Quote Posts are a popular feature of many social media platforms. They offer the ability to share another person’s post to one’s own followers, while adding a comment.
We want to share our thinking process in implementing Quote Posts in Mastodon, and explain why it has taken us some time to do so.
Background
In the past couple of years, as Mastodon has grown, we’ve spent time meeting with community leaders across a spectrum of interests, to understand their needs. We have learned that many groups use Quote Posts as their primary means to build consensus and community on other platforms. Quote Posts used in this way convey trust and respect for the original post, building on or enhancing an original idea.