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I think the term "toots" is spectacularly bad, and could majorly hinder broader uptake of their service. Word of mouth (or 'word of text') is a major way servi

I think the term "toots" is spectacularly bad, and could majorly hinder broader uptake of their service. Word of mouth (or 'word of text') is a major way services like this spread. Imagine discussions of Twitter in the media but where the words "tweet" and "tweeted" are replaced with "toot" and "tooted".

wool_gather 8y ago
Can you elaborate on the problem you see with the word "toot"?
- johnnyb128 8y ago
  Beans beans, the musical fruit. The more you eat, the more you toot.
- jamesrcole 8y ago
  Aside from "toot my own horn" the only other uses of the term I can think of are: Kids impersonating the noise a train horn makes. A word for farting. The only context in which you'd normally say that someone "tooted" is the latter.
- 0xcde4c3db 8y ago
  It's an onomatopoeic term for briefly sounding a horn, but I almost never hear it used for that. In my experience, there are two primary uses of the word in American English: 1) In the expression toot [one's] own horn, which means to praise oneself. Often in the form "I don't want to toot my own horn, but [...]". 2) A cutesy word for a fart, used primarily when talking to young children. Notably, an elephant using its trunk to make noise is said to be trumpeting, not tooting.
  - vesak 8y ago
    Isn't 1) exactly what tooting and tweeting both are really about, though?
    - rainbowmverse 8y ago
      Tooting is a more wholesome activity. Tweeting is an inherently performative act due to the nature of the platform. To toot is to be.
  - Hoasi 8y ago
    > Notably, an elephant using its trunk to make noise is said to be trumpeting, not tooting. So if Mr Trump was on Mastodon would we say he was tooting or trumpeting?
  - yborg 8y ago
    So I'm born and raised in the US Midwest, and in my entire life 'toot' was never used as euphemism for 'fart' except in the context of the elementary school rhyme. I can perfectly understand people not liking the sound of the word or even how it looks, but the fart connotation seems like a manufactured rationale to me. Actually, for the population that would possibly use the word that way, i.e. 8 year-olds, the usage would be a positive feature, not a negative.
    - jamesrcole 8y ago
      It may not have that meaning for you, but it does for others. It's nothing manufactured. And, for many people, it's the only meaning that naturally comes to mind in phrases like "I tooted" or "Joe tooted".
- twblalock 8y ago
  It's clearly an attempt to make people think about "tweet" without infringing copyright/trademark, much like the way the generic Dr. Pepper at the grocery store might be called "Dr. Skipper". Mastodon should come up with its own concepts.
  - rainbowmverse 8y ago
    Nope. Hbomberguy suggested it jokingly, and then it was done. https://mastodon.social/@Gargron/100419966679180204 https://mastodon.social/@Gargron/100419966679180204 Not everything is a cynical ploy. There are still pure and wholesome things in this world.
sacul 8y ago
I love open source software, I hate Facebook and I dislike twitter. People in my community want to know what I think about technology, and I’m strongly inclined to recommend stuff that isn’t FB, Google, Apple, etc. But a mastodon “tweet” is called a “toot”? Honestly? Am I insane? Is it just in the USA that that means “fart”? It truly is spectacularly bad. Branding and naming matters, and it’s not shareholders that care. Users care.
- ThJ 8y ago
  The free software movement likes silly things like these.
pbhjpbhj 8y ago
Surely a short message is a tweet, I can tweet you on Twitter ... but also on FB messenger. You could also just call it a "message" if it's not got a low character limit. You don't need a new name on every new service.
AsyncAwait 8y ago
The main dev of Mastodon is not American. Toot just means the noise that is made with a trunk, like tweet is supposed to be the same for birds. It's only in the U.S. that 'toot' is some kind of synonym of 'fart' or whatever and I'm honestly tired of Americans imposing their own cultural thinking on everything, instead of trying to actually understand it. The majority of people do not live in the U.S.
- jamesrcole 8y ago
  It's not just the U.S. I'm from Australia and it's the same here. I would imagine it's also like that in other countries. In any case, even just considering the US market, it's clearly a very large and important one for any software system. And, what a word means there has nothing to do with Americans imposing things on others.
  - AsyncAwait 8y ago
    Why is nicknaming Richard as Dick ok, but toot isn't? Seems way more offensive to me. I hate cockroaches and yet have deployed CockroachDB in production. The insistence on being puritan seems shallow to me, considering the real problems this world is facing, but to each their own.
    - jamesrcole 8y ago
      In the context when you're clearly referring to a person, it's clear the meaning is "Richard". It's common for words to have multiple meanings and it's easy to navigate those from the context. With "toots" as a verb describing what someone does "Joe tooted about his plans", for many people, the meaning of that word in such a context would normally mean that bodily function. So the difference is in the kind of context-sensitive meaning that comes to mind.
      - AsyncAwait 8y ago
        > In the context when you're clearly referring to a person, it's clear the meaning is "Richard". It's not anymore clear than toot - if I say, "Hey Dick", it might be the insult depending on the context. Now it's unlikely to be if the name is Richard, but since you can't really fart about stuff, it's unlikely that you're farting about your plans. Ever wonder why "git" isn't very objectionable? Because it is an obscure British insult, not an American one.
yborg 8y ago
People thought precisely the same thing about "tweet" when Twitter first came out.
- smsm42 8y ago
  I never heard "tweet" being a word for a bodily function largely considered indecent and/or hilarious. Is it?
  - jamesrcole 8y ago
    It's not in Australia. I have only heard it used as a word for a noise birds make.

wool_gather 8y ago

Can you elaborate on the problem you see with the word "toot"?

johnnyb128 8y ago
Beans beans, the musical fruit. The more you eat, the more you toot.
jamesrcole 8y ago
Aside from "toot my own horn" the only other uses of the term I can think of are: Kids impersonating the noise a train horn makes. A word for farting. The only context in which you'd normally say that someone "tooted" is the latter.
0xcde4c3db 8y ago
It's an onomatopoeic term for briefly sounding a horn, but I almost never hear it used for that. In my experience, there are two primary uses of the word in American English: 1) In the expression toot [one's] own horn, which means to praise oneself. Often in the form "I don't want to toot my own horn, but [...]". 2) A cutesy word for a fart, used primarily when talking to young children. Notably, an elephant using its trunk to make noise is said to be trumpeting, not tooting.
- vesak 8y ago
  Isn't 1) exactly what tooting and tweeting both are really about, though?
  - rainbowmverse 8y ago
    Tooting is a more wholesome activity. Tweeting is an inherently performative act due to the nature of the platform. To toot is to be.
- Hoasi 8y ago
  > Notably, an elephant using its trunk to make noise is said to be trumpeting, not tooting. So if Mr Trump was on Mastodon would we say he was tooting or trumpeting?
- yborg 8y ago
  So I'm born and raised in the US Midwest, and in my entire life 'toot' was never used as euphemism for 'fart' except in the context of the elementary school rhyme. I can perfectly understand people not liking the sound of the word or even how it looks, but the fart connotation seems like a manufactured rationale to me. Actually, for the population that would possibly use the word that way, i.e. 8 year-olds, the usage would be a positive feature, not a negative.
  - jamesrcole 8y ago
    It may not have that meaning for you, but it does for others. It's nothing manufactured. And, for many people, it's the only meaning that naturally comes to mind in phrases like "I tooted" or "Joe tooted".
twblalock 8y ago
It's clearly an attempt to make people think about "tweet" without infringing copyright/trademark, much like the way the generic Dr. Pepper at the grocery store might be called "Dr. Skipper". Mastodon should come up with its own concepts.
- rainbowmverse 8y ago
  Nope. Hbomberguy suggested it jokingly, and then it was done. https://mastodon.social/@Gargron/100419966679180204 https://mastodon.social/@Gargron/100419966679180204 Not everything is a cynical ploy. There are still pure and wholesome things in this world.

sacul 8y ago

I love open source software, I hate Facebook and I dislike twitter. People in my community want to know what I think about technology, and I’m strongly inclined to recommend stuff that isn’t FB, Google, Apple, etc. But a mastodon “tweet” is called a “toot”? Honestly? Am I insane? Is it just in the USA that that means “fart”? It truly is spectacularly bad. Branding and naming matters, and it’s not shareholders that care. Users care.

ThJ 8y ago
The free software movement likes silly things like these.

pbhjpbhj 8y ago

Surely a short message is a tweet, I can tweet you on Twitter ... but also on FB messenger. You could also just call it a "message" if it's not got a low character limit. You don't need a new name on every new service.

AsyncAwait 8y ago

The main dev of Mastodon is not American. Toot just means the noise that is made with a trunk, like tweet is supposed to be the same for birds. It's only in the U.S. that 'toot' is some kind of synonym of 'fart' or whatever and I'm honestly tired of Americans imposing their own cultural thinking on everything, instead of trying to actually understand it. The majority of people do not live in the U.S.

jamesrcole 8y ago
It's not just the U.S. I'm from Australia and it's the same here. I would imagine it's also like that in other countries. In any case, even just considering the US market, it's clearly a very large and important one for any software system. And, what a word means there has nothing to do with Americans imposing things on others.
- AsyncAwait 8y ago
  Why is nicknaming Richard as Dick ok, but toot isn't? Seems way more offensive to me. I hate cockroaches and yet have deployed CockroachDB in production. The insistence on being puritan seems shallow to me, considering the real problems this world is facing, but to each their own.
  - jamesrcole 8y ago
    In the context when you're clearly referring to a person, it's clear the meaning is "Richard". It's common for words to have multiple meanings and it's easy to navigate those from the context. With "toots" as a verb describing what someone does "Joe tooted about his plans", for many people, the meaning of that word in such a context would normally mean that bodily function. So the difference is in the kind of context-sensitive meaning that comes to mind.
    - AsyncAwait 8y ago
      > In the context when you're clearly referring to a person, it's clear the meaning is "Richard". It's not anymore clear than toot - if I say, "Hey Dick", it might be the insult depending on the context. Now it's unlikely to be if the name is Richard, but since you can't really fart about stuff, it's unlikely that you're farting about your plans. Ever wonder why "git" isn't very objectionable? Because it is an obscure British insult, not an American one.

yborg 8y ago

People thought precisely the same thing about "tweet" when Twitter first came out.

smsm42 8y ago
I never heard "tweet" being a word for a bodily function largely considered indecent and/or hilarious. Is it?
- jamesrcole 8y ago
  It's not in Australia. I have only heard it used as a word for a noise birds make.