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One of the points that a number of our members have raised is that Mastodon isn't designed for long form posts, and the more I think about it, the more sense this argument makes.

Arguably there are technical fixes for the interface mismatch, and that's true, but at some point I if you implement enough fixes, you end up with a platform that isn't really Mastodon anymore.

The crux of the matter for me is the question of how long form posts (or Twitter-style threads) are handled.

To a certain way of looking at it, so-called "threads" (a term I dislike, because I wish "threads" referred to conversation threading, not monologue posting) are an awkward workaround for when people have more to say. But I think they've become something more than that.

I believe that micro-blog "threads" have become their own writing style, with advantages and disadvantages.

A big advantage of monologue threads is that they make it easier to engage with specific statements individually.

When I read a long article that I want to share with other people, I try to pull out a quote or two that really resonates for me. When I want to share a "thread", I instead boost one or more specific posts within the thread.

Sometimes I boost the top, sometimes the second from the top (which often is where the real substance begins), and sometimes it's something in the middle that I really want other people to see.

When I'm *writing* micro-blog style threads, I try to structure them accordingly: I create breaks between ideas with a thought toward "does this idea stand alone, and will I feel okay about it if it gets boosted and people read it out of context?"

It's a different style of writing, which is special because it can appeal both to readers who have time to sit and read a complicated essay and readers who just want to get a tidbit of content and move on.

A boosted post that comes from the middle of a microblog "thread" might reach a wider audience of people ready to read the whole thing than a boosted longform essay would.

Because of the way Mastodon/Twitter is structured, this style of writing has a different kind of reach.

There are, of course, ways of making smaller tidbits of longer form writing more visible, and of making longform posts more accessible to people who might not have the leisure to read something longer, and bloggers use an array of strategies.

A well-written blog might include a salient title, a resonate introductory sentence, and a "tl;dr" summary of what the author sees as the most relevant information. A summary is not the same thing as a microblogging post within a "thread", however.

A "tl;dr" summary attempts to condense the entire relevant content into a few words or a couple sentences.

A midthread microblog post that gets boosted does an entirely different kind of work.

It's just a piece of what the author has to say; it might be written in a compelling way, or give important details about one facet of the larger thesis. Or it might be a subargument that speaks more to particular populations than the "thread" as a whole.

By writing a longform piece as thread of subposts, an author gets control over what will be pulled out as a soundbite.

Traditional blogs (and some of the less-microbloggy fediverse platforms such as Friendica and Hubzilla) include tools that are not part of the Mastodon/Twitter experience. These include titles and sometimes special fields for formal tagging (not quite the same thing as hashtags).

Blog posts written on blogging software are often set up to only display the title and first paragraph of the larger essay, with the option of clicking through to see more. Collapse tags can be used by the author to make it easier for a casual reader to skip over subsections. Long form pieces written for platforms with these tools available have their own styles.

Where a microblog "thread" encourages writing in self-contained soundbites that can stand alone, a macroblog software is configures in ways that empower prefiltering by the author of what is most relevant.

Allowing longform posts on Mastodon provides some, but not all of the attributes of longform blogging tools.

For example, you can theoretically learn to write in ways that ensure that a summary is visible above the "read more" link. It's worth noting, though, that this is a lot easier if you can rely on how the platform handles shortening.

See, for example, these two screenshots of the same post, one on Glitch and the other on vanilla Mastodon.

Other strategies for implementing more blog-like features on Mastodon include attempt to coerce hashtags into doing the same work as a more structured tagging system and using the CW field as a sort of title.

Using the CW field as a sort of title places some strain on the intended role of the CW field, however.

It also requires some careful thought, and this only really works if your title can stand alone.

You can, of course, also us a short intro post on Mastodon to introduce a longer post (assuming your Mastodon instance allows it). That might take the place of the title and summary, but doesn't solve the issue of engagement with the main body of the text.

Even with a separate introductory post, a longform Mastodon post does not allow the same granularity of control as proper blogging software, while also losing some of the strengths of the microblogging interface.

I don't want to speak for others, but think there's some reason to believe that Mastodon readers are more likely to read a microblog thread than a longform post from instances that permit it.

In my poll on the subject, 64% of the 28 respondents said they would read a 10-toot thread, while only 50% said they would read a longform post.
https://social.coop/@dynamic/112257962194554804

Not a *large* difference, and certainly not a scientific poll, but suggestive nonetheless.

Interestingly, in that same poll on which long-form formats people would read, the most preferred format was a link to an external blog post (75%), perhaps hinting at the advantages of an interface designed for long-form writing.

@flancian

As you can see, I was just getting warmed up ; )

@flancian

Extending the character limit without making any other changes to the interface would concretely change the writing experience for people who do appreciate being compelled to write more succinctly and / or who like breaking things up into microblog "threads", and there would be costs (although perhaps not highly visible ones) associated with this change.

@dynamic right, I understand that direction of thinking I think; but I'm unconvinced it's enough to sway me. There'll still be a character count display, and people could presumably use clients that let them self-impose arbitrary limits (indeed, you could make the argument Mastodon should provide such setting -- alongside making the character limit itself a setting).

Also, note that Mastodon's UX should (IIUC) already provide a 'show more' link over a certain threshold when reading.

@flancian

The "Show more" link is a pain point for me of the existing system. I refer to it in my thread.

(I'm not really going to fight for keeping our character caps low, but my preference would be to leave things alone.)

@lwriemen

Heh. I think you're talking about how people should avoid shibboleths and obtuse abbreviations, and I think you're right although I might be guilty of that kind of thing sometimes.

On the other hand, I think a proper "too long; didn't read" should be a *lot* shorter than what I normally think of as an abstract.