Jeff Sikes 馃崕
@box464@mastodon.social  路  activity timestamp 3 days ago

Mastodon's latest version has the ability to fetch missing replies from a conversation (under an experimental flag, not enabled by default).

This is a big deal, especially for smaller instances. Mastodon joins other platforms - of which I know of: Streams, GoToSocial, IceShrimp.NET and Bonfire - that pull back replies on request.

The hard work on the backend is done, and now there needs to be a discussion about how this interaction works as part of the user experience.

#Mastodon#Fediverse

1
Jeff Sikes 馃崕
@box464@mastodon.social  路  activity timestamp 3 days ago

Right now the experience is a bit awkward on most platforms:

* Open a post detail view
* This triggers a request to pull down missing replies in the background.
* Sit and wait X number of seconds/minutes, hope the reply task is finished, refresh the screen - and maybe some/all of the extra posts are downloaded.

Not the best user experience.

1
Jeff Sikes 馃崕
@box464@mastodon.social  路  activity timestamp 3 days ago

What is needed to improve it? A streaming endpoint? A "pull all replies" button that auto-updates, displays them as they come in?

This will require front end updates to every client, which will obviously each handle this a bit differently.

What we've seen in the past tho, like with post quotes, is that once a single app figures out a way to represent the process, the others follow suit.