Post AQsYfR7bWc8bcBkT3I by tiago@social.skewed.de
(DIR) More posts by tiago@social.skewed.de
(DIR) Post #AQsTKJhvOccklgqaO0 by simon@fedi.simonwillison.net
2022-12-22T20:42:47Z
0 likes, 3 repeats
My least favourite sharp edge of Mastodon is the fact that when you view someone else's post you only see replies to it that are known to your server - so there's actually a good chance there will be relies that are completely invivible to you, especially if you run your own instanceI'd love it if tapping a post kicked off a request back to the original server that fetched the current reply count, and provided a "view all replies" button if there were replies not yet visible to me
(DIR) Post #AQsTKK6juMTQ0eSP44 by smallsees@social.dropbear.xyz
2022-12-22T21:40:05Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@simon The "view all replies" is a neat idea. It's sort of there with the "Open original post" option but that takes you to the sender's server.For example on this thread, I can see you and Florian but not, say, Aria, caleb or sean.
(DIR) Post #AQsTKL64ELWv4r9Nei by simon@fedi.simonwillison.net
2022-12-22T20:46:20Z
0 likes, 1 repeats
My hunch here is that very few people see even aware of this Mastodon featureSo, a poll: prior to reading this thread, did you know that Mastodon by default will only show you public replies to a post if those replies have already been fetched into your server somehow?(This only affects you when you view a post that originated on a server other than your home server - if the original post author is on the same server as you then you'll see all of the replies)
(DIR) Post #AQsToJmVgZTHgXIVlY by tiago@social.skewed.de
2022-12-22T21:45:49Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@simon Strange. I follow you on my personal instance, but I can see all the replies from people I'm not following. If I go to your instance, I see the same replies. 🤷♂️
(DIR) Post #AQsVfYMgINFEDVAGyu by simon@fedi.simonwillison.net
2022-12-22T21:10:55Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
A frustrating aspect of this issue is that it only affects people with accounts on smaller serversIf you're on https://mastodon.social/ the chance of you ever experiencing this problem is pretty tiny, because almost every post in the whole Mastodon network flows through mastodon.social at some point, since the millions of users on that server are subscribed to effectively everyone elseIf you run an instance with only one user - like I do - then you'll run into this all the time
(DIR) Post #AQsVfYnGhWVnXxbVQG by simon@fedi.simonwillison.net
2022-12-22T21:34:06Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
A couple people have pointed to relays as a potential fix here - that's a Mastodon feature where you can partner with other instances and have them send you a firehouse of every public post they encounter (from their instance or from elsewhere)I'm loathe to set that up for my own instance-of-one though - it just feels really resource-wasteful to funnel thousands more posts an hour into my instance purely as insurance against me maybe not seeing a reply to something!
(DIR) Post #AQsVfZJskGbFB6rYG0 by simon@fedi.simonwillison.net
2022-12-22T22:01:34Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
A few questions asking under what circumstances a reply will be visible. My current understanding:- the author of that reply is followed by someone on your server at the moment when they send the reply- someone else on your server interacts with the reply - replies to it, posts it, favourites it for example- I'm trying to confirm this, but I think replies to posts where the author of that post is followed by someone on your server may be transmitted to your server as well
(DIR) Post #AQsVfZgvMb20KZdxAm by tiago@social.skewed.de
2022-12-22T22:06:34Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@simon I'm actually quite confused. I have an instance with only a couple of accounts, and I definitely see replies from people no one here follows... but not all of them!
(DIR) Post #AQsYfR7bWc8bcBkT3I by tiago@social.skewed.de
2022-12-22T22:40:14Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@simon This clarifies things:“Basically, your instance knows about toots if any of these is true:- someone on your instance follows the person who posted, at the time it was posted- someone you (or anyone else on your instance) follow boosts or replies to that toot- under some conditions, if that toot is a reply to someone you (or anyone else on your instance) follow- it mentions anyone on your instance- it was a pinned toot when the author has been discovered by your instance- someone on your instance manually fetches a toot (by pasting the toot to the search bar)”From: https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/issues/14017#issuecomment-642177335
(DIR) Post #AQshdZmvEQbJVAGKTg by post@qoto.org
2022-12-23T00:20:45Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@simon I have pointed out this for years and people keep saying it's not a problem or didn't understand it.This is one of the reasons why we will abandon the ActivityPub protocol and replace it with @matrix instead (as it happened with OStatus replaced by ActivityPub).Matrix has already solved all the problems of ActivityPub and did it for real-time communications, it will also be fine for social networks and many other things.Matrix is true Web 3.0 and will be like a new protocol on top of the TCP/IP stack. People thinking of Matrix as a IM protocol are missing the point completely.
(DIR) Post #AQskYhKs2gpdKBVUrw by simon@fedi.simonwillison.net
2022-12-22T22:08:00Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@tiago yup that's the exact issue here - you're missing out on replies from people who aren't followed by any of the users on your serverIt's absolutely the worst thing about running your own instance
(DIR) Post #AQslEGavr3t6YFqDBI by feld@bikeshed.party
2022-12-23T01:00:38.638503Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@simon Mastodon and Pleroma both fetch threadshttps://mastodon.social/@Gargron/107294927211655967
(DIR) Post #AQsnkVDpCqFZ5mX2Ya by kai@ajin.la
2022-12-23T01:18:27Z
1 likes, 0 repeats
@simon my idea for a fix is a bookmarklet that scrapes the web interface for replies and searches them so that your server discovers each one.
(DIR) Post #AQsyb98T3JkfTwldAm by kimschulz@social.data.coop
2022-12-22T20:50:30Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@simonFedilab app does a pretty good job fetching them for you
(DIR) Post #AQsybAHMniSr1pwFgO by edzilla@social.edzilla.info
2022-12-22T21:51:24Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@simon @kimschulz I don't think that's actually true, I'm on a single user instance and with fedilab I don't see any replies to this thread
(DIR) Post #AQsybAe3RMc2ACYN2u by djohngo@mastodon.social
2022-12-23T01:34:09Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@edzilla @simon @kimschulz I don't think they've actually implemented it yet. They just did the poll for the feature a couple of weeks ago.
(DIR) Post #AQsybB2VyQB7O3zuAi by ila42f@hachyderm.io
2022-12-23T02:47:25Z
0 likes, 1 repeats
@djohngo@edzilla @simon @kimschulz It's implemented, but not automatic : you have to tap the icon (circled in yellow in my screenshot) to switch to remote view. As I understand it, it uses the public (non authenticated) API to fetch the thread directly from the server on which it originated. @apps
(DIR) Post #AQsyeLm0WR1nXun0IC by mathlover@qoto.org
2022-12-23T03:31:23Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@ila42f Thanks for this! I didn't know this was a feature! @djohngo @edzilla @simon @kimschulz @apps
(DIR) Post #AQtEysvUZIbrQV2VCy by tiago@social.skewed.de
2022-12-23T06:34:21Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@effy @simon then why are there so many issues complaining about this? https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/issues/14017#issuecomment-642177335I definitely do not see all the replies in this thread, even though I follow the original poster.
(DIR) Post #AQtGXFqnwU6IKDncwK by tiago@social.skewed.de
2022-12-23T06:51:46Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@effy @simon Here's one: https://mstdn.social/@_L1vY_/109560313955573385There are many others.
(DIR) Post #AQtHT6UUtqac5lwxfc by tiago@social.skewed.de
2022-12-23T07:02:12Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@effy @simon Ah! So it seems like the reply forwarding mechanism can be fixed to consider all instances in the particular branch of the thread...
(DIR) Post #AQtHh4MHcoa5X4ld68 by tiago@social.skewed.de
2022-12-23T07:04:45Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@effy @simon It does not seem like a huge step is needed to guarantee that the whole thread is forwarded... Is there a catch somewhere?
(DIR) Post #AQtIsatB7LB5Z1DGBE by tiago@social.skewed.de
2022-12-23T07:18:02Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@effy @simon but if we were all following each other this would have happened anyway, right?Also, this happens already with the direct replies, so the additional burden is not that big.
(DIR) Post #AQtJi9Ypy3VZrjHepU by tiago@social.skewed.de
2022-12-23T07:27:21Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@effy @simon OK, but Simon's will need to forward posts to 12K followers as a matter of routine...Besides, the important quantity is the number of instances, not followers, right? This should be much smaller, maybe one or two orders of magnitude.
(DIR) Post #AQtKmxmBJJHoiZNngO by simon@fedi.simonwillison.net
2022-12-23T07:05:19Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@tiago @effy here that wouldn't fix this - the key problem is when someone boosts a post with a question in it into my timeline, and I then decide to reply to that question having not interacted with that user or that thread at all prior to thatI'm not going to see any of the existing replies, which means I'm likely to provide an answer that has already been posed by someone else
(DIR) Post #AQtLSkQTKuRpTY9Y48 by tiago@social.skewed.de
2022-12-23T07:46:59Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@effy @simon I guess the most achievable solution is to have a warning in the web interface that says that the replies might be incomplete, and a button that asks your instance to fetch all replies.
(DIR) Post #AQuDpkY4RRrC2b7ley by mattflor@mastodon.green
2022-12-23T11:16:04Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@ila42f@djohngo @edzilla @simon @kimschulz @apps I wasn't aware of that feature, so thanks for that! However, I am only getting an error message: "The app didn't find the remote message."
(DIR) Post #AQuDpljo1Iq1jHceae by apps@toot.fedilab.app
2022-12-23T17:52:02Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@mattflorThe remote instance must use the Mastodon API and must support public API calls. @ila42f @djohngo @edzilla @simon @kimschulz
(DIR) Post #AQyRvmvIhYUr8MbSCm by ondra@social.unextro.net
2022-12-25T18:51:26Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@simon This is why I'm opening the source URLs of any posts where I'm interested in the discussion. Permalinks (clicking time of the post) did that but it got one click harder in Mastodon v4+.Given how ActivityPub works basically as a glorified RSS reader (with federated comments) that way, I'm still contemplating doing just that, instead of running a dedicated server to get the (RSS) feeds pushed immediately to my server and paying for hosting redundant copies of them etc.
(DIR) Post #ASsSfxBtRa2JQZ4Fwe by mattb@hachyderm.io
2023-02-20T17:15:16Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@simon I wonder if that can be implemented in the client 🤔
(DIR) Post #ASsTN9i4m304hsiluK by simon@fedi.simonwillison.net
2023-02-20T17:18:22Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@mattb I think it could - various clients are already implementing similar features, eg in Ivory if you click a link to a post it seems to hit that server's own API and render the post inside the app rather than pushing you out to a webview
(DIR) Post #ASsTY3fdZIiVA4mMxU by christyxcore@worldkey.io
2023-02-20T17:20:19Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@simon @kylewritescode I'd also like to be able to view someone's following/followers who are on other servers
(DIR) Post #AU2pV4gFzNdVG2uq6S by wikiyu@sprawy.eu
2023-03-27T15:10:07Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@simon and its place for project like https://blog.thms.uk/fedifetcher
(DIR) Post #AUGvKKTRnThIDm4ZDE by sminnee@mastodon.nz
2022-12-22T21:00:37Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@sean @simon at core it means that discussion participants are okay and drive-by drop-ins (like me, now 😆) are more at risk of not being seen. But is a social network that makes life harder for reply-guys all that bad? 😉
(DIR) Post #AUGvKL9zFJj0LhyXWC by simon@fedi.simonwillison.net
2022-12-22T21:04:03Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@sminnee @sean my problem with it is that I frequently reply to someone... and then find out that what I've said has already been said several times before by multiple other people in replies that weren't visible to meWhich makes me look rude, like I'm spraying replies around without even bothering to read the conversation first!
(DIR) Post #AUGvKLsIaZAcZ8hvaS by u0421793@functional.cafe
2023-04-03T10:21:17Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@simon @sminnee @sean this is a huge design failure(Someone’s probably already said this to you, but as the first replies, I said it first)
(DIR) Post #AXnA1WcKSD2fCdjZNQ by barijaona@mastodon.mg
2023-07-17T17:13:00Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@simon @MonaApp has a very useful “Load from remote server” feature.