Waldo JaquithMar 4, 2023

To have a viral post on Mastodon is to be confronted with a long series of people asking the exact same question or providing the same “well actually” response, for days, because of the limits of federation. They simply can’t see those other replies. Sometimes they see *no* ofher replies, if they’re on a tiny server.

The experience isn’t great! As with customer service, it can be hard to remember that this isn’t actually the same person over and over again.

Show threadEugen RochkoMar 4, 2023
@waldoj I’m not 100% behind on blaming this on federation/decentralization. It could be a UX issue because you’re not required to view the thread before writing a reply, and/or because the count of replies isn’t displayed clearly. It could also simply be an innate effect of virality. Do comments on e.g. frontpage Reddit posts contain a lot of repeat sentiments?
Show threadGareth Kitchen
@Gargron @waldoj I'm using the Pleroma FE and see this 'globe'. If I click it the thread expands and I can reply accordingly. So that's a UX thing. A 'rookie' may just reply to the 'boosted' post without doing this. I think this explains what you are seeing.
Mar 4, 2023 at 4:36pmWeb
Show threadWaldo JaquithMar 4, 2023
@gruff The thread expands, but you do not see all replies, nor can you know which replies you are not seeing, because not all replying people federate with your server.
Show threadGareth KitchenMar 4, 2023
@waldoj I guess I don't know what I'm not seeing. But I see 16 replies to your post and I'm self hosted, so limited 'federation'.
Show threadWaldo JaquithMar 4, 2023
@gruff I counted 16 replies and had scrolled maybe 15% through the whole list.
Show threadGareth KitchenMar 4, 2023
@waldoj Oh. :( I seem to remember an infographic that explained all this which would be helpful to revisit because I've forgotten about the consequences... Lol.