I feel like it's worth mentioning, re; quote-boosts/QTs, that we can't "just add the feature to Mastodon" in a federation - it's a lot more complicated than a lot of people seem to realise?
The argument about whether or not we should add QTs is an important one, but once we get past that there's the issue of federation.
Mastodon is one software of many using the ActivityPub "skeleton" code. If ActivityPub doesn't have QTs in its code and Mastodon adds a QT feature, any non-Mastodon software (or even server) has to work out how to interpret Mastodon's QTs. If it isn't Mastodon-compatible, QTs will just break. They might even break in a way that harms the person being QTed. And what if someone on *another* server boosts/reblogs that broken QT?
Also, since we on Mastodon can follow people who are using federated software that isn't Mastodon (e.g. instances/softwares that look and behave like Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, etc), how does that work? Would people on Mastodon be able to QT people on not-Mastodon? How are the OPs going to feel about that? Would they even get notifications about it, since QTs aren't in the ActivityPub "skeleton" of federation?
And since we're a federation of separate servers even "within" Mastodon, there's also the question of how older/outdated Mastodon servers will handle incoming QTs. If you're on an older version of Mastodon and you follow someone on a newer instance and they QT someone, what would that look like? Maybe someone has intentionally chosen a fork of Mastodon with QTs turned off. Can people on other softwares QT them, and how would they feel about that?
[ #meta #Mastodon #MastoMeta #MastoDev #QTs #QuoteBoosts #QuoteToot #discourse ]
@cassolotl so much to think about. I wonder if it’s possible to get the the link of a post or use embed and then create a post referencing the original.
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Quote toots are already implemented throughout the fediverse... it works simply by embedding a link as text in the toot with a specific format. If a server doesnt support it then they just see a link attached where the quote would be
> "If a server doesnt support it then they just see a link attached where the quote would be"
That's not the case on my instance: https://eldritch.cafe/@cassolotl/109569048823626685
Then you are on an instance that explicitly strips it from the toot.. It **used** to be quote toots showed up just fine on mastodon as a text link... But it seems gargron in typical fashion went out of his way to strip it out and cripple people using mastodon... shame.
