I'd like to be able to postpone toots!
Yes, I'd like this for marketing-style activities. I am a self-employed micropreneur after all.
But I'd also like it so I can "subtoot" without it being obvious what the inspiration is. If or when I subtoot, I'm deliberately trying to *not* call out the people that inspired me.
Conversations here are very inspiring and thought provoking, I'd like to be able to express my reactions without it always being personal or "taking sides."
A delay would help.
@celesteh Haven't got the time to code it at the moment... but it needs to be automated IMO.
For both use cases (marketing and avoiding drama), it's actually really powerful to make things post while you're actually away from the keyboard entirely.
For my "marketing", I want to be able to post notices to users of my software who are in different time zones from me.
For avoiding drama... well, avoiding the heat of the moment just works, right?
@celesteh For that particular use-case, you are absolutely right. But the delay still helps a lot, because it gives you time to have second thoughts and cancel the post.
@HerraBRE That's a feature that a mobile client could implement today
@mmn your evilometer is very sensitive!
I wasn't along for a bot to write the posts, just control over when they are published. That's... Evil?
If someone appears to be constantly devoted to publishing, but actually just slams a couple of posts into a queue, it could create unreasonable expectations.
I don't see any use of this other than creating a false persona (which won't be able to socially interact via a reply since the human is not actually available). The only valid non-evil case is what @solderpunk mentioned with random-delaying posts. But that's not the same as scheduling.
Humorous bots that post random stuff or whatnot is another kind of use, but not related to human beings trying to be antisocial.
@mmn @solderpunk If you don't see any use for this, then you didn't read the post where I explained how I would use it. ๐
I don't like "fixing" problems without actually fixing them. :)
@mmn You're ignoring my original point, that by adding a delay I wanted to create distance between an event that inspired a thought, and the thought itself.
This can both avoid drama, but more importantly it also allows the thought to stand on its own which is often the right thing.
I can of course do this manually. But it's the sort of thing computers are good at, so...
Well if you want to comment something later, why not just comment it later? If you, say, write something in the heat of a moment or something that may be considered inappropriate etc, then I don't see why - if you really want to publish something later - you simply publish it later.
I expect such a feature would just let you forget things that were postponed and then when they're published it still caused drama (unless you postpone the postponement...).
I humbly believe this is yet another technical solution to a social problem that will not really solve anything.
@mmn I sort of understand @HerraBRE's use case. I can see wanting to talk about issues raised by a drama at a remove from the drama itself, and also wanting to draft while the ideas are fresh. I don't know if it needs to be a built in feature. I already do this with a text editor.
I'd like to see autosave drafts. It's annoying when you write a long post, switch tabs to get a reference link, come back and the tab refreshes & loses your post.
@mmn I want to write a post and have the computer make it public at a time of my choosing.
I use this feature of tweetdeck all the time, I like it a lot. Nobody has complained about me being a robot or marketroid.
It's just another useful tool for thoughtful interaction online, timing matters.
@HerraBRE haha. delayed drama shield! lol