Is there any tool for aggregating long Mastodon #tootstorms into a more tractable reading format? Sort of like birdsite's ThreadReader?

#DearMastomind #DearHivemind #Help #Threading

@mitchw @pluralistic Somewhere way back in the mists of Fediverse Past (and a few accounts / instances ago), I'd made the observation that #tootstorms afford one benefit to authors (if not necessarily readers) that's really goddamned rare in any literary format: direct response to a specific element of a larger essay or work.

One of the most frustrating things about writing in any medium is that you sweat out the words, toss them over the transom ... and then ... what?

If you're lucky, there might be some vague / general interaction, "great post" or "this is total bullshit" or variants / gradations. Neither of which is really insightful. It's not that I don't appreciate praise or chafe a bit at criticism myself (and I'm sure Cory feels similarly), but both elements are really vague.

But write a stream of toots and get a bunch of engagement (positive, negative, indicating clarity or confusion) on a specific item, and ... you've got a lot more clarity about what is or isn't working.

This turns writing into something far closer to conversation (though without the total descent into the madness of IM / chat platforms). The notion that writing is conversation between points in time (and with the obligate arrow of same), whilst speech is interactive between people (with variations: a lecture or delivered speech is much more like writing, though again with differences that the rhetoriticians and comms specialists can go to town on), is one that's been spinning in my head for years.

I suspect Cory gets and understands a lot of this.

(And of course, instances which support long toots ... break this. I've written this bit as a single toot rather than, say seven individual 'graph toots...)

This position has again been an admitted and confirmed bias of my own, after watching and reading some rather interesting #tootstorms - as well as corresponding articles regarding how Mastodon and the Fediverse has evolved.

My dilemma however still centers around how differences of opinion or an 'ability' to interpret what is presented quickly gravitate to rhetorical badgering and baiting (or worse).

ID: 20170429j