it possible to drag an URL into the search box? That would be useful quoting or not)
@espectalll How do you do that?
@MPurpureus On a toot, right-click on its time tag. Copy the link and paste it into a new toot.
@espectalll That's what I thought, but it seemed like the wrong way to do it
@MPurpureus Welp, there's no other "right way" if Gargron doesn't want to implement it.
@espectalll @Gargron It used to be that way on the birdsite, too. Doing so required a tiny bit of thought and effort--enough to consider whether this was really the best way to respond to a toot/tweet. Sometimes it's worth it, other times not.
Doing it automatically makes it just a little too easy. Eugen is right about this... even when it makes more work for me.
@Karen5Lund @espectalll @Gargron Exactly. Not having this convenience feature makes people less likely to use it, which is a good thing. We want to talk TO each other, not just ABOUT each other.
I have been using the linking technique this week to refer newbies to guides & help them get started, but I normally don't miss it at all.
@Gargron very beautiful said everything
@Gargron now im reflecting and yes quoting can be really toxic bc it can lead to a wave of ridicularization of what people say or show on social media i use it a lot there (not in this way of couse lol) so it will be missed but i can fully understand why
@Gargron I am a fan of your approach 
@Gargron quote rts was one of the most toxic things to happen to twitter. it was a real tipping point into nastiness!
@Gargron hey this policy actually fuckin rules
@Gargron linda falou tudoo
@Gargron But here comes another problem: if someone need to let his/her audience know that toot, but they are speaking another language than the original toot, is it right to use comments? I think at this situation quotes are better because commenting using another language seems unrespectful.
For example, if I wrote a comment here in Chinese to explain your ideas to my audiences, (I think) it may make you or other people feel uncomfortable.
@KayMW Oh people sometimes do that, I'm okay with that.
@Gargron @KayMW Yes, just post away in Chinese. People need to be aware that there are other languages than English in this world and that most people are multilingual. It might just open some people's minds a bit about diversity
If you don't speak the language, you can just scroll past it, no biggie.
@Gargron Thank you for the well considered decision.!
Quoting is the equivalent of talking about someone to others while the person is standing right there. It's condescending and juvenile.
@Gargron (Continue to the last comment) The question you said really exists, but there still is a need for quote. I haven't find a better solution yet. XD
@gargron people'll just screenshot anyway, and at least with quote toots someone KNOWS what's being said about them; with screenshots, it's all behind the back
@a_breakin_glass The frequency of screenshot-quoting increased enough today that I’m using it as a high-weight factor in deciding to block someone. I haven’t seen `any` with Alt text, which is an additional high-weight factor in deciding to block someone.
@Gargron tio do you know Madtown?
@gargron
>changes position on search which is still easily abusable by admins
>refuses to budge in position on something even less abusable
le wat
@a_breakin_glass I have not changed my position on search one bit. I have implemented a form of search that fits my vision. Like literally, this search just saves you scrolling through your notifications or your own profile or your favourites, nothing else.
You can really stop @'ing me about it.
@a_breakin_glass ...okay so, as an admin, how is this any easier to abuse as an admin than just running a db query is now?
@a_breakin_glass The version of search that was actually implemented is *very* constrained—it just indexes the toots you have interacted with.
I don't know what the "abusable by admins" thing is about; it's only indexing toots that are already in the database...
@Gargron it's a good position tho.
@Gargron ios app? :(
@taejin Tootdon, Amaroq
@Gargron That has explained a lot, thank you.
Another thing, mastodon allows users to request their activitypub archive, but if someone want to move from one account to another (or from one instance to another), there's still no way to imput all the toots he or she posted in the previous account. Is that also a delibrate design?
I believe that's a limitation, not a feature. i.e. not seen as bad, but just not easy to implement.
@Zerolemis @Gargron while this is true for Mastodon, @gotosocial supports imports like this (@vyr has more info)
@Gargron 1. Is this your individual opinion or do other developers also agree on this? Sounds like something the dev-team should at least agree on, otherwise the community should.
2. There are two different approaches to quoted tweets.
One is the one you describing, people harassing others using this feature.
But the other approach is not toxic. It's the way people use quoted retweets with news tweets and public (e.g. political) figures. People who want to tell their followers what they think about the tweet they quoted. If they reply under the tweet, it will be difficult to find, also for their followers. Quoted retweets/post also appear on the default user timeline.
Therefore I advise to create a opt-in quoted posts feature. With a text like: 'are you a news outlet or a public figure, offer your followers the option to quote your posts.
I absolutely agree in what @Gargron says, but to answer your first question: This is a platform decision not a fediverse decision. If you disagree with that decision, you are free to choose another platform like Hubzilla i.e. There is no boosting but quoting only.
And as it still is the fediverse, all this platforms communicate with each other.
In the fediverse you are not only not bound to instances, but also not to platforms and coders decisions. :)
@grischa The way you say this doesn't come over very nice. 'If you don't like it, go somewhere else.' That is what I get from your reply. I'm not a developer, but a long time Mastodon (and even Hubzilla) server owner and translator. So I'm completely aware about the Fediverse. You don't need to lecture me about that.
I was only asking if this was something @Gargron decided on his own or that the developer team decided it collectively.
Sorry, I didn't meant to sound rude. English is not my mother toungue. I only wanted to point at the fact, that there are more options if you don't like something (and that this is something good!). :)
But if you know Hubzilla that well I don't understand your first question? Mikes decision on boosts and quotes was different and he explained that, too.
@Gargron
@joenepraat @grischa @Gargron FWIW, English IS my mother tongue, and the reply seemed sincere and helpful to me.
Especially as I'm new here, stumbling around wide eyed, trying to hoover up the new concepts.
Siobhán Sarelle People can just screenshot quotes instead anyway, so it's probably a toot point.
@joenepraat @Gargron
Yes... often the OP isn't going to be interested in my .02, but one wants to credit the source and not copy/paste as if we thought of it ourselves.
Is it though?
In the other place, the algorithm generally shares your tweets to your followers, but not your replies.
I don't think it's like that here, (unless a post is 'followers only' , some discussion of that here: https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/issues/2934).
Here, I think, replies are as visible as a boost would be.
Aren't they?