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FediTips has moved!

Looks like a lot ofpeople are confused/annoyed by Mastodon and many other Fediverse platforms not backfilling old posts when an account is followed.

This complete lack of backfilling means that many new accounts or those with few followers may appear completely blank, even if they've posted lots of interesting stuff.

If you agree and think Mastodon should backfill at least some posts when people follow an account, please give this issue a thumbs up:

github.com/mastodon/mastodon/i

If you're not comfortable using github, let me know and I can try to post on your behalf.

GitHubBackfill statuses from remote accounts when first subscribed · Issue #34 · mastodon/mastodonBy Gargron

@feditips Going to go against the grain here and say I’m pretty pleased not to have my feed choked with re-posted “backfill” whenever there’s a big migration. Not to mention what it would do to performance on my small single-user instance

@ghost_bird

That makes total sense, backfilling everything an account has ever posted, even if it's thousands of posts, would be a bad idea especially for smaller instances.

But if it was just backfilling a small number of posts would that be ok?

Like, backfilling 5-10 posts when you follow someone?

Or if there was an option for the instance owner to set how much backfilling there is, so they could adjust it according to their available resources?

@feditips I’d be wary - multiply that 5-10 posts by, say, 20 accounts I follow migrating and it’s still a lot of repetition

@ghost_bird

So, some kind of admin control for how much backfilling happens would be the best option?

@feditips As long as backfilling’s off by default and I have the ability to filter backfill from my end, I guess? Otherwise it’s not going to make much difference

@ghost_bird

I've added a post about this in the issue.

@feditips I mean, this is just my view. But I do think it’s worth considering the impact of auto-generating little bursts of posts when you migrate. If a big server goes down, it’s going to add up

@ghost_bird @feditips Couldn't you just set it to only backfill when you manually click on a profile or something like that?

@Canageek @feditips That’s basically my “database import” option, I think

@Canageek @feditips But if you’re worried about followers losing access to a few days of your deathless posts, why not just add a grace period of a day or two in the follower migration process, where they’re following both accounts?

@ghost_bird @feditips I thought this was more about when I click on someones profile and it appears totally empty unless I actually go to their profile on their server, which is just annoying.

@Canageek @feditips I do agree that’s annoying but, again, there’s a potential scaling issue if you auto-load four or five posts locally whoever you click. Probably not as bad as a push approach though

@ghost_bird @feditips I mean, you could also just have a 'get details' button that would mean it would only do that if you meant to do it, which I imagine would cut down on most of it.

@Canageek @feditips I guess the question is, what problem are we actually trying to address here?

@ghost_bird @feditips Based on the original question: Not being able to see people's accounts when you click on them. It makes spotting if someone is a spambot or not WAY more of a pain, as I have to then open their profile in a new tab, verify they are real, then go back to manage the follow request.

I don't see why you need it when you *follow* someone, I need it when deciding if I want someone to follow me, or if I want to follow *them*.

@Canageek @feditips …but I should also say that 30 years as a DBA dealing with the consequences of programmers’ bright ideas has possibly left me unnecessarily suspicious :-)

@feditips I guess you could do a database import without re-posting? You’d lose replies though and possibly threading, depending on how post IDs work. And you’d still have to think carefully about resource usage on the server you’d be importing to

@ghost_bird @feditips Would that be an issue if the timeline was sorted by post date instead of arrival date, though?

although there should probably be a switch for that sorting; our server goes offline regularly for hours at a time and the fact that it sorts by arrival date means we get to see the stuff we missed.

@feditips
I'm not comfy usnig GitHub so yes I'd take you up on a thumbs up for:

- backfilling with last 10 posts if not infinite scroll / page pagination

or at least

- a notice to say 'More on the server' (or something similar) IF platform doesn't want to backfill
Though I have to admit I stopped going to pages non-native to mastodon as they often *don't* support older browsers for such simple messages... (at least should have a basic version for older browsers instead of almost blank page)

@feditips IIRC pinned tweets are backfilled now. And to avoid needless traffic, that grows exponentially (that's one of the drawbacks of decentralised/federated approaches), a far simpler solution would be to prominently place the "Browse more on the original profiler" link more prominent on the top.

@jwildeboer

It's a good point for resources, but the "original profile" link is sort of confusing as it takes people to another server and they end up having to do interactions remotely.

It might be easier to understand if they could see something within the server they're on now? Where they don't have to do remote interactions?

@feditips
Are you aware of the performance cost of this? Backfilling a few hundreds message doesn't seems to be costly, in particular on single user instances, as they would be performed only occasionally.

I really appreciate the experience of backfilling in Synapse. (althought I'm not sure if it either try to backfill on the fly or if it sync the whole discussion in background after initial sync, which include the 20 last messages)

@marius851000

I'm not personally suggesting backfilling hundreds of messages, but just having at least something backfilled. Even backfilling one post would be better than leaving followed profiles blank?

@feditips@mstdn.social Backfilling profiles is one of the to do features for #Calckey, my Misskey fork!

@feditips The last 10-20 posts should be backfilled with a link to “click to see more” at the bottom. I think that will resolve the problem without consuming too many resources.

I noticed many larger political instances backfill (even the controversial ones) far more posts (I think 30-50) so people can get a preview of the types of profiles they want to follow. The lack of posts might convince new users that the account is inactive when the opposite it true.

@feditips Optional, and maybe not the whole _old_ timeline, would be great. Added a thumbs up on the issue at GitHub.

@feditips I'm not super worried about backfilling though it could be handy for some purposes. Like, I can think of a couple of threads, but I also post like a crazed chipmunk, so re-upping all my history could be... brutal