Identify Original Posts vs Replies

[RobATX]

Pitch

It’s often difficult to tell if a post is the original starter or a reply to an existing thread. It would be very helpful to have some type of indicator in a post that identifies it as the first/original post on a topic or part of a thread.

Motivation

With the influx of new users trying to learn their way, many do not realize that a post they are reading and responding to is part of a longer discussion/thread. They can miss the context of the greater discussion in their replies because it is not always obvious the post is part of a thread. .

[bigblind]

I would love for Mastodon to "inherit" some of Twitter's UX when it comes to showing threads directly in the timeline, so:

• if multiple posts in your timeline belong to a thread, visually connect them
• If a post is a reply to someone you don't follow, show the text "replying to {name}" above it, with their profile picture.

[larryedwards]

When a post that is being viewed is part of a thread, a "Show More..." link would be a good way to what the OP is asking for. I have been missing this feature, and think it is a high need.

[bigblind]

But if you're showing a link, then why not just load the post? I get that this is harder on a federated, network, but maybe fetch it on the first pageload, showing a link while it's loading.

[eishiya]

Prior to version 4, Mastodon's web UI had a very visible "view thread" (or something like that) link below the text of any post that was a reply. This made it very easy to see that a post was part of a thread, and invited the user to click the post to see the rest of the thread.

Version 4 changed this so that replies to your own posts get a hard-to-see "In reply to Name" text above the post, and replies to others only have the mention in them as indicator that they're a reply - which isn't even a good indicator since a mention can be in a first post too. It is therefore hard to see that a post is part of a thread, and it doesn't teach/remind the user that they can click the post to view the thread.

I think going back to the version 3 behaviour would be best. I don't want to see other posts from the thread on timelines because that's often repetitive clutter, I'd much rather spare one extra click/tap when a reply catches my eye,

[davidchisnall]

As a new Mastodon user, I have seen several posts with the ‘in reply to’ banner, in both the official iOS app and the web UI. It took me a long time (over a day) to discover that clicking on the post (but not on the ‘in reply to’ bit) took me to a view of the thread. An explicit ‘view thread’ link would make this a lot more discoverable.