Mastodon has an important place among the decentralized social media platforms and continues to add new features to improve the user experience. Finally, the platform is implementing the “Quote Shipment” feature, which users have long requested.
Initially, the Mastodon team made a choice not to include the quote sender in the platform. Behind this decision, the feature in question had malicious use potential. In particular, there was a concern that quoted from the context of displays could lead to misunderstandings or use for harassment. In time, however, it was noticed that the lack of this feature prevented many users from participation in Fedipse. As a matter of fact, some users opposed this feature, claiming that arguments can be used to direct hate speech and criticism on other platforms.
Mastodon is planning various measures to prevent the abuse of quote. Users will be offered to control whether their shipments can be quoted. In this way, each user will have a say on how to share their content. In addition, when a shipment is quoted, the user will instantly send notification and the user will have the authority to withdraw the shipment from the quote.
Adding the Quote Post feature creates some technical difficulties
The addition of quote shipment feature brings some technical difficulties for Mastodon. First of all, there is no standard protocol for this feature, which creates uncertainty about how to integrate into the ActivityPub protocol. This requires the developer team to produce new solutions. In addition, quotation is expected to affect a large part of Mastodon’s current code base, which means that the development process will take longer. In this process, a meticulous work is being carried out in order to maintain the stability of the platform and not to adversely affect the user experience. The Mastodon team makes an intense effort to overcome these difficulties.
For now, there is no definite date on when the quote send feature will be available. However, the Mastodon team aims to make this feature a standard that other Fedivese applications can adopt. This approach aims to enrich the user experience by increasing the compatibility between platforms. The platform, which first came up in 2023, had a grant to support the project. This support allows the developer team to accelerate their work and produce more comprehensive solutions. The Mastodon team states that they are aware of the fact that the send of quote creates both concern and demand within the community, and that they attach importance to user feedback in the development process and share progress in a transparent way.