A gentle reminder that if someone replies to you in a way that makes you feel uncomfortable, you don't have to reply!

1. Do nothing, you don't *owe* them a reply
2. Block them, you certainly don't owe them an explanation

While the fediverse is almost always a very nice place, a few abuse the rules of social conduct. If someone isn't playing nice, then just don't play back.

@scottjenson hey, Scott. This is nice advice, but I think we can do better. Because so many Mastodon users browse the "public feed", and respond to posts there, it's pretty common to get brusque or opinionated replies from complete strangers. What can we do in our UIs to gently remind repliers which posts they have a direct or indirect social connection with, and which are from strangers that they should probably be careful with replying to?

@scottjenson also, I don't have research data backing this assumption -- that replies from strangers without a connection are the ones that are most problematic. It'd be good to get some statistical information on it!

@scottjenson hey, Scott. This is nice advice, but I think we can do better. Because so many Mastodon users browse the "public feed", and respond to posts there, it's pretty common to get brusque or opinionated replies from complete strangers. What can we do in our UIs to gently remind repliers which posts they have a direct or indirect social connection with, and which are from strangers that they should probably be careful with replying to?

@evan @scottjenson something like https://blog.joinmastodon.org/2023/11/improving-the-quality-of-conversations-on-mastodon/ ?