Many of us follow many accounts. This leads to a Home timeline that is very busy, especially if our Follows are heavy boosters.
The interface allows us to hide all boosts from Home, so that we only see original posts by our Follows. It's refreshing. There are no third-party posts and I can focus on the actual comments of my Follows.
\cont'd
As an author, most of my own posts are replies to other posts. If I want one of my replies to be seen by my Followers, I boost it. Self-boosting feels awkward, but it is standard practice on Mastodon. Such self-boosts are my own comments, and they should be visible to my Followers.
What if my Followers have chosen to suppress all boosts? Can they still see my self-boosted replies?
\cont'd
I perform the following experiment.
My main account is on mastodonApp.uk (A). I have two reserve accounts, on mastodon.Green (G) and on mastodon.Me.uk (M). I post this thread on (A). I let (M) follow (G) but not (A). (M) hides all boosts from his Home. (G) will post a reply to (A)'s thread, visibility set to "Public".
Can (M) see (G)'s reply in his Home? I will report in part [4].
\cont'd
(G) posted his public reply to (A) and then boosted it. (M) has switched off boosts in his Home. Does (G)'s self-boosted reply appear in (M)'s Home? Sadly, no.
If a Follower (M) hides boosts, the suppression includes self-boosted replies by the followed account (G).
If (M) switches boosts on, the reply does appear in his Home.
NOTE: (M) set "Show Boosts" off, "Show replies" on.
\end
Extending the experiment. Account (G) posts a reply to part [1] of (A)'s thread, but this time (G) sets visibility of his reply to "Followers only".
Account (M) follows (G) but has switched boosts off. Is the modified reply by (G) visible in (M)'s Home?
Sadly, with visibility set to "Followers only" the reply still does not show in Home.
When (M) switches on boosts in Home, the reply does become visible again.
So far, I have not seen part 4 and I do not expect to see your test boost, which I expect was your part 4.
I follow you, but I have disabled seeing boosts.
HTH.
Sadly (G)'s self-boosted reply does not show in (M)'s Home. My part [4] is now posted.
You should see (G)'s reply to part [1] among the replies, boosted or not. But since you don't follow (G), that reply was never expected to show in your Home, only in (M)'s Home.
Nope. Still no part 4. As expected.
My part [4] is part of the main thread, a reply to part [3]. Only part [1] of the thread was posted as Public, the other parts were posted as a sequence of Unlisted replies. Therefore you won't see [4] in Home, it was not meant to be seen in Home. But you should see it as you go through the thread. If not, there may be delays between servers.
Yes, it can be propagation delay.
Will check later and give you an update.
But, I do not expect to see 4.
Thanks for helping with this experiment!
Part [4] was sent from this account (A), as part of the main thread. If you can see parts [2] and [3] you should also see [4], why not?
The boosted reply came from another account (G), and thos you should also see. Not on your Home timeline, but as a reply to post [1] from account (A).
No change. All of them are from (A). But none that I can see is noted as [4].
@SpaceLifeForm Hi, thanks again for helping with the experiment. Perhaps we are talking about different things, I mean this post:
https://mastodonapp.uk/@the_roamer/109848930825057551
It summarises the outcome, which sadly is negative:
if I set "Show boosts" to off, then the suppression includes cases where one of my Follows boosts one of their own replies.
To me that means that turning off boosts is fun but cannot be the default.
Content warning: [[4/4] Boosting own replies, Outcome: a Follower who hides boosts in Home can NOT see the self-boosted reply.
I can see it now via that link, which I opened in new tab.
But, I can not see it following thru the original thread.
Correct me if this is wrong, but what I see via the link is:
[[4/4] Boosting own replies, Outcome: a Follower who hides boosts in Home can NOT see the self-boosted reply.
(G) posted his public reply to (A) and then boosted it. (M) has switched off boosts in his Home. Does (G)'s self-boosted reply appear in (M)'s Home? Sadly, no.
If a Follower (M) hides boosts, the suppression includes self-boosted replies by the followed account (G).
If (M) switches boosts on, the reply does appear in his Home.
NOTE: (M) set "Show Boosts" off, "Show replies" on.
\end
Note: I see your PS that way also.
But, also note: When I opened that link in a new tab, I am NOT logged in on your instance!
I re-enabled seeing boosts in Home.
Will see what happens. I had disabled because over 60 percent of my TL was boosts, and it was crowding out posts that I wanted to read. By the time I could get thru them, a large amount of new stuff would come in.
Basically, I was trying to read nearly 100 posts per hour, but my TL was only showing last hour, so if I spent more than a hour reading a batch of posts, I would definitely miss posts.
But, with the upgrade, my TL seems to be about 2 hours long (without boosts).
I am using AWI mode, to prevent constant flood of new stuff coming in.
Yes, I have the exact same problem, an overflowing timeline and the limit of max 400 posts means that older posts are pushed out before I have even seen them.
Sadly, hiding boosts in Home means the boosts don't show, but they still count toward the 400 limit.
For me too, Home shows between 1 and 3 hours.
Using Lists is I think the only practical solution. One core list for the most important Follows, plus several layers of subject-specific Lists.
Correct, that is post [4]. It is very strange that you cannot see it from within the thread. I posted [4] identically to parts [2] and [3], as a reply to the preceding post. I can see [4] from other accounts that are on other servers. Federation mysteries!
Regarding the outcome, I will post a separate summary separately, after a little break.
And now, I remember another reason I disabled seeing boosts.
Boosts of a post I already read.
Anyway, re-enabling boosts, and reloading the thread did not help. It is too late, the decision was already made somewhere by the software.
As best as I can figure, The number 4 and the PS never propagated to my instance.
My guess is that (A) decided not to. Reasons unknown.
One lessons I'm still trying to learn: accept that transmission of posts & access to posts in the Fediverse is never quite what I expect, and to live with the resulting element of randomness in the interaction with others (rather than fighting it).
Specifically, on many issues the safest way to access a post is via the host server. But I am willing to just accept that there may be items that pass by without me seeing them.
This is a reply to a thread on my main account (A), made from another account, (G).
Once (G) has posted his reply, he will also boost it.
Visibility of the reply is set to "Public".
We want to know whether account (M) which follows (G) can see this reply, even though (M) suppresses boosts in his Home timeline.
Part [4] of the main thread in account (A) will report on the outcome.
the roamer
SpaceLifeForm
the green roamer