If you have any questions about using Mastodon or the wider Fediverse, please post them in the replies and I'll try to find you some answers.
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@MuhammadFreeSoftware @vnikolov
If one person follows an account, all of that account's posts from that moment onward will appear on that person's server.
So, if a server has a bot following good accounts, those good accounts' posts will start being visible to everyone on that server.
The reason it works like this is to keep server running costs low enough so that any person or group can afford to start their own.
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@FediTips Why is it that when a user posts multiple related messages (e.g., a poem posted stanza by stanza [for why I don’t know]), I see them in reverse order. And sometime interlarded w unrelated posts)?
If you're looking at your normal "Home" timeline you see the latest posts at the top, so the related messages (also called a "thread") appear to be in reverse order. The unrelated posts are from other accounts you follow which have posted at around the same time.
If you click on any one of these related messages, you will see the entire thread in the correct order instead, plus all of its replies below the thread. The unrelated posts will disappear while viewing a thread.
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If you have any questions about using Mastodon or the wider Fediverse, please post them in the replies and I'll try to find you some answers.
It would be especially nice to hear from new people and people who aren't confident about technical matters. There is absolutely no such thing as a silly question!
@FediTips
Thanks, just thought of a question. FYI, I'm using Mastodon web interface, not an app.Does anyone know why some posts (not content warning posts) have a blurred image with the message "Preview not available, click to open"?
If I click the image then a new tab opens with clear image but there's no way to see alt text. My workaround is select "open original message" from the menu.
I wonder what cases this? It does not matter whether it's someone I follow or not.
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@FediTips
Thanks, just thought of a question. FYI, I'm using Mastodon web interface, not an app.Does anyone know why some posts (not content warning posts) have a blurred image with the message "Preview not available, click to open"?
If I click the image then a new tab opens with clear image but there's no way to see alt text. My workaround is select "open original message" from the menu.
I wonder what cases this? It does not matter whether it's someone I follow or not.
That looks like it might be an image for which there's no cached version stored on your server, that's why it works when you view it on its original server.
Servers may restrict how long they store images from other servers, in order to reduce their storage costs. Most old posts are never viewed again, so most of the time people don't notice if the image isn't stored.
Normally if you view an old post it fetches the image again, but sometimes it shows "preview not available".
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That looks like it might be an image for which there's no cached version stored on your server, that's why it works when you view it on its original server.
Servers may restrict how long they store images from other servers, in order to reduce their storage costs. Most old posts are never viewed again, so most of the time people don't notice if the image isn't stored.
Normally if you view an old post it fetches the image again, but sometimes it shows "preview not available".
Would this also happen on brand new posts, not old posts?
I see it on posts from people I follow, on posts from our server's trending list, and also posts that show up in my feed because I follow a hashtag. I think whenever I see this it is on relatively new posts - could be anywhere from 5 minutes to a few hours.
I just went back and found the post I used as an example (it's from about 2 hours ago) and now it is showing up.
Maybe it's a delay?
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Would this also happen on brand new posts, not old posts?
I see it on posts from people I follow, on posts from our server's trending list, and also posts that show up in my feed because I follow a hashtag. I think whenever I see this it is on relatively new posts - could be anywhere from 5 minutes to a few hours.
I just went back and found the post I used as an example (it's from about 2 hours ago) and now it is showing up.
Maybe it's a delay?
@FediTips
It might also be related to moderation?There seem to be some servers that are not completely blocked but are limited. So I can still follow users on those servers but there is some weirdness about how posts from those users are displayed. Profiles are also sometimes a bit weird (images not displayed).
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If you have any questions about using Mastodon or the wider Fediverse, please post them in the replies and I'll try to find you some answers.
It would be especially nice to hear from new people and people who aren't confident about technical matters. There is absolutely no such thing as a silly question!
@FediTips
This seems like a trivial problem, but it's something I've been wondering about.I used to get notifications that "a poll you voted in has ended". Since the beginning of September, those notifications have stopped happening.
In most cases, I don't care, when it was just a silly passing poll. But there is one series of polls that I really want notifications for. It's a serialized story, in which participants vote for what they want to happen in the next installment. Since the notifications stopped coming, I've missed several installments when I wasn't aware the previous one was done.
In Notification settings, I have Poll Results checked, along with everything else, and everything else is sending notifications EXCEPT Poll Results. Is there a way to get the poll notifications back?
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Thank you, this is kind.
As it happens, this came up the other day.
How can one find out who owns and who controls
@\followbot@\anni.social
which is following thousands now, while it followed only about a hundred just three days ago? -
If you have any questions about using Mastodon or the wider Fediverse, please post them in the replies and I'll try to find you some answers.
It would be especially nice to hear from new people and people who aren't confident about technical matters. There is absolutely no such thing as a silly question!
Is there a way to use "post templates" or otherwise simplify posting similar content? Example use case: a user regularly posts their art, and they always use a certain combination of tags in such a post. Is there a way to start with a draft with these tags already inserted?
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Is there a way to use "post templates" or otherwise simplify posting similar content? Example use case: a user regularly posts their art, and they always use a certain combination of tags in such a post. Is there a way to start with a draft with these tags already inserted?
There's not any official template system on the official interface or official app, but there may be a third party app somewhere that supports them.
A workaround for this might be copy-pasting the previous similar post and adjusting it to show the new content. If you frequently copy particular posts, bookmark them for easier reference.
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@FediTips
This seems like a trivial problem, but it's something I've been wondering about.I used to get notifications that "a poll you voted in has ended". Since the beginning of September, those notifications have stopped happening.
In most cases, I don't care, when it was just a silly passing poll. But there is one series of polls that I really want notifications for. It's a serialized story, in which participants vote for what they want to happen in the next installment. Since the notifications stopped coming, I've missed several installments when I wasn't aware the previous one was done.
In Notification settings, I have Poll Results checked, along with everything else, and everything else is sending notifications EXCEPT Poll Results. Is there a way to get the poll notifications back?
Hmm... that's weird. Could you try it with a poll made by a different account?
If you've definitely got it switched on it should be working, sounds like some sort of bug?
I've had poll ending notifications within the last three days, so the software definitely supports it. Maybe something related to your server, or about the account that did the poll?
