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1. Embed this notice
   Lu Wilson (todepond@mastodon.social)'s status on Wednesday, 08-Mar-2023 22:12:37 JST Lu Wilson

   Did you know? ?

   Favourite counts are nearly always wrong + different depending on what server you're on?

   Here's the same post when viewed on four different instances.

   • Embed this notice
     Lu Wilson (todepond@mastodon.social)'s status on Thursday, 09-Mar-2023 08:46:15 JST Lu Wilson

     in reply to

     • Eugen Rochko
     • Jon
     • Elk

     @jonpainterphoto @elk @Gargron I'm not sure

   • Embed this notice
     Eugen Rochko (gargron@mastodon.social)'s status on Thursday, 09-Mar-2023 08:46:15 JST Eugen Rochko

     in reply to

     • かき@GNUsocialJP
     • Jon
     • Elk

     @TodePond @jonpainterphoto @elk You've cut away half the comment, maybe it's in the other half.

   • Embed this notice
     Lu Wilson (todepond@mastodon.social)'s status on Thursday, 09-Mar-2023 08:46:17 JST Lu Wilson

     in reply to

     • Eugen Rochko
     • Elk

     @elk Why is it like this?

     Back in 2019, @Gargron said it was a deliberate design decision.

     Surely not?

     (This comment refers to 'favourites' by the way. But the problem also affects boosts and replies.)

   • Embed this notice
     Jon (jonpainterphoto@lawfedi.blue)'s status on Thursday, 09-Mar-2023 08:46:17 JST Jon

     in reply to

     • Eugen Rochko
     • Elk

     @TodePond @elk @Gargron why though? What’s the rationale?

   • Embed this notice
     Lu Wilson (todepond@mastodon.social)'s status on Thursday, 09-Mar-2023 08:46:18 JST Lu Wilson

     in reply to

     And this post is from months ago!

     It's not because of servers being 'behind'.

   • Embed this notice
     Lu Wilson (todepond@mastodon.social)'s status on Thursday, 09-Mar-2023 08:46:18 JST Lu Wilson

     in reply to

     One server even has the whole instance banned, so you get even less information.

     The banned instance is mastodon.social, which is the first one that users are referred to on https://joinmastodon.org/servers

   • Embed this notice
     Lu Wilson (todepond@mastodon.social)'s status on Thursday, 09-Mar-2023 08:46:18 JST Lu Wilson

     in reply to

     • Elk

     Even if you use your own client, like @elk, you receive different information based on what server you're logged into.

   • Embed this notice
     Lu Wilson (todepond@mastodon.social)'s status on Thursday, 09-Mar-2023 08:46:19 JST Lu Wilson

     in reply to

     Boost counts are also consistently wrong!

     Let's look at another example.
     We can see four completely different pieces of information.

   • Embed this notice
     Lu Wilson (todepond@mastodon.social)'s status on Thursday, 09-Mar-2023 08:46:20 JST Lu Wilson

     in reply to

     It's not just favourites though!

     Replies are nearly always wrong too.

   • Embed this notice
     Lu Wilson (todepond@mastodon.social)'s status on Thursday, 09-Mar-2023 08:46:20 JST Lu Wilson

     in reply to

     Mastodon's strength should be that you can pick whatever server you want.

     But currently, your server choice greatly affects the information that you see.

   • Embed this notice
     Lu Wilson (todepond@mastodon.social)'s status on Thursday, 09-Mar-2023 08:46:20 JST Lu Wilson

     in reply to

     By the way, this isn't a case of servers being slow to catch up.

     The post is from over a week ago.

   • Embed this notice
     Lu Wilson (todepond@mastodon.social)'s status on Thursday, 09-Mar-2023 08:49:23 JST Lu Wilson

     in reply to

     • Eugen Rochko
     • Jon
     • Elk

     @Gargron @jonpainterphoto @elk Hi Eugen :)

     This half? I thought that was *in addition* to rationale behind it - but I may have misunderstood. Can you confirm: Is that the whole rationale? I appreciate you responding!

   • Embed this notice
     clacke (clacke@libranet.de)'s status on Thursday, 16-Mar-2023 00:01:39 JST clacke

     in reply to

     • Eugen Rochko
     • Elk
     @TodePond @Gargron @elk Replies and likes are very different.
     
     Replies don't reach you because nobody on your server follows the person who is replying.
     
     Likes don't reach you because Mastodon deliberately doesn't send them to anyone except the server of the liked post. I only learned about this surprising behavior recently.
     
     None of the other fedi implementations I've checked behave like this. I've checked GNU Social, Friendica, Pleroma and Misskey. They treat likes as normal posts and distribute them to the liking person's followers.
   • Embed this notice
     clacke (clacke@libranet.de)'s status on Thursday, 16-Mar-2023 00:03:23 JST clacke

     in reply to

     • Jari Pennanen
     • Karlo
     @karlo @Ciantic @TodePond By the nature of the Fediverse, different servers will always have different perspectives. But with likes Mastodon is deliberately making it even less consistent than it has to be.
   • Embed this notice
     Karlo (karlo@qoto.org)'s status on Thursday, 16-Mar-2023 00:03:29 JST Karlo

     in reply to

     • Jari Pennanen

     @Ciantic @TodePond
     Indeed, every instance seeing a different set of replies on a post is really not practical.

   • Embed this notice
     Jari Pennanen (ciantic@twit.social)'s status on Thursday, 16-Mar-2023 00:03:30 JST Jari Pennanen

     in reply to

     @TodePond Yes that's right, it can be done in client side.

     There are clients I believe that do it.

     The bigger problem IMO is that you don't see all replies in other people's posts. It's the same thing, with pub/sub it doesn't send you replies when you click to open a thread, it only gives those that were sent to you by pub/sub... if you don't follow a person that's not tagged you don't see their replies as well.

   • Embed this notice
     Lu Wilson (todepond@mastodon.social)'s status on Thursday, 16-Mar-2023 00:03:31 JST Lu Wilson

     in reply to

     • Jari Pennanen

     @Ciantic I would like my client to fetch the correct favourite + boost counts for me. I end up manually 'fetching' the info by opening the original link anyway :)

   • Embed this notice
     Jari Pennanen (ciantic@twit.social)'s status on Thursday, 16-Mar-2023 00:03:32 JST Jari Pennanen

     in reply to

     @TodePond Likes? I use them as a nod to the author, I don't care if they never went to other people.

     I would like to see better boost counts, because on small servers you don't see how many people have boosted a post unless you open the post in new tab.

     I understand why replies and boosts don't update, because ActivityPub is pub/sub model. If you don't follow a person, how would you get the boost count on your server?

     They should add 'fetch' API if they wanted to get accurate boost counts.

   • Embed this notice
     Lu Wilson (todepond@mastodon.social)'s status on Thursday, 16-Mar-2023 00:03:33 JST Lu Wilson

     in reply to

     • Eugen Rochko
     • Elk

     @elk @Gargron I've been trying to learn more about this problem, and I don't understand why it isn't a bigger deal.

     The most recent discussion on it is from over 100 days ago.

     Here's the issue by the way: https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/issues/11339

   • Embed this notice
     Lu Wilson (todepond@mastodon.social)'s status on Thursday, 16-Mar-2023 00:03:33 JST Lu Wilson

     in reply to

     • Eugen Rochko
     • Elk

     @elk @Gargron I'm still trying to learn more about this problem, and I still don't understand why it isn't a bigger deal.

     But what do you think though? Please let me know!
     And if you know how to fix it, PLEASE let me know!!!!!

     Boosts appreciated ❤️?

   • Embed this notice
     Lu Wilson (todepond@mastodon.social)'s status on Thursday, 16-Mar-2023 00:03:55 JST Lu Wilson

     in reply to

     • Eugen Rochko
     • Elk
     • Niya

     @niya @elk @Gargron Hey I would very much like my likes to be "public" if that's what you mean? :) You should be allowed to keep your likes private if that's what you want. User choice is great! ♥️

     The like counts don't need to be perfect, but it would be great to make them more accurate than they currently are ♥️

     clacke likes this.
   • Embed this notice
     Niya (niya@mastodon.social)'s status on Thursday, 16-Mar-2023 00:03:57 JST Niya

     in reply to

     • Eugen Rochko
     • Elk

     @TodePond @elk @Gargron It's not a bigger deal because it's a problem with no workable solution. If you naively trust remote instances to report counts, they can lie to you, on the other hand if you simply start emitting like activities:
     - you're now betraying the expectations of users who believed those to be private
     - this still doesn't make the numbers consistent

   • Embed this notice
     Lu Wilson (todepond@mastodon.social)'s status on Thursday, 16-Mar-2023 00:04:21 JST Lu Wilson

     in reply to

     • Eugen Rochko
     • Elk
     • patak
     • Niya

     @patak @niya @elk @Gargron Yes true! To be honest I'm a bit confused about people wanting their likes to be private. I always assumed that it's a public action :)

     clacke likes this.
   • Embed this notice
     patak (patak@m.webtoo.ls)'s status on Thursday, 16-Mar-2023 00:04:23 JST patak

     in reply to

     • Eugen Rochko
     • Elk
     • Niya

     @TodePond @niya @elk @Gargron A private like would be a Bookmark in Mastodon, no? Or would you like to be able to like something in a way that is only public to the author of the post? Given that likes are already semi-public, and adding yet another concept seems quite complex maybe the private usage could be covered by bookmarking and DMs?