The "summary" has now a dedicated field when creating and editing posts

[annando]

The "summary" field that is used in Mastodon as "content warning" can now be edited more easily. This is a feature that has to be enabled by the user.

[MrPetovan]

This placeholder isn't helpful if the "Summary" field ends up being used as content warning.

[MrPetovan]

Set concern here over placeholder wording.

[MrPetovan]

Same concern here, there's no explanation of the end result for this summary.

[annando]

Is your concern that it isn't mentioned that the field is used as "content warning" over on Mastodon? I try to act in some limbo here, because I wouldn't want to enforce the usage of their "content warning" here as well.

[MrPetovan]

What do we do when we receive the "summary" field from a remote server? If we render it as a content warning no matter the origin platform, then we should be clear about that in the placeholder.

[annando]

I just had a look at other systems. On Pleroma that field is called "subject":

On Misskey it is "comments":

Hubzilla calls it "Summary":

Solely Mastodon calls it "Content Warning":

We currently use the "abstract" BBCode for that purpose:

So we could call it "Abstract" as well, but I wanted to stick to the proper ActivityPub name of the field.

[MrPetovan]

The ActivityPub protocol is completely hidden from end-users so I don't think it's relevant to use the protocol terminology in a user-facing form. I think we should stick to the main use for this field. Even if it's called differently in other platforms than Mastodon, if it is still displayed as content warning on those platforms, we should call it "content warning".

[annando]

I completely dislike the word "content warning", since there is a lot of politics around this word and their usage. I prefer to stick to a much more neutral description.

[MrPetovan]

I respect your personal opinion, but I don't think it is relevant here. If the main outcome of this field is being used as a content warning on various remote platforms, then we should label it content warning in the form and let users choose to use it or not.

[loma-one]

I agree with Michael's assessment. The term "content warning" is mutating into a fighting term. It also doesn't describe what this field actually is. In my view, it is a summary of longer content that describes what is to be expected in a value-neutral way. This is how I have always understood it in Friendica and used it in this sense.

My wish for the field name "Summary" in German "Zusammenfassung"

[rausgerufen]

I also think that the term "content warning" is not appropriate. It comes across as a bit combative and I agree with annando and loma-one.

I would prefer the term for the field name "Summary" in German "Zusammenfassung"

[kr428]

I'm on the "Summary" side of the fence here too. Maybe we can hide a hint somewhere (tooltip?) that this will be used as Content Warning in some platforms?

[B0ngripper]

I don't like the label "content warning" either. "Summary" is much better and would also fit the purpose.

[tobiasd]

I'm in favor of "Summary" as well, as only one platform is using the CW term and I'm much more inclined to write a summary about my 500 words report of an event so people can decide to read the rest of the report then to write a content warning about a totally harmless event.

[MrPetovan]

It isn't just one platform that uses the summary ActivityPub field to populate the content warning feature. Mastodon definitely started the trend, but many other platforms took after Mastodon and now it's a de facto standard across the Fediverse.

If the form field is named "Summary", it will still appear as a content warning on most other federated platforms. It will even appear as a content warning right here on Friendica by default.

Again, I'm not discussing how polarizing the content warning feature is nor advocating users to use it or not, I just believe we should be as accurate as possible about the end result of that field, and currently it is being used as a content warning on most AP-compatible platforms.

[loma-one]

@MrPetovan I can only partially understand your argument. For example, Mastodon has introduced a de facto limit of 500 characters. Friendica and many other projects have nevertheless decided to continue to support more than those 500 characters.
Misdeclaring something and enforcing it with great market power doesn't make it any more right. Perhaps @kr428's suggestion of an appropriate note will help.

[MrPetovan]

@loma-one Your argument would hold better if we weren't one of those projects that align with Mastodon on the functional use of the summary field as content warning. We don't copy everything from Mastodon, but we did copy this one feature to satisfy majority expectations both from incoming Mastodon (and other platforms) posts and for outgoing posts, including to these platforms as well.

Labeling this field "Content Warning" is the most accurate path we can take, because "Summary" is only accurate technically and doesn't say anything about how the field is actually used. If we need an additional tooltip on top of "Summary" to explain what the field actually does, what's the point of "Summary"?

[tobiasd]

if we weren't one of those projects that align with Mastodon on the functional use of the summary field as content warning

Which is a mistake that should be corrected. At least for me it is as simple as this.

[kr428]

Stupid question as I don't know: Did that Summary "concept" happen to already be around in pre-Mastodon Friendica/Hubzilla? And, is this something that has seen a regular use for, well, containing article summaries for longer posts?

[loma-one]

@MrPetovan First of all, thank you for the constructive discussion of the topic.

Hubzilla and other projects orientated as macroblogs are going their own way here. Which also makes sense from my personal point of view, because it is an independent way of dealing with content.

In this context, I had a look at how Mozilla defines the field. They talk about details there. I can't find the term "Content Warning" in any official specification. This may be helpful:
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Element/details?retiredLocale=de

[annando]

@MrPetovan the work "content warning" is politically burned at least in the German Mastodon sphere. There are huge discussions about this topic, people are blocked or move servers because of that ...

I don't want to get sucked into these discussions. Also I don't want people to believe that they have to use this field for their posts. In my PR I use the words "summary" and "spoiler" to describe the functionality.

@kr428 For a long time now (longer than we support AP) we have the [abstract] BBCode, that can be used for that purpose. We mostly used it for connector networks and later extended it to AP for the "summary" field.

[MrPetovan]

Which is a mistake that should be corrected. At least for me it is as simple as this.

Why is it a mistake? Friendica is by design in-between macro-blogging and micro-blogging, so there's no obvious way we should be displaying this field. Also our relevance as a social media project has always been tied to larger platforms/networks, so we've been following remote practices for a long time because we can't rely on our bespoke network that we abandoned the moment we dropped support for DFRN.

Stupid question as I don't know: Did that Summary "concept" happen to already be around in pre-Mastodon Friendica/Hubzilla? And, is this something that has seen a regular use for, well, containing article summaries for longer posts?

We used to support it in the [abstract] BBCode tag. And now I wonder how this "summary" field that's AP-specific appears in outgoing Diaspora posts.

Hubzilla and other projects orientated as macroblogs are going their own way here.

Hubzilla is indeed way more opinionated than Friendica and has lower adoption as a result. I personally was warded off that project because how unfamiliar it was for me. On the other hand Friendica has been trying to be closer to the popular AP implementations for affordance reasons.

In this context, I had a look at how Mozilla defines the field. They talk about details there. I can't find the term "Content Warning" in any official specification. This may be helpful:

This is the description of the <summary> HTML tag which is not exactly what is discussed here (the ActivityPub summary field) but is coincidentally part of the collapsed-by-default panel feature that is called "Content Warning" throughout the Fediverse. And I don't think labeling this new form field "Disclosure Element" to match the HTML specification would fare any better.

[annando]

@MrPetovan it is not "throughout the Fediverse", it is just Mastodon that names and uses it that way. My ideas for the future are that this field can then be used as a replacement for the "abstract" BBCode to use it as the text when we post to connector networks with limited character counts like Bluesky.

[tobiasd]

Which is a mistake that should be corrected. At least for me it is as simple as this.

Why is it a mistake

Because the field was not intended to be used exclusively as a warning about potentially triggering content. By labeling it as content warning, people who do not think that their content needs to be warned about will not use it, even though they might consider writing a short summary about their lengthily content.

The entire CW logic is bogus for me as the author cannot know what triggers their audience. Users should be empowered to filter out content by their own rules based on their own triggers. Based on the categories (tags) and the content of the posting. A summary of the content that follows might contain hints for the triggers without directly showing them, but cannot contain all.

[kr428]

The entire CW logic is bogus for me as the author cannot know what triggers their audience. Users should be empowered to filter out content by their own rules based on their own triggers. Based on the categories (tags) and the content of the posting. A summary of the content that follows might contain hints for the triggers without directly showing them, but cannot contain all.

Though I generally share that opinion, I'm thinking of a spoiler alert as a more obvious use case: If, in example, writing a movie review and revealing its plot to the readers, this is something I'd like to know in advance, and this information also is probably different to what to expect in a summary/synopsis that (in my understanding) outlines the most important points in a more lengthy text for those who don't want to read through all of that. From that perspective I wonder whether summary and spoiler alert (to avoid the somewhat "burnt" term CW for now) seem quite different things that need different handling...?

[MrPetovan]

it is not "throughout the Fediverse", it is just Mastodon that names and uses it that way.

"Just" is load-bearing here, as Mastodon still constitutes 50% of the observable Fediverse servers, and almost 75% of the reported users. Besides, how is the field used by the runner-ups, namely Pleroma, Akkoma, MissKey, PeerTube and Lemmy? More importantly, how do we currently use the field in posts received from these platforms?

My ideas for the future are that this field can then be used as a replacement for the "abstract" BBCode to use it as the text when we post to connector networks with limited character counts like Bluesky.

The [abstract] tag allowed to target specific platforms, and it doesn't look like this field will be able to be platform-specific, potentially resulting in expectations mismatch.

they might consider writing a short summary about their lengthily content

I don't believe anybody is considering writing a short summary about their lengthily content without a clear knowledge of where and how this summary will display. I do that for my blog posts because I know exactly where this summary is going to show (in the post list). Simply labeling the field "Summary" isn't enough to convey how it's currently used, which is as a content warning. Even the type of field @annando chose for it (single-line text field) isn't congruent with the paragraph-length summaries usually are.

The entire CW logic is bogus for me as the author cannot know what triggers their audience.

I agree with you but again, I don't believe it's relevant to the matter at hand. We have been using this field as a content warning for years now, even if it was initially a mistake we have gone pretty far down this road and I don't believe we can walk it back without confusing or annoying users.

[loma-one]

@MrPetovan

We have been using this field as a content warning for years now, even if it was initially a mistake we have gone pretty far down this road and I don't believe we can walk it back without confusing or annoying users.

That is their personal interpretation of the field. For me and many in my immediate environment who actively work with Friendica or Hubzilla, it is a summary. It has never been used in any other way.

EDIT:

I know that there is a fundamental attitude from psychology on the subject of "trigger warnings". According to this, the trigger occurs unconsciously and even the so-called "content warning" can trigger such a flashback.

This is known as the nocebo effect. It's like a placebo pill, only in reverse. With a placebo, we think something helps - and then it does. With a trigger warning, it can happen that I get scared because the warning tells me that I could get scared. The trigger warning creates a negative expectation that becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Words such as "caution" or "warning" can themselves trigger anxiety. It is therefore advisable to omit a trigger warning if possible and to formulate the title precisely instead.

This is exactly what a summary does. A neutral description of the content. Declaring the field description alone as CW can imply negative associations and have a negative effect on those actually affected.

Even if we do not provide the 75% user base, we should be very careful with this term "ContentWarning" and not incorporate it into a software without any thought. At the same time, when such a field is used, an explanation should be provided to ensure proper handling.

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/21677026231186625

Conclusion
Existing research on content warnings, content notes, and trigger warnings suggests that they are fruitless, although they do reliably induce a period of uncomfortable anticipation. Although many questions warrant further investigation, trigger warnings should not be used as a mental-health tool.