@beezyal I love CW's too. for pretty much the same reasons.

Now, many of you know that my heart is as close to anarchism as it is to anything else, so my gut says "let people post how they post." But I'm not talking about mandatory CWs. When I came here, there was a vibrant culture of content warnings, and it made my experience here FAR MORE subversive and interesting than any other platform change. We were literally rewriting our culture of online communication. As Mastodon grows and others come over with their habits from

The rest of the Internet, the work we did to change how people communicate has (and may continue to) become harder to see, and it's being overwhelmed by the current default communication culture.

I'm not blaming anyone for this. I'm just saying that, like the platform's search function, CWs are a great piece of praxis that rewrite the default from fast and convenient to thoughtful and conscious. And I'd hate to lose that.

As some people have accurately pointed out, I'm talking about CWs beyond the function of just warnings. They're useful as notes & topics & also as a new option for formatting content.

That said, like green energy offers us the opportunity to revolutionize not just how we produce energy, but how we *use* it, CWs (&Mastodon in general, tbh) are a chance to change our assumptions of instant gratification and encourage a more critically engaged social media.

@beezyal CW on by default when

@beezyal it also makes me sad when i can't boost good content because of missing cw! 🙀

@tethre saaaaaame. I've become sloppy myself, but there's some stuff I just can't in good faith boost because the OP doesn't use CWs. So disappointing.

@beezyal because of content length (=visual volume) or simply because some content isn't all fairy dust & giggles

@tethre

@upshotknothole @beezyal both!

@tethre @upshotknothole definitely both for me!

@beezyal I love this take

@balrogboogie thank you 😊 I just want this place to be as awesome as possible

@beezyal I have the opposite experience The extra effort of revealing hidden information is annoying enough that I'll often ignore CW'd toots. Long threads can be particularly tedious to open each toot one at a time.

I understand the utility of CWs, and use them when discussing more fraught issues like sex or suicide. It does not seem productive, though, to use them to flag toots about politics, which are roughly a third of what I post. I assume that if a person chooses to add me to their stream, then they're comfortable seeing me rant about politics without CWs.

@linkskywalker I totally understand where you're coming from, but then there's the issue of boosting which means that people who haven't entered into the casual contract of following you, agreeing to read your posts, now have your content in their timeline and don't have the option of hiding it/not opening it.

I don't think CWs are efficient time-wise, I agree. And they're repetitive, esp in threads. But that's part of what's makes them important & different.

@beezyal I completely agree with you on that point. One of Twitter's features that I really wish Mastadon would add is the ability to follow a person, but unfollow their boosts.

@linkskywalker does Twitter have that? 🤔 that's a really interesting feature I had no idea about!

I'm still conflicted about that function, though, because I *do* find a lot of good content because of boosts, even if I have to sift through more un-CWd material than I personally prefer.

Ultimately we have to make concessions either way because I don't foresee it being a perfect system. I just think that CWs have functionality beyond hiding sensitive content.

@linkskywalker @beezyal except...when you show up in the home or federated timeline they /haven’t/ chosen to add you to their stream

@linkskywalker @beezyal unless you’re posting all content that’d typically be CWed as followers only

Also I believe theres a setting to have CWs open by default, since you said you found them annoying that may be useful to you?

@Satsuma @beezyal Browsing a local or federated timeline is a choice that is always going to expose you to a lot of stuff you can't anticipate. Like going to a party full of strangers, it's something you should only do when you've got the spoons to confront an unwashed unfiltered mass of humanity.

I was unaware that this setting existed. I will look for it, thank you!

@linkskywalker @beezyal at current, I definitely agree with that assessment of the federated timeline, but I’m not convinced thats the way it should be, or that we can’t change it. It doesnt take that much work to CW things, and we put up with so many other mild inconveniences because they’re polite

We’re more or less building a community from scratch here, why cant it be a nicer one than the ones we’re leaving?

@Satsuma @beezyal

I don't believe that CWs are a particularly good, helpful, or healthy thing. For my own microscopic contribution to building this new mastadon community, I vote against making CWs the expected norm for everything posted publicly.

If I'm in a space where they are expected, I respect that, but I generally try to avoid those spaces unless they have something really great to offer that I can't get elsewhere.

@linkskywalker @beezyal why dont you like them?

@Satsuma @beezyal I have lot of thoughts on that. It will be difficult to phrase them succinctly, but I willy try:

Many of the most important interactions of my life began when I encountered something that was shocking and unpleasant to me at the time. If those experiences were clearly marked with the intent of making them easy for me to avoid, I would be a different person today. A much worse person, I think.

I understand that people should have spaces where they can curate a comfortable environment for themselves, but I believe exposing yourself to wider conversations & cultures must be more challenging, lest we become less human for the lack of exposure to things that scare us.

@linkskywalker @beezyal What I’ve found, is that if I’m not, say, in the mood to talk about politics, whether or not I agree with the writers ideas doesnt factor into it that much. If I know I’m clicking on something CWed politics on the other hand, I’m far more likely to engage with what they’re saying in good faith, even if I disagree

So I guess what I’m saying is I dont see how CWs prevent exposing yourself to wider conversations & cultures?

@linkskywalker @beezyal I didn’t directly respond to the first half of your comment both to fit under the character limit and because I dont know you/what you’ve gone through well enough to comment on it

I will say my own formative life experiences mostly involved me if not knowing what I was getting in to at the start, at least having received some kind of heads up & I mostly handled things far better for having that then I would have without

@Satsuma @beezyal

Your experience doesn't match mine, or the habits I've observed in others.

As a thought experiment, let's say everyone always CW'd their politics with "Politics."

Let's further imagine a teenager who follows twitch streamers. This kid grew up in a fairly conservative household, and their experiences don't put them at odds with a conservative worldview (they're not gay, etc).

Behind the politics tag, some of the folks they follow reinforce their worldview, some challenge it.

Over time, confirmation bias leads the kid to open the tags of the people they know will reinforce their worldview, and not open the tags of people they expect to challenge it.

@linkskywalker @beezyal i could very well be an outlier in this

okay but similarly they’re more likely to follow people who have the same views as them, and therefore reinforce that worldview, or join instances that have CoC’s that match that worldview. And if they do come across something progressive they can always just stop reading after the first sentence, & hit j to move to the next post.

@Satsuma @beezyal

They could, and some of them certainly will.

But this kid is not a particularly political person. They follow these people because of their super cool twitch streams, and won't be dissuaded from following them because of politics. It's just a matter of what ideas are being planted in their mind now to potentially grow and develop later.

You are correct, our imaginary kid could self-censor by skipping over the political posts of people who challenge their worldview. However, CWs are more than just a way to hide potentially uncomfortable content. They're also a tacit endorsement of the idea that it is good to protect ourselves from content that makes us uncomfortable.

@linkskywalker @beezyal I do actually agree with your second point, though I think it’s more an issue of naming than actual content, perhaps if it read something like ‘add subject’?

I don’t follow any celebrities, so I can’t attest to how it works, you might be right, but I still don’t think it negates the systems use as a whole

@Satsuma @beezyal

It doesn't have to be celebrities. It could just as easily be friends this kid enjoys spending time with because of a shared interest in a video game, or an anime, or whatever.

I disagree that we're talking about an issue of naming. If we called it "add subject," we'd still be presenting people with the choice of whether they want to read a thing or not based on that subject.

@linkskywalker @beezyal but we’d be removing the connotations that the subject is something that needs to be warned about. Like obviously email is very different in context of use but subject lines are more or less completely standard there to the mediums benefit

Well if I’m friends with someone, then I definitely want to read what they have to say, and if I disagreed I’d probably talk to them about it, instead of just skipping the whole thing

@Satsuma @beezyal

Is the subject line a benefit to email? That's a different, possibly interesting conversation. Given the number of emails I get that are just "hey" or "Re:Re:Re:Re:....;" combined with the fact that very few people use email to socialize, I would contest that point.

Regarding how you would respond to a friend with whom you disagreed: that's what you, an adult who has well developed social skills and is confident in their ideas would do. I don't think it's what a teenager would do.

(I realize my position in this argument is narrowing in on my specific TE about a teenager. It's not the only reason for my distaste of CWs, but it is the perspective I'm relying on for the purposes of a discussion with character limits)

@linkskywalker @beezyal i mean, for the record I’m nineteen and I wouldn’t consider this a new development in my personality, so it’s what at least one teenager, historically, has done

And we’re both more or less engaging on fairly narrow terms because its much easier to examine ‘how does x affect y’ than ‘how does x affect everything’

@Satsuma @beezyal

Blurgh, the older I get, the younger adults are.

Regardless, you seem fairly politically and socially engaged. How many of your peers are similarly engaged? Particularly if you look back to your highschool years when most people are starting to develop their worldview.

Certainly when I was 15, I didn't want anything as trivial as politics to get in the way of talking about video games online.

@linkskywalker @beezyal my friendgroup in highschool consisted of the gsa, we were all very politically motivated because it was personal for us so its perhaps not the best sample group haha

@Satsuma @beezyal

I hear you.

Anyway, thanks for the chat. Very engaging. I might link to this elsewhere.

@linkskywalker @beezyal actually that might be part of where our opinions diverge, for me the internets full of young queer and/or disabled people, many of whom are also mentally ill, because thats who I’ve always hung out with Politics is something that happens to us all the time without our consent, so for me content warnings are away to engage with a fact of life more safely/productively where for other people they’re a way to opt out entirely

@beezyal I've thought this so many times, but you put it more eloquently than I ever could.

@MmeLibertine 😊 thank you. Though I believe deeply in everyone's ability to express themselves eloquently given enough time (I'm an English teacher rn, so I have no choice but to believe 😂)

@beezyal You sound like someone who appreciate the "CW as topic" approach.

@not_on_pizza absolutely! And beyond that, I think they have benefits for both poster and reader as an exercise in mindfulness.

@beezyal at first glance at this thread I thought, yeah, because a CW is like a nice box you get to open, and the a mindfulness there with both producing and consuming the content, it makes it more like a gift.

Then reading the rest of the thread and realizing that CWs have a real, important function outside of simply titling a post has made me realize I need to CW more, both to contextualize my toots and to allow for a more inclusive community.

So thank you!

@acdw I'm glad my thoughts could be helpful for you 😊

I do think of CWs as a gift of reciprocity! But they also serve lots of purposes beyond that, and I love the way they change a familiar format and give us creative options for adapting.

For the most part I don't judge people for not using content warnings, but I find them very rich! I

@beezyal I agree! Like you said, they add another dimension to the network here that I like a lot.

I do wish there was an option to auto open all CWs in a thread though.

@acdw someone has recently informed me that as of Mastodon 2.3, the option does exist! I mostly use on my phone, though, so I don't think I've seen it. I'll have to get on my desktop and see how it works.

@beezyal rad, I'll have to see if I can find it somewhere and test it out

@beezyal If you don't mind, I'd like to ask a question: If you could rename the "Content Warning" feature to make it sound more general, what would you name it? (I personally think this is one of the reasons people aren't using it more generally). Thanks

@sehqlr this is a really good question and I don't know that I have a good answer!

Someone in the thread has mentioned calling them "topics" which I like, but I also think having them called "content warnings" is important because it's a reminder to ask ourselves if this material will be sensitive or harmful. I'd love to hear what other people think too 😊

@sehqlr @beezyal "content note"

@distel @beezyal what about "headline"? And in the description of the feature, make sure that "content warnings" is an example usage??

@sehqlr @beezyal that would be too generalized I think..

@Algot thank you. It feels good to know I'm not the only one feeling this 😊

@ocdtrekkie I think calling this "CW abuse" is both inaccurate and a little inappropriate, but I'm assuming you're speaking in good faith, so I will too: that downside is very important, imo. It actively asks you to engage in the content rather than consuming and moving on, which is largely the current social media culture.

Mastodon is meant to reformat how we engage online, and CWs are integral to that.

@ocdtrekkie I definitely think you should have the option to disable them globally as you suggested, but I think you lose a lot with that function.

It's less convenient, certainly, but convenience is something this platform is good at deconstructing. It's one of the reasons I like it 😊 we don't *need* all the convenient options.

@beezyal "overuse" would probably be the more correct word, I was not intending to suggest I found CWs abusive to my person.

But while any given CW may benefit a small portion of the community, it also inconveniences a much larger portion of it. I understand why one might not feel that's a justification not to CW, but a simple feature could make CWs not frustrating to everyone else.