It's not a text article though, it's a public microblogging forum like Twitter, implemented with a protocol for which this just happens to be a web interface. And a forum with more features than the one we're on, most of which would be quite inconvenient to implement in a purely static website.
Now, maybe what you're actually trying to say is that the content of the Mastodon thread should have been static website instead. That might be your preferred method of consuming this information, and that would be a valid desire. I can't say I'm a fan of twitter-style threads either.
Having said that, that does not take into account what the author of the thread wanted to accomplish. In all likelihood they're on Mastodon precisely because they want interaction with strangers. Otherwise they would have written the static website version. So it's a matter of misaligned needs.
Also, note that Mastodon is built on a protocol - it does not need a web app. So you could build a thread unroller or use an existing one to meet your static website needs, although I have to warn you: current implementations use JavaScript for that[0].
There’s a big gap between “static website” and “requires JS to render anything”. All you need is “serves meaningful HTML which it then enhances with JS”, possibly in the form of server-side rendering (I think it uses React?).
The tragedy of Iran Air Flight 655, which was shot down by the USS Vincennes in 1988, highlights significant user interface (UI) flaws in the Aegis Combat System used by the U.S. Navy. Here's a breakdown of the key UI problems that contributed to this incident:
IFF Console Operation Flaw: The aircraft identification friend or foe (IFF) system, crucial for distinguishing between civilian and military aircraft, had a critical operational flaw. Although Flight 655's IFF correctly identified it as a civilian airliner, the Aegis system required operators to manually follow the contact with a cursor. In this instance, the operator did not "slave" the cursor to Flight 655, causing the system to query the IFF of a different aircraft, an Iranian F-14, from the same location.
Dashboard Design Issue: Aegis' large displays, used for senior decision-making, failed to show critical information like altitude. This omission made it challenging to assess the intent of an approaching aircraft. Flight 655's climbing trajectory, a non-threatening maneuver, wasn't immediately apparent to the captain from these displays.
Tracking Number Confusion: Aegis' feature of unifying data across multiple ships led to a fatal misunderstanding. Both the Vincennes and its escort, USS Sides, tracked Flight 655 but assigned it different tracking numbers. When Aegis unified these contacts, it chose one tracking number and recycled the other, which was then assigned to a U.S. bomber. This led to confusion about the altitude of Flight 655, as the captain, unaware of the tracking number change, received data about the wrong aircraft, believing it was descending rapidly.
These UI issues, combined with the high-stress environment and other factors, contributed to the crew's misunderstanding of the actual situation, ultimately leading to the tragic decision to fire on the civilian airliner. This case underscores the critical importance of intuitive, clear, and comprehensive user interface design, especially in high-stakes environments like military operations.
Mastodon is a microblogging service, so not meant for large bodies of text. This is why the text entry box is small, the columns are somewhat narrow (especially in deck mode) etc.
Platforms like https://writefreely.org/ , which are designed to be for blogging and long-form writing, are the place to write this. Write Freely federates so one can follow accounts and interact with posts via Mastodon etc.
I used to think this as well, but lately I've noticed these stories which span multiple tweets have a common feature, which seems to emerge out of the size constraint regardless of the author: concise, beat-driven storytelling.
The size limit results in each post being a coherent sentence or three, advancing the story by a small but consistent amount. If these same authors used the medium of a free-form blog post to tell the same stories, I think we'd see much more meandering, and the pacing wouldn't be as consistent.
Not saying I don't enjoy a good blog post, but for what it is, I don't mind the (1/x) tweet story format as much as I used to.
I agree. I've always hated the twitter-style threads people write. I can't stand it. There are websites that compile a thread into a better reading blog style format however.
That's a good point, at least Twitter has third-party tools like Thread Reader to mitigate this annoyance. I wonder if there is an equivalent for Mastodon?
It is actually only the mastodon implementation that forces the size limit. It can actually be any size. I forked the original repo and had to change 2 variables to be able to toot 5000 characters instead of 500.
Mastodon folks don't seem to like anyone. They've removed discoverability features before because they don't like discoverability. Thankfully, there's Pleroma and other alternatives.
Hi yeah I also hate web things that should be documents and want to be apps instead but I think it's still pretty hard to make the case that this is as bad as Facebook's impact on like everything.
I gave up on trying to read it on the desktop. I have Firefox with JavaScript enabled but after expanding every paragraph by clicking on it, it automatically collapses when I try to scroll using the cursor keys and completely disoriented me while the content I was trying to read dissapears from my view and the page stutters and different collapse paragraphs light up.
I guess I'll never know the details of the greatest user interface disasters in history but at least got to experience a smaller one myself.
You are apparently unaware that the default Mastodon web client is only one way of many which you can use to interface with a Mastodon instance. If you feel that there should be a plain HTTP(S) interface to its open API, feel free to advocate for one — or to create it yourself!
Nope, sorry. I am too old and frustrated by modern web accessibility issues that I am not going to waste my time and "contribute" to this mess. A few years back, I would have tried to make the world a better place. These days, I have learnt that we blind people are no longer a factor for anything anymore. I bet LGBTQ people have a way higher chance to get what they want/need then people with disabilities hurt by the digital divide.
If you made this about accessibility in the first place, (and avoided the useless war between the poor with the LGBTQ people here) I bet your post would have been better received.
By the way you make a very good point about accessibility and the fact that you basically need two operating systems (the actual OS running on your PC and a modern Web Browser) to read simple text that should have been rendered as such in the first place.
The poor? Are you refering to people with disabilities by any chance? I hope not, because that would be quite condescending. Being forgotten by society might feel like alienation, but to assume people with disabilities are automatically poor is quite a stretch. Some of us have paying dayjobs, you know...
Besides, why do I have to out myself as a blind user to be allowed to ask for plaintext postings without being immediately downvoted/punished? I think it is quite revealing about the audience here recently. And no, I am not writing posting for maximum popularity.
> The poor? Are you refering to people with disabilities by any chance?
I reckon that's a figure of speech in my language that probably doesn't translate well (or possibly at all) to English. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to be condescending or to imply people with disability are actually poor. It's something more akin to the term "rat race", but not quite.
> why do I have to out myself as a blind user to be allowed to ask for plaintext postings without being immediately downvoted/punished?
You don't have to and that's not what I said. I said "If you made this about accessibility in the first place".
EDIT:
Oh, and I didn't downvote, but probably the downvotes are more about the "as bad as Meta" comment without specifying you were actually talking about accessibility.
