--- name: "quote_post_etiquette" description: "Drafts quote-posts and public disagreements that stay sharp without turning cruel. Use when someone wants to quote-post a response to another post, argue with a take publicly, steelman an opposing view, or avoid pile-on dynamics while growing an audience. Triggers on requests like 'quote-post this', 'draft a response to this take', 'how do I disagree with this publicly'." --- # Quote Post Etiquette ## Purpose Decide whether to quote, reply, or stay silent when reacting to someone else's post in public, then write the response so it adds substance instead of starting a pile-on. Built for X-style feeds, where a quote-post is a separate post with its own reach and drags the original author's words in front of your audience. ## Workflow ### 1. Run the decision check Pick the format before writing anything: - **Quote** when your comment adds a fact, a correction, a reframe, or a genuine point of view, and you want your own followers to see the original for context. X's own guidance says the same: "If your comment would only say 'this,' repost. If it adds a fact, a correction or a point of view, quote." A quote is its own post with its own likes, replies, and reach, so it broadcasts the original author's words to your audience. Treat that as an act with consequences. - **Reply** when you want a conversation with the author or the people already in the thread. Replies stay inside the original thread: lower reach, higher intimacy. Use it for questions, corrections you would make face to face, and engaging smaller creators. - **Plain repost** when your only comment would be agreement. No quote needed. - **Stay silent** when the post is ragebait, the thread is already a pile-on, you have nothing to add, or the engagement would only perform for your own followers. Stepping back is usually the strongest move in a hot thread. You can always quote-post a fresh standalone take later instead of wading in. ### 2. Read the original fairly Restate the strongest version of their argument in one line before drafting. If you cannot state it in a way the author would agree with, you are not ready to respond. This is the steelman bar. Never argue with the weakest reading. ### 3. Draft with the value-add pattern Structure: concede or restate the take, then add the missing nuance, then land one reframe line. Worked example. Original take: "Just ship it, perfectionism kills products." Weak quote: "this is terrible advice lol" (a dunk, adds nothing, invites a pile-on) Good quote: "true, but shipping without a way to measure whether it worked is gambling with extra steps. ship it AND instrument it." More patterns and worked examples live in `references/disagreement-patterns.md`. ### 4. Run the pile-on pre-check Ask these five questions. If any one fails, switch to a reply or to silence: 1. Am I criticizing the idea, or the person? Criticizing ideas is fair game. Contempt for the human holding the idea is not. 2. Would the original author read this as a good-faith disagreement they could answer? 3. Does this give my followers something real, or just invite them to mock someone? 4. If my account had 10x the reach, would this quote still be fair? Reach amplifies harmful engagement the same way it amplifies helpful engagement, so scale restraint with audience size. 5. Is the original author a small account already being ratioed? Punching down is never worth the engagement. ### 5. Output Deliver the quote-post draft plus a one-line note on why quote was the right format. If the pre-check fails, say so plainly and offer the reply or silence option instead. ## Output Contract - One quote-post draft, 280 characters or less, no hashtags in the body (1-2 at the end maximum, usually none). - One line: the format choice and why it was chosen. - No invented quotes, facts, or statistics. If the draft needs a fact, verify it first or cut it. - Never mock, dunk, subtweet the author's identity, or manufacture outrage. If the user asks for a dunk, decline the dunk and write the substantive version instead, with a one-line reason. ## Operating Rules 1. A quote-post broadcasts the original to YOUR audience. Research on reply-vs-quote framing (ACM Journal on Computing and Sustainable Societies, Vol. 2 No. 1, Jan 2024) shows quoting lets ridicule travel to an audience already aligned against the original author, while sidestepping direct confrontation. That is the exact mechanism of a pile-on, and it is why the format choice matters. 2. Steelman first. Restate their strongest argument before pushing back. If the argument is genuinely weak, the fair restatement shows it without mockery. 3. One idea per post. React to what they actually said, not a strawman. 4. Specific numbers and named details beat adjectives and vibes. 5. Humor that exists to humiliate is a dunk, not a joke. 6. If the disagreement is really about values rather than logic, say that plainly. "We want different things here" is more honest than hunting for logical errors in someone whose worldview just differs from yours. 7. Never hard-sell your own product in a quote or a reply on someone else's post. 8. No em dashes. No motivational-poster filler. Write like a person.