Boosts bypass language filter

[Visne]

Steps to reproduce the problem

1. Follow account A with account B
2. With account B, filter languages, for example only show English toots
3. With account A, boost a German toot

Expected behaviour

The boost should not show up in account A's feed

Actual behaviour

The boost did show up in account A's feed

Detailed description

Since I don't speak German, I have no interest in toots that are in German, even if I am following a person boosting it. Perhaps an option could be added to the language filters page that allows you to still see boosts in filtered languages, because I understand that some people would want to see every toot someone has boosted, even if they don't speak the language.

Specifications

Mastodon 4.0.0rc2

[ClearlyClaire]

2. With account B, filter languages, for example only show English toots

Which setting was it?

or

If it was the latter, I guess this would make sense for the filter to also apply to boosts, yeah

[Visne]

2. With account B, filter languages, for example only show English toots

Which setting was it?

or

If it was the latter, I guess this would make sense for the filter to also apply to boosts, yeah

Sorry, I don't know where to find the second option.

[ClearlyClaire]

To get to the second option, visit the profile of someone you follow (from the server you are logged in on), and click the rightmost menu:

[Visne]

With that option it still happens, but it's not really what I'm looking for anyways.

I understand that if the first option says "public timelines" that doesn't include my Home feed, but I don't really see why it says that in the first place. As a user, I simply want to filter out toots that I can't read because I don't speak the language; whether it is in a public timeline or not has no influence on that, of course.

[erenatas]

I am having the exact problem, also this option does not work. Additionally it is not friendly to disable each user's posts individiually (unless you expected Filter Languages to work but to add this additionally).

Or I will need to start learning German :)

[Visne]

This also happens when following a hashtag.

[TheNoim]

Ok, this is really annoying. This makes it hard to follow a hashtag if it just fills my timeline with post of languages I don't understand.

[brendanjones]

As a European following many other multilingual Europeans, boosts ignoring my language filter is really frustrating. I actively avoid following people who boost lots of posts in other languages because of this bug, which is really sad actually. I don’t want to limit my network to English and Dutch-only people.

[leonoverweel]

More people reporting this issue on Mastodon here: https://mathstodon.xyz/@ionica/110955602973424328

[brendanjones]

Ok, this is really annoying. This makes it hard to follow a hashtag if it just fills my timeline with post of languages I don't understand.

That’s a different problem: #20937

[brendanjones]

2. With account B, filter languages, for example only show English toots

Which setting was it?

or

If it was the latter, I guess this would make sense for the filter to also apply to boosts, yeah

@ClearlyClaire it’s the first one. Boosted posts in languages other than the languages selected are appearing in the home timeline.

This setting on /settings/preferences/other:

I’m only just realising now that that setting says ‘in public timelines’, so actually it’s working as it’s supposed to, technically speaking. I’d call it a user expectation bug: it’s not working as expected by users (myself included).

Can we make that setting also apply to home timeline?

[leonoverweel]

Hi @ClearlyClaire, now that the 4.2 launch is out the door (congrats!), could this issue get a bump?

[bannmann]

Another example: the post https://nerdculture.de/@effy@babka.social/111402046830063348 appeared in my home timeline and is in Hebrew (lang=he).

My "Public timelines - filter languages setting" is set to English and German.

My "subscribed languages" setting for the user who boosted that post was not set ("Select none to receive posts in all languages".) I have now checked "English", but reloading the home timeline did not change anything. However, the wording in that dialog may imply that changes only take effect for newer posts.

At the very least, the UI for the global and user-specific options should mention whether it is intended to cover boosts.

Still, the language filtering feature only makes sense to me if it applies everywhere (including home timeline) and regardless of post context (original or boosted). The current implementation is not intuitive, and will confuse users - even technically minded ones. Also, even if the user-specific option "subscribed languages" applied to boosts, it's too cumbersome in my opinion to have to set this for all users that one follows.

[brendanjones]

That PR ^^ doesn't solve this issue, but it hopefully helps people realise that it's a lack of functionality rather than a bug.

[novoid]

That PR ^^ doesn't solve this issue, but it hopefully helps people realise that it's a lack of functionality rather than a bug.

I see.

However, given the language setting of each mastodon message and the language filter in the preferences, it very straight-forward to assume that the language filter actually filters the mastodon messages in my TL.

At least I did and all of the people I was talking to did assume this behavior, being very disappointed from the current behavior. Furthermore, they question the language filter setting altogether because of this behavior.

From that perspective, I am actually in favor of "this is a bug" although no existing functionality seems to be "broken".

[brendanjones]

@novoid i completely agree, as per my previous comment above:

I’d call it a user expectation bug: it’s not working as expected by users (myself included).

This still needs fixing, the text I’ve added in the PR simply aims to minimise confusion until this is fixed.

I unfortunately don’t have the skills to fix this myself as I’m not a developer, so I’m mostly limited to text fixes like in the PR.