Some good news about #Mastodon, there has been a very significant bit of code added which will automatically fetch all the replies in a thread. This means everyone will be able to see a thread's whole conversation no matter which server they are on! 🥳
The code has just been "merged" which means it should become available in the next update to Mastodon, hopefully within the next few months.
(Those who want the technical details can see the Pull Request at github.com/mastodon/mastodon/p…)
(Via @rolle)
Add Fetch All Replies Part 1: Backend by sneakers-the-rat · Pull Request #32615 · mastodon/mastodon
Fix: #9409 Fix: #14017 Fix: #18150 Original PR Here: NeuromatchAcademy#44 Further description here: NeuromatchAcademy#43 I've never made a PR for upstream before, so forgive me if i'm doing...GitHub
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Weird Autumn Edition
in reply to Fedi.Tips • • •Almost!
This Pull Request only deals with public posts and public replies. It doesn't include follower-only-posts or -replies, since there was no time and no good soultion solution on how to tackle those sensibly in time.
However, recieving 99% of the replies and context is still much better, than only a tiny fraction.
Roni Rolle Laukkarinen reshared this.
Fedi.Tips
in reply to Weird Autumn Edition • • •Follower-only posts are always going to be hidden to most people becuse it's a restricted post visibility, people are deliberately hiding their replies if they use it.
It's the public/unlisted replies that most people are missing when a public conversation is incomplete.
Trötifant
in reply to Fedi.Tips • • •I'm trying to understand...
Why would I not see all replies already with the current Mastodon version?
=>Some are not shown because they come from servers that are blocked by my home instance.
=>Some are not shown because they com from accounts that are blocked by me.
=>(Further reasons?)
I guess it is not the purpose of the update to circumvent measures like the above-mentioned blocks. So, what kind of replies do I currently not see and can be seen with the new version?
@rolle
Fedi.Tips
in reply to Trötifant • • •At the moment, if there's a reply from an account that your server has not "noticed" then it may not be visible in the thread.
There's a whole list of scenarios where a server might notice an account or post:
fedi.tips/which-posts-and-acco…
TL:DR - To preserve resources, servers only show accounts and posts they have noticed. This keeps server costs low enough that anyone can start and run their own server, but has the side-effect of not showing everything from every server.
Which Mastodon and Fediverse posts and accounts can I see from my server? | Fedi.Tips – An Unofficial Guide to Mastodon and the Fediverse
fedi.tipsMatthew likes this.
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Trötifant
in reply to Fedi.Tips • • •Robert W. Gehl
in reply to Fedi.Tips • • •Fedi.Tips
in reply to Robert W. Gehl • • •That's what they will be testing in the real world before it is deployed. They already ran tests before merging this, but actually trying it out may reveal more stuff to tweak/fix.
Looking through the discussions about this feature, avoiding strain on server resources was one of the things that delayed this feature so long.
It may not be that bad though, this is just anecdotal but see here: neuromatch.social/@elduvelle/1…
El Duvelle
2025-03-12 14:52:54
ScottMGS
in reply to Robert W. Gehl • • •@rwg @Voka That's one of my concerns, too. I don't *need* to see everything especially if it's going to raise my hosting costs.
My other concern is whether my posts will be visible from - and whether I'll see posts from - servers I have blocked. I presume public posts are generally readable (e.g. via RSS) but I'm not clear on the details.
Fedi.Tips
in reply to ScottMGS • • •@ScottMGS
Resources: Reading through the discussions on this feature, one of the things holding it up was a concern about using up too many resources. The reason it's happening now is because they think they have solved this, but they're going to test it first in the real world on a small number of servers to make sure.
Blocks: That's somewhat a separate issue as the efficacy of blocks for hiding public posts depends on things like activating authorized fetch: fedi.tips/authorized-fetch
Adding user safety through Authorized Fetch on Mastodon | Fedi.Tips – An Unofficial Guide to Mastodon and the Fediverse
fedi.tipsJoerg Droege
in reply to Fedi.Tips • • •Fedi.Tips
in reply to Joerg Droege • • •@nafcom
You can already move accounts (fedi.tips/transferring-your-ma…).
If you mean moving posts, the posts remain on your old server and redirect people to your new account.
Moving Mastodon posts was attempted by Firefish but the moved posts were clones of the originals and they broke all of the discussion threads on the originals. Also the moving process overwhelmed the server as it involved potentially thousands of posts being added to the server at once from a single account.
Transferring your Mastodon account to another server | Fedi.Tips – An Unofficial Guide to Mastodon and the Fediverse
fedi.tipsFlorentine Pogen
in reply to Fedi.Tips • • •Joerg Droege
in reply to Florentine Pogen • • •Fedi.Tips
in reply to Joerg Droege • • •I wouldn't call it useless 🙂
Without follower transfer, people would be scared to ever move. They'd be starting from zero every time.
As far as I know the Fediverse is the only social network where you can move to different fully independent infrastructure while keeping your followers.
Bluesky "solved" moving posts by not allowing independent infrastructure, so you're never properly transferring.
Firefish's "solution" was by overwhelming the server.
Florentine Pogen
in reply to Fedi.Tips • • •Fedi.Tips
in reply to Florentine Pogen • • •I'm not sure that's an accurate analogy?
Transferring your followers doesn't just mean messages being forwarded, it means your connections stay intact. It's like moving house and still keeping the same circle of friends no matter where you live.
Also, you can save your Mastodon post archive, the posts don't just disappear:
fedi.tips/how-to-download-your…
By the way, Mastodon post archives can be uploaded to GoToSocial accounts using a tool currently in testing: github.com/VyrCossont/slurp
How to export and download your Mastodon post archive | Fedi.Tips – An Unofficial Guide to Mastodon and the Fediverse
fedi.tipsFlorentine Pogen
in reply to Fedi.Tips • • •Robert Kingett
in reply to Joerg Droege • • •João Tiago Rebelo (NAFO J-121)
in reply to Robert Kingett • • •@nafcom @FediTips @rolle
Add Fetch All Replies Part 1: Backend by sneakers-the-rat · Pull Request #32615 · mastodon/mastodon
GitHubRobert Kingett
in reply to João Tiago Rebelo (NAFO J-121) • • •Fedi.Tips
in reply to Robert Kingett • • •@WeirdWriter @jt_rebelo @nafcom
I think they mean post migration, which has an issue at github.com/mastodon/mastodon/i…
Support Post Migration · Issue #12423 · mastodon/mastodon
GitHubpatricus
in reply to Fedi.Tips • • •Renaud Chaput
in reply to Fedi.Tips • • •it is important to point out that this is very experimental, behind a feature flag, and there will be a need for more changes to get it in front of people.
Also we don’t recommend activating it yet, this may have significant performance implications or bugs.
@rolle
Matthew likes this.
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Fedi.Tips
in reply to Renaud Chaput • • •@renchap
Oh right, thanks for the info!
From the merge thread I thought it was ready to go but just needed a front end to avoid the need for manual page refreshes?
Will it appear in the updates/nightlys?
Renaud Chaput
in reply to Fedi.Tips • • •Fedi.Tips
in reply to Renaud Chaput • • •@renchap
Sounds like the perfect approach 👍
Thanks for taking the time to provide this info!
El Duvelle
in reply to Renaud Chaput • • •@renchap For what it's worth we've had #FetchAllReplies activated on our server for many months now and have not noticed any problems. It is a small server though (~250 active users), not sure if it makes a difference.
The benefits are noticeable though! I took the habit of checking replies before adding my own, which is probably nice for the OPs, and can spot a lot more spam to report 😁. Perhaps more importantly, the Fediverse feels a lot more alive with it!
Looking forward to the feature being available to all 😀
@FediTips @rolle
Roni Rolle Laukkarinen reshared this.
Andy Piper
in reply to Fedi.Tips • • •Roni Rolle Laukkarinen reshared this.
Roni Rolle Laukkarinen
in reply to Andy Piper • • •Fedi.Tips
in reply to Roni Rolle Laukkarinen • • •@andypiper
Must be an amazing feeling to see the devs finally closing your issue today! 😀
Frank Küsel
in reply to Fedi.Tips • • •Fedo ¶
Unknown parent • • •Greengordon
in reply to Fedi.Tips • • •This is a great improvement, thanks!
"This means everyone will be able to see a thread's whole conversation no matter which server they are on! 🥳 "
#Mastodon
ɹ uɐpƎ˥ƎʞS
in reply to Fedi.Tips • • •Fedi.Tips
in reply to ɹ uɐpƎ˥ƎʞS • • •@dannotdaniel
I am trying to manage people's expectations, as updates have sometimes taken months to appear 😅
Also, there's an additional thing that one of the devs @renchap has just pointed out, there may be tweaks needed before actual general release as its real world performance still needs to be checked.
ɹ uɐpƎ˥ƎʞS
in reply to Fedi.Tips • • •Fedo ¶
Unknown parent • • •Actually I’m not sure about key softwares, I’ve never thought about that possibility. I think it’s not, both because I used a bunch of key instances and none of them had that feature enabled, and because the FediFetcher script on GitHub is reported to be compatible with key softwares. If they were already able to do that I don’t see the reason for this compatibility to exist or to be highlighted.
However this is a game changer feature imho, I only hope for it to become more popular on the Fediverse
Dr. Quadragon ❌
in reply to Fedi.Tips • • •Oh, my fucking god, not a milisecond too soon!!!!
@rolle
Григорий Клюшников
in reply to Fedi.Tips • • •Botolo
in reply to Fedi.Tips • • •Jorge Saturno
in reply to Fedi.Tips • • •Astro
in reply to Fedi.Tips • • •GitHub - nanos/FediFetcher: FediFetcher is a tool for Mastodon that automatically fetches missing replies and posts from other fediverse instances, and adds them to your own Mastodon instance.
GitHubFedi.Tips
in reply to Astro • • •When the feature is actually deployed, it might reduce the need for it. However it may be a few months until that happens.
yetzt
in reply to Fedi.Tips • • •Fedi.Tips
in reply to yetzt • • •Yes it did actually happen! It's just in quotes because my account is aimed at a non-technical audience, and the rest of the sentence explains what merging means.
yetzt
in reply to Fedi.Tips • • •Fedi.Tips
in reply to yetzt • • •@yetzt
The scene you're using the image from is exactly what I was doing, putting quotes around a potentially unfamiliar technical term:
youtube.com/watch?v=voSpOrimkM…
- YouTube
www.youtube.comjoene 🏴🍉
in reply to Fedi.Tips • • •Fedi.Tips
in reply to joene 🏴🍉 • • •You might be seeing a lot of replies but perhaps not all of them. It will also vary a lot depending on whether your server has noticed the people in the replies. There might be some threads where you don't see so many of the replies.
The idea of this feature is to take away the randomness of it, and let everyone see the same thread regardless of where they are or which accounts their server has noticed.
manisha
in reply to Fedi.Tips • • •yay, huge shout out to @jonny who made this feature possible!!
#FetchAllReplies
Fedi.Tips
in reply to manisha • • •Fedi.Tips
in reply to Fedi.Tips • • •p.s. More info from one of Mastodon's core developers @renchap :
Fetch All Replies will be in the next experimental version of Mastodon (aka the "nightly" version). It will be disabled by default, but will be tested to see how it behaves on a small number of real servers. Once the developers are confident it works okay, they will release it fully to everyone.
Server admins are free to use nightly versions at their own risk, so you may see this on some servers before the "official" release.
Marcus
in reply to Fedi.Tips • • •@jools
Danke ;)
@mina
Wird dich auch interessieren.
@FediTips
Loïc Denuzière
in reply to Fedi.Tips • • •Fedi.Tips
in reply to Loïc Denuzière • • •@tarmil
As far as I know, it would only need to be enabled on your server.
Loïc Denuzière
in reply to Fedi.Tips • • •Bill, organizer of stuff
in reply to Fedi.Tips • • •Lucas Treffenstädt
in reply to Fedi.Tips • • •Howard Chu @ Symas
in reply to Fedi.Tips • • •Howard Chu @ Symas (@hyc@mastodon.social)
MastodonDitol
in reply to Fedi.Tips • • •Roni Rolle Laukkarinen reshared this.
Wu Evar 🇪🇺🇺🇦
in reply to Fedi.Tips • • •That’s great news!
Does this also work in reverse? I sometimes stumble on replies but can not see the original post (have to jump to the original instance to see it)
Fedi.Tips
in reply to Wu Evar 🇪🇺🇺🇦 • • •@maschinentraum
It should show you the entire thread when you click on it, you may need to reload the page.
By the way, I think you can already do this if you just want to see the post being replied to? If you click on a reply to focus on it and then reload the page, you should see the post its replying to appear above?
Renaud Chaput
Unknown parent • • •Refactor reply-fetching code and disable it by default by ClearlyClaire · Pull Request #34147 · mastodon/mastodon
GitHubSpocko
in reply to Fedi.Tips • • •manglaneso
in reply to Fedi.Tips • • •Roni Rolle Laukkarinen
Unknown parent • • •Bob K Mertz
in reply to Fedi.Tips • • •Thank God.... This was always one of my biggest frustrations
@rolle
#Mastodon
Fedi.Tips
Unknown parent • • •@phf
This isn't imposing the same thread on everyone. User blocks and server blocks still prevent particular posts being visible for example, as do user filters etc. Admins of servers have ultimate control over what is visible on their servers.
All this feature does is make servers notice the public non-blocked posts in threads that their users are wanting to browse.
europlus
in reply to Fedi.Tips • • •By Grabthar’s Hammer, what a development.
Hooray from a tiny instance.
Fedi.Tips
in reply to europlus • • •@europlus
😆
Fedo ¶
Unknown parent • • •I’m talking with no real knowledge of the technical aspects, but just as a random observer of some dynamic in Fediverse. I feel like, as long as some instances behave in a “centralised” way, the developers must make a trade-off between federation and idk, familiarity? I mean, it seems it happened with both Mastodon and Pixelfed: as huge influxes of users from commercial platforms happen, they work hard for platforms to be good for the perspective of newcomers. And this means that federation as a concept is kinda hidden under the carpet. They boost performances, add affordances, improve the UI, but in the meantime it all happens around single huge instances that somehow are the main landing points in the Fediverse of such migrations. In this scenario, fetching post from other instances, that remember we’re kinda pretending they doesn’t exist, is not useful
I get why it happens, as I said is a trade-off, and it’s very understandable: they knew not-tech-savvy users use the web for very real and concrete reasons and they need to build community easily, so the decentralisation is a major obstacle at first, so they thought “you know what, just come all here in this server, it will be almost like Twitter/Instagram/Reddit/etc. You will learn how this place works after a while”
Think about Pixelfed. Dansup is handling a very big migration, and you see Pixelfed.social literally hiding boosts (which is the only practical way to discover people form other servers). He didn’t even bother opening the source code of Loops.
So yeah, there’s this. Maybe now Mastodon is confident enough that they can concentrate their resources in improving federation. I just hope this might set a trend for other softwares as well
Radgryd
in reply to Fedi.Tips • • •Kyrielle
in reply to Fedi.Tips • • •