View older posts from other servers

[elaine-jackson]

Pitch

If you follow an account on Mastodon from another server (e.g. not your own instance) you are unable to see the old posts and only new posts from the profile are stored. Instead I have to view the profile in another tab (and this is only possible on desktop, there’s no easy option for mobile users), grab the status URL, and search it if I want to try and respond. This isn’t user friendly and harms the federated nature of Mastodon. Thoughts?

Motivation

This would make seeing and replying to older statuses easier. Often you want to reply to something on their profile posted the same day. This isn’t a case of wanting to see posts from 3 years ago and reply to them.

[shleeable]

Being able to on-demand pull in older toots is something that's been raised previously. I'm all for it.

[elaine-jackson]

I’m going to add here that this doesn’t mean we have to pull all old toots. Moderators have a refresh profile button. Give users the option to view older toots. To avoid putting strain on the network it should be rate limited and be optional not something we do for every account automatically. I can only imagine how many jobs it would flood sidekiq with.

…

Sent from my iPhone

On Jan 2, 2022, at 9:39 AM, Shlee ***@***.***> wrote:  Being able to on-demand pull in older toots is something that's been raised previously. I'm all for it. — Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub, or unsubscribe. Triage notifications on the go with GitHub Mobile for iOS or Android. You are receiving this because you authored the thread.

[karlbeecken]

Hi, I'd really like to see this feature, are there any plans on implementing this?

[eloquence]

I agree this would be a major usability boon that would make federated accounts more practical to work with, e.g., a paginated request for 25 toots at a time or whatever seems reasonable.

[ChengduLittleA]

Right... Does this mean the outbox of that specific instance doesn't contain that much stuff? Is that configurable?

[caffeinepickles]

I have been thinking about this a lot recently since we have many people on an instance who make their first experience with the fediverse right now. We often look for profiles on other instances. The posts of people are quite important for the decision wether to follow a profile or not.

It would be great to scroll through old posts of a user without a custom tab opening. Why not parse the user´s posts off the html view that is usually served by his or hers instance the profile in a browser? In addition liking, boosting and commenting could happen directly without the other user´s instance popup and the need to point to my profile and instance.

Isn´t it possible to do technically the same steps but hide it away in a nicer, more integrated user experience?

Suggested UX journey

1. User stumbles on a profile and sees only the posts since federation has started.
2. User wants to see older posts. Under the last post resides a button or a pull action named "Load oder posts"
3. A bunch of older posts are pulled via the html output of the remote instance that would normally be served inside a custom browser tab.
4. User has the option to reblog, like or comment directly. Usually now the remote instance would prompt the user to type in his username and "Proceed". Why not hide this process and serve the remote instance the credentials in the background? A visual :remote: indicator could signal the user that this is a remote interaction.
5. After finishing the interaction the user can go back to his timelines.

[virtualdxs]

One major use case for this: Private posts can't be opened on the original site because you're not authenticated, so as it is, if I follow a user on an instance that mine hasn't federated with yet, I can't ever see their past follower-only posts unless they or someone else who can already see them boosts them.

[HalleyStarbun]

Is there any update on this? It'd be nice for new users if they could see maybe, the last 25 posts someone made or something. Right now opening up a lot of people's profiles on my new instance gives zero posts, and it looks a bit weird.

[johncronan]

I just started up a personal instance (nothing is local to me). Why is it I can see these older posts when I go to 'Federated' but not when I go to 'Home'?

edit: With a little more experience using it, now, I can say that this is a problem that resolves itself. It's important to think about the new user experience, though.

[mi-na-bot]

I just joined a federated Mastodon to interact with a friend on mastodon.social (which is not possible to join) and am extremely jilted that this is a thing. It makes the entire experience difficult to take seriously.

[Krinkle]

I believe this issue is a duplicate of #14017 (comment) and #34.

[LeonardoPaccianiMori]

I agree with @Krinkle that this issue has already been raised, but I think it is paramount that this problem is addressed. The way Mastodon's inter-operability is being advertised around the web (and I personally think also on joinmastodon.org) may give people the idea that if they create an account on, say, mas.to, then I'll be able to seamlessly see all toots of any user on, say, mastodon.social (or any other instance). As this issue points out this is not the case, and I'm afraid people might be discouraged from using Mastodon because of this.

[noidexe]

As a new user I don't really get how this is an issue. If I go to someones profile in my server it shows me the latest posts and as I scroll down new posts seem to be loaded instantly. Infinite scrolling like on any other social network.

Why does it have to be different if I go to a profile on a different server? I should see the first few posts and if I keep scrolling older posts get loaded. No need for buttons or any cross-server specific interactions, opening a profile and scrolling already shows user intent.

I would assume that my server can just ask my friends server for the latest posts in batches. I know nothing about the underlying tech so of course it might not be trivial at all otherwise it'd already work as expected. But purely from a UX standpoint I think the local and federated experiences should be as close as possible if mainstream adoption is desired.

[rwl4]

I'm one of those people who decided to try out Mastodon, installed my own instance, and now have a nearly blank feed. I understand that I can browse more on the other profiles, but I was definitely hoping to be able to pull up my new shiny iPhone app and peruse toots from my newly followed peeps.

[HalleyStarbun]

To make a little example: Say I make a brand new server, and I find someone who seems cool. I go to their profile to have a browse, but because my server has only just popped into existence, I can only view maybe a post or two, if that.

It'd be nice if upon visiting a profile upon which there's little to no history, we could poll the other instance for 25 or so (doesn't have to be that number exactly) toots, just to fill out a bit of history. That way people on a new instance can immediately start interacting with other people, or see accounts which might not post very often, or have been inactive for a while and may never post again.