I should be able to remove a Quote when editing a post

[mcclure]

Steps to reproduce the problem

The context may just be confusing, but: While making a thread, I messed up. I accidentally made a couple posts outside the thread, on their own. To preserve the thread, I then added quote posts to the main thread, quoting the outside-thread posts. A day or so later, I thought: This could be less confusing. So I went back again and edited the main-thread posts to contain the content, and I replaced the incorrect-thread posts with links back to the main thread.

And then I realized something: I could not remove the quote posts, of the useless now-stub posts, from my posts when editing them. The only thing I could do is delete the posts— which would screw up the threading, the exact thing I was trying to preserve.

See here:

https://mastodon.social/@mcc/116065131748225890

What I want is to be able to remove the quote from that post, and instead get the preview for the YouTube link. But I can't remove the quote, and since the quote is present, I can't get a preview for the YouTube link.

Expected behaviour

(Preferred) Using the edit feature, I should be able to completely remove a quote from a post I made. (Minimal) Imagine there is some technical, or trust&safety reason why you don't want it to be possible to demote a quote post into a regular post. It's still the case that Mastodon quote posts, by design, are revokable. If the quoted post had been made by some other user, that user would have the option of detaching the quote. Therefore, I the person who made the quote post should also have the ability to mark the quote post as "revoked", at which point it shows a "quote unavailable" box (or whatever you normally do in that situation).

Actual behaviour

Quotes are completely immutable

Detailed description

Two additional thoughts.

1. Although in this case I was quoting myself, I think I've accidentally uncovered a real Trust&Safety issue. Imagine this: User A makes post B. User C makes a quote post of post B. User A doesn't like this, but instead of using the quote-revoke feature as one would expect, they edit post B to contain shock imagery or nazi propaganda. User C is now "stuck" with this quote. They can't edit it out. They can delete the post, but this may cause other issues (such as breaking a thread).

2. Imagine you grant my feature request, and it becomes possible to edit out a quote from a post you made. It still won't be possible to add a quote to a post, that would be a different and possibly more complicated feature. So you should add a warning box, when the user [does whatever] to remove the quote, saying "Once you remove this quote, this is an irreversible action. Are you sure?"

Mastodon instance

mastodon.social

Mastodon version

v4.6.0-nightly.2026-02-14

Browser name and version

140.7.0esr

Operating system

Windows 10 extended support

Technical details

No response