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Developing Mastodon, I strive to use terminology that is familiar to as many people as possible so as to not put up unnecessary barriers in understanding. For this reason I am happy that we went away from calling posts "toots". It has always been a point of friction for people. Not that I dislike branding, quite the opposite, but in my experience receiving feedback over half a decade, it had a negative effect on the platform for little benefit.
Probably not a lot of people know this now, but Mastodon's web app started out with "Publish". In 2016 a famous YouTuber jokingly offered to support Mastodon's Patreon forever if I changed the button to say "Toot" instead. Needless to say, this was a really early, and not very informed decision. The first glimpse of attention and financial support. As a non-native speaker I had no idea there was another meaning.
I like that I was able to go back to "Publish" in the official iOS and Android apps. It may be less whimsical, and less branded, but after using the platform for such a long time, I'm perfectly happy with a button that just describes what it will do without trying to be cute (not that I dislike cute, I'd never part with our elephant illustrations). I have seen enough "Dr. Doom toots as he pleases" quotes in the first two years of Mastodon to last me a lifetime.
@Gargron fwiw I always found the word toot a little embarrassing. Not because of the other meaning but just because it felt a bit too jokey. Is there a reason you chose "publish" over "post"?
@tomharris I mean sure but back in 2008 when twitter was about as big as mastodon is now (and growing a lot slower) saying tweet felt a little embarrassing. It's the use of the word in modern culture that matters, and as the platform grows and toot becomes normalized it will stop feeling strange and be as natural as saying tweet. I mean after all the mascot is a mammoth and they tooted
@CEbbinghaus @tomharris this my argument but the decision was made. I’m all for idiosyncratic language that creates a culture/vibe. Toot is funny and playful and you immediately know what you’re talking about. “Publish” or “post” is generic and boring. Imagine if tweets were “posts” or “published statuses”. Which raises a problem with “publish”: no good noun form!
@minuskelvin We will continue to call it Toots. The publish (or hopefully post) button can stay but we will forever refer to the content being published/posted as a toot. You are publishing a toot
@CEbbinghaus ah cool! My client, Metatext has it as a preference. Can choose toot or post!
@minuskelvin See that is the ideal. People being able to choose themselves not limited by the instance admin