I think Mastodon should also copy twitter's move of separating "who is in this reply to?" into metadata rather that all of the @ mention handle stuff. Especially since the handles get long with the server domain in there. It's unwieldy and unfriendly.
And it's weird. Like, if you're having a normal conversation with someone and you say their name first every time you speak, that's be odd. And if you both do it back and forth.....?
I see that when I replied to myself just now, it didn't do that. Maybe I'm just not getting something?
@mattdm there's enough metadata to know what is a reply to what. Mastodon mostly decided notification/visibility based on mentions.
AP itself has all the to, cc, bcc and whatnot
So I should just get in the habit backspacing people's handles when I start a reply, and encourage others to as well? Is there a downside?
@mattdm I just checked this and discovered if you remove the name from the beginning of the reply it doesn't show the reply in their notifications/mentions. Not a huge deal if you're following a discussion closely but if somebody replies to you a week from now and removes your name from it I'm guessing you might not see it.
This method is nice, but it uses up 10 characters right off the bat for your username (probably varies based on username/instance domain length).
I was thinking the new line method + an icon of some sort just to keep it organized and without looking like a formal letter.
Maybe like:
@mattdm↩️
Hello Matthew!
I'd probably abandon the idea after a day or as soon as I start replying on mobile. 🤣
@KuJoe
Maybe like this even? Not sure. :)