@kelson @raptor85 @Schafstelze @dansup Exactly. A lot of Mastodon/ActivityPub controls are like this. They're a little fuzzy, there are edge cases, but they mostly work. Just severing a link is fine.

@tnhd @kelson @rimu @dansup

Okay.

What is the difference between someone doing that on a top-level post or doing it in a reply?

Why is moderation sufficient to deal with one, but not the other?

@tnhd @kelson @rimu @dansup

I'm supposed to simultaneously believe that server-level moderation is enough to remove abusive replies or misinformation coming from other instances.. but not enough to remove misinformation if it's not in a reply?

If somebody posts misinformation and disables replies, then report it, the same way you would with any other post. Easy.

@tnhd @kelson @rimu @dansup

Good idea.

> Let's imagine I post a bunch of antivax nonsense (or fascism, etc) and then block everyone who debunks me. Their replies are deleted, only leaving those that agree with me.

Why wouldn't that also work for this scenario?

@raptor85 @Schafstelze @dansup that is not something that would be technically impossible to do - it wouldn't be perfect, but it would help.

@raptor85 @Schafstelze @dansup At the *very* very least, it is no technical problem for fetchAllReplies to not return replies that I've removed. My server already knows my blocklist, I'm not sharing any new information with it if it decides to filter out those replies.

And even *just* that behavior would make this better. At the very least if someone goes to the server I live on in a web browser and opens up my thread.. that can filter replies, I could have a "remove reply button" for that.

@raptor85 @Schafstelze @dansup federation does not destroy the original link or prevent cooperating platforms from making requests to other servers to fetch permissions. Every single post will have a "copy original link" button, that link exists, every server federating knows how to send a request to the original server.

That's how FetchAllReplies works.

@raptor85 @Schafstelze @dansup so how do quote posts get around that, because those links also get federated?

Like, I am genuinely not understanding what you mean by this.

Also, quote *permissions* federate. You can see my reply on a server that has federated from another server.. and on average, non-participating platforms aside, you will need to get my permission to quote, and I can revoke that permission and turn off quote posts, and it will federate properly.

@raptor85 @Schafstelze @dansup like we're taking about this under a thread about pixelfed, an art gallery platform.

It is not optional for NSFW artists to be able to curate replies under fetish art, a gallery site that doesn't have that is not a serious gallery site.

I can't think of a single example of a good gallery site that doesn't let me remove comments that go outside of my content warnings.

@raptor85 @Schafstelze @dansup heck, I would even welcome just a setting that allows people/critters following me to opt in to only seeing replies I approve.

I use reply moderation as a community safety tool under fetish artwork to make sure critters following me have proper content warnings for extreme kinks.

Mastodon has no mechanism to help with this.

We are so far behind the curve on moderation. There are things we could do to get at least part of the way towards a working system.

@raptor85 @Schafstelze @dansup the way I see it, I'm not asking for a single feature that is not already actively deployed on the fediverse, I just want to be able to use those features on the hard link between replies and their parent threads and between parent threads and their replies.

The same way I already can with quote links.

@raptor85 @Schafstelze @dansup heck, it's an *improvement* if it's not managed specifically through blocklists, 90% of the moderation I do on my art galleries does not result in a block.

I am fine with it being on a post by post basis and using the same proactive consent model as a quote post, even though that's not fully 100% reliable everywhere. It would still help a ton.

@raptor85 @Schafstelze @dansup I would be happy with the same mechanism as quote posts. I don't need it to be managed via blocks, and I don't need the post full on deleted from the other server. I also don't need perfect enforcement.

If you click on a reply, it loads a hard link to the post it's replying to, no?

And if you run FetchAllReplies, that asks my server for a list of replies, no?

@raptor85 @Schafstelze @dansup how do quote detatchments work then?

They have all of the same constraints as the system I'm proposing, and they work on the fediverse today, and have not ruined discussions on Mastodon.

@raptor85 @Schafstelze @dansup and that system works well enough even though it doesn't force every server to participate and can't guarantee perfect functionality.

What's neat about quote posts is I don't even need to block in order to detatch.

Which lines up a lot better with how I use reply deletion on every other site, most of the time it's not for bannable offenses.

@raptor85 @Schafstelze @dansup keep in mind, we do this already.

Quote posts. Quote posts already allow detatching. It's not perfect but works pretty well. It also allows locking quotes.

We could have the exact same system but for detaching replies from threads.

@raptor85 @Schafstelze @dansup I think the conflict here is that people are very literally looking at server owners as being the only ones that should have agency here, and in reality even though I'm on a hosted server, I still think I should have some agency over my own threads. I don't have to ask my server host to remove comments from my blog, for example.

I don't think this would require making a blocklist public except under specific implementations.

@raptor85 @Schafstelze @dansup I don't think that free speech means "anyone who wants to have access to me as a platform should be able to say things to every single person who follows me, without any of our consent".

That's dictating my speech.

If someone is following someone else and wants to see their reply.. sure we can talk about that, maybe they should still be able to see it. But there's a lot of grey here and it feels like the current system is forcing me to platform other people.

@raptor85 @Schafstelze @dansup it wouldn't be a complete solution, but it would be much, much better than what we have now, and would not require forcing the server of the blocked reply to do anything differently.

And there are a lot of small things we could do like that.

I'm seeing a lot of concern about dictating how people talk but like.. if someone goes to the server I'm hosted on and clicks on my thread directly.. why am I being forced to provide backlinks to other replies?

@raptor85 @Schafstelze @dansup there are also a lot of different ways this could be implemented. "FetchAllReplies" just got merged a little while ago. That goes to the original thread's server and asks for a list of replies.

We don't need to force any other server to do anything to say, "well, fetchAllReplies shouldn't return replies from users who are blocked by the post author."

That doesn't require sharing the blocklist, and we'd all agree a server has the right to choose what it returns.