Martin Fowler

One of the new features on Mastodon for a recovering twitterer is the CW field for new posts. CW stands for Content Warning. When I’m composing a post, if I press the CW button, I have the option of putting a short phrase into a dialog. Readers will initially only see that short phrase, and need to click a button to see more.

CW stands for Content Warning, and the name suggests it can be used to hide potentially offensive material. However it’s a general purpose tool that’s handy whenever we feel a reader would benefit from only seeing a short phrase with the ability to click for more, such as a post including spoilers for a TV show. One person I saw used it to say “Course Promotion” – which I thought was a thoughtful way to reduce the impact of advertising.

Adding a CW adds friction to reading the

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