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1. Fedi.Tips 🎄 (feditips@mstdn.social)'s status on Thursday, 23-Nov-2023 23:10:37 JST Fedi.Tips 🎄

   If someone recommends an account to follow and it looks blank to you, it probably isn't actually blank! It probably just looks that way when you view it from your server.

   If you follow the account, future posts from that account will start showing up on your server. So, it's okay to follow an account even if it looks blank 👍

   It is confusing, but there are really good reasons why it happens. You can read more about it (and how to prevent it) here:

   ➡️ https://fedi.tips/why-does-someones-account-page-look-completely-blank-is-it-really-blank/

   #FediTips

   • Fedi.Tips 🎄 (feditips@mstdn.social)'s status on Thursday, 23-Nov-2023 23:19:33 JST Fedi.Tips 🎄

     in reply to

     • nefoun_qu_jw

     @nefoun_qu_jw

     I'm not sure what you mean?

   • nefoun_qu_jw (nefoun_qu_jw@katzebot.space)'s status on Thursday, 23-Nov-2023 23:19:34 JST nefoun_qu_jw

     in reply to

     @feditips It IS confusing, and no reasons make it less confusing.

   • nefoun_qu_jw (nefoun_qu_jw@katzebot.space)'s status on Thursday, 23-Nov-2023 23:24:55 JST nefoun_qu_jw

     in reply to

     @feditips Apparently, if you want to share your photos and paintings and content with the user you know, you can not.
     Therefore, you must upload all of your 50 or 200 or 2000 photos from the start again and again every time the next 2 or 3 persons subscribe to you, again and again.
     This makes fediverse accounts almost useless in lots of cases. You'd better use other platform to place your content and just share a link.

   • Fedi.Tips 🎄 (feditips@mstdn.social)'s status on Thursday, 23-Nov-2023 23:34:33 JST Fedi.Tips 🎄

     in reply to

     • Jord_Skole

     @Jord_Skole

     You see all the comments your server has noticed.

     I've tried to go through why this happens in the article linked to in the original post, and at https://fedi.tips/which-posts-and-accounts-can-i-see-from-my-server/

     The alternative to this system would be centralisation, but centralised services tend to end up being sold to Musk etc, invade privacy etc etc.

     The idea of this place is to provide community-owned alternatves that can't be sold, don't trap you on one server, and don't invade privacy.

   • Jord_Skole (jord_skole@social.tchncs.de)'s status on Thursday, 23-Nov-2023 23:34:34 JST Jord_Skole

     in reply to

     @feditips

     I hope it's closely related enough to this post's topic to note:

     As an end user who certainly doesn't understand the inner workings of federation, etc...

     I just **assumed** once I clicked through to a toot I would see all comments (you know - for discussion, meeting new like-interests people, and idea sharing).

     I was **surprised** to learn this is NOT the case at all.

     I 💙 :mastodon: , but this aspect re: comments does seem crummy and surprising to me :mastoshrug:

   • Fedi.Tips 🎄 (feditips@mstdn.social)'s status on Thursday, 23-Nov-2023 23:37:51 JST Fedi.Tips 🎄

     in reply to

     • sollat

     @sollat

     Yes, indeed. There is a section about this in the article 👍

   • sollat (sollat@masto.ai)'s status on Thursday, 23-Nov-2023 23:37:52 JST sollat

     in reply to

     @feditips
     Clicking “Browse more on the original profile” at the bottom of the user’s profile *on your server* will take you to the user’s profile *on their server*. You still may not see everything, depending on what the user selected for privacy, but you’ll almost always see something more about the user.

   • Fedi.Tips 🎄 (feditips@mstdn.social)'s status on Friday, 24-Nov-2023 00:01:13 JST Fedi.Tips 🎄

     in reply to

     • violetmadder

     @violetmadder

     Yeah, hopefully the article makes things clearer.

     Also, as mentioned in the article, people can prevent their profiles ever looking blank if they pin posts, so I try to encourage this too:

     https://fedi.tips/how-do-i-pin-my-posts-on-my-mastodon-profile/

   • violetmadder (violetmadder@kolektiva.social)'s status on Friday, 24-Nov-2023 00:01:14 JST violetmadder

     in reply to

     @feditips

     That's always confused me a lot.

     I couldn't tell if I'm blocked or if it's a glitch or what.

   • Fedi.Tips 🎄 (feditips@mstdn.social)'s status on Friday, 24-Nov-2023 00:04:24 JST Fedi.Tips 🎄

     in reply to

     p.s. As mentioned in the article, there's a very easy way to prevent your own profile *ever* looking blank to anyone!

     Pin posts on your profile, and these will always show up no matter what server other people are on. You can pin up to 5 posts on a profile. Here's how to do it:

     ➡️ https://fedi.tips/how-do-i-pin-my-posts-on-my-mastodon-profile/

   • Fedi.Tips 🎄 (feditips@mstdn.social)'s status on Friday, 24-Nov-2023 00:10:39 JST Fedi.Tips 🎄

     in reply to

     • nefoun_qu_jw

     @nefoun_qu_jw

     " I don't think hundreds or thousands of pinned posts are appropriate use of pin function"

     You can only pin 5 posts per account?

     The main advantage is it prevents the profile ever being blank to anyone. Blankness is much scarier than a profile with at least some posts?

   • nefoun_qu_jw (nefoun_qu_jw@katzebot.space)'s status on Friday, 24-Nov-2023 00:10:40 JST nefoun_qu_jw

     in reply to

     @feditips I don't think hundreds or thousands of pinned posts are appropriate use of pin function. Also, every new post will be unreachable in the profile.

   • Fedi.Tips 🎄 (feditips@mstdn.social)'s status on Friday, 24-Nov-2023 00:14:41 JST Fedi.Tips 🎄

     in reply to

     • Jord_Skole

     @Jord_Skole

     Hopefully one upcoming feature on the Mastodon roadmap ("Explicit controls to fetch more data from origin server") should solve a lot of problems. I'm guessing it will let people update a profile by clicking a button on it, in a similar process to original pages but without having to open a separate website.

   • Jord_Skole (jord_skole@social.tchncs.de)'s status on Friday, 24-Nov-2023 00:14:42 JST Jord_Skole

     in reply to

     @feditips

     I hope I didn't sound too harsh

     For me, it really is :mastodon: / :fediverse: or just skip social media

     I learned of "Fedifetcher" from you, #FediTips here:

     https://fedi.tips/using-relays-to-quickly-expand-a-servers-view-of-the-fediverse/

     We had a small friends/fam instance. But Fedifetcher + relays + translation was a lot to maintain so we just shut down and jumped to a better federated instance.

     ___

     For full comments, on web, I now click the 3 horizontal dots, then "Open original page" for complete comments (and :BoostOK: and 🌟)

   • Nicole Parsons (npars01@mstdn.social)'s status on Friday, 24-Nov-2023 00:19:32 JST Nicole Parsons

     in reply to

     @feditips

     Blocking & muting accounts with few posts and few followers is a harassment-prevention strategy that is a holdover from Twitter.

     It works to thwart coat-tailing, sock puppets, swarming, advertisers, and targeted harassment campaigns.

   • Corb_The_Lesser (corb_the_lesser@mastodon.social)'s status on Friday, 24-Nov-2023 00:23:44 JST Corb_The_Lesser

     in reply to

     @feditips This is the kind of thing that people testing the Mastodon waters run up against, don't like, leave and never come back.

     No amount of education about instances and servers and what-not will attract and retain people who think of social media as an app and, justifiably, have zero interest in infrastructure.

   • Fedi.Tips 🎄 (feditips@mstdn.social)'s status on Friday, 24-Nov-2023 00:23:44 JST Fedi.Tips 🎄

     in reply to

     • Corb_The_Lesser

     @Corb_The_Lesser

     I've tried to explain the situation and why this happens in the article. TL:DR: There are good reasons why this happens, because the current alternatives are worse.

     This isn't a deliberate choice by the designers, this is a consequence of building a social network that cannot be taken over by people like Musk.

     There are features that mitigate this problem though, such as pinning posts, and other features on the way.

   • Fedi.Tips 🎄 (feditips@mstdn.social)'s status on Friday, 24-Nov-2023 00:37:45 JST Fedi.Tips 🎄

     in reply to

     • Corb_The_Lesser

     @Corb_The_Lesser

     The developers are aware this is a hindrance, it's just a question of what to do about it.

     I've explored some of the possible solutions in the article, such as backfilling where the server automatically fetches some recent posts for profiles you follow (or possibly look at?).

     Backfilling is by far the most requested feature on Mastodon's github site, but there are some complications to deal with which are explored in a long thread which I've linked to from the article.

   • Corb_The_Lesser (corb_the_lesser@mastodon.social)'s status on Friday, 24-Nov-2023 00:37:46 JST Corb_The_Lesser

     in reply to

     @feditips Not questioning the why of it, just asserting it is a hindrance to increased adoption and that I don't think any amount of explaining to people who are already here is going to help attract and keep people who are not here.

   • L0ne (loneconspirator@mastodon.social)'s status on Friday, 24-Nov-2023 02:45:53 JST L0ne

     in reply to

     @feditips Is there a reason not to show all the account’s original posts when you view it on a server that doesn’t store any of them? The server could proxy the posts from their source server, or even just instruct the client browser to go grab and display them.

     This feels important to me, as discovery is one of the big challenges for new mastodon users, and this effect is a pretty big speed bump on that road

   • Fedi.Tips 🎄 (feditips@mstdn.social)'s status on Friday, 24-Nov-2023 02:45:53 JST Fedi.Tips 🎄

     in reply to

     • L0ne

     @loneconspirator

     I'm not sure, I'm not a developer, but there has been a lot of discussion of what to do on the backfilling thread at https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/issues/34

   • L0ne (loneconspirator@mastodon.social)'s status on Friday, 24-Nov-2023 02:57:05 JST L0ne

     in reply to

     @feditips Thanks for the link, that’s pretty interesting, though slightly different from what I was suggesting. Where that deals with how to copy old posts onto a server after someone subscribes, I’m thinking about how to show old posts to someone who is not subscribed without copying them to the server.

     I will dig around the issues and see if my suggestion is in there, and if not, I’ll add it! The beauty of open source! :)

   • Fedi.Tips 🎄 (feditips@mstdn.social)'s status on Friday, 24-Nov-2023 02:57:05 JST Fedi.Tips 🎄

     in reply to

     • L0ne

     @loneconspirator

     Ah okay! If all you want to do is *show* the old posts, you can open the original page, and there's a link on blank profiles to do this which prompts people to click on it.

     But if people can see old posts they may want to interact with them, and wonder why they can't, so that ends up confusing too.

     Ideal would be some way to get at least some unpinned posts automatically backfilled the way pinned posts already are.

   • L0ne (loneconspirator@mastodon.social)'s status on Friday, 24-Nov-2023 03:10:18 JST L0ne

     in reply to

     @feditips Good point, if posts from another server are ephemerally presented to you, they would not be available for interaction. So the whole thing could lead to more confusion unless you could copy an unpinned post from an unfollowed user to your server upon interacting with it. And that sounds like a much bigger lift. I appreciate you giving me that context.

   • Fedi.Tips 🎄 (feditips@mstdn.social)'s status on Friday, 24-Nov-2023 03:10:18 JST Fedi.Tips 🎄

     in reply to

     • L0ne

     @loneconspirator

     By the way, an alternative approach if you just want non-interactive feeds to subscribe to accounts via RSS. Any Mastodon account has an RSS feed which is its normal account profile URL with .rss added to the end.

     PeerTube has an RSS subscription option if you click the arrow on an account's "subscribe" button.

     Pixelfed supports newsfeeds (but I think they use atom?).

     GoToSocial includes RSS support but each user has to manually opt in to activate their feed.