Chris Trottier
I need you all to do me a favour and follow these steps:
1. Visit this post: https://mastodon.social/@atomicpoet/110328640192551572
2. Click the link shown I've shown in the red bot (see screenshot)
3. Tell me if the link goes to mastodon.social or venera.social
I everyone to report what you see.
Dan Gillmor
@atomicpoet Mastodon
Chris Trottier
@dangillmor It shouldn't be taking you to Mastodon.
Chris Trottier
@oblomov Thank you.
Oblomov
@atomicpoet from Tusky it opens the profile of the group locally (i.e. as if I had put that link into my instance's search box), but that's normal for Fediverse links in Tusky. I'll try from the PWA and let you know too.
Chris Trottier
@sam Thanks!
sam
@atomicpoet Venera, using Mona as a client
Dan Gillmor
@atomicpoet The link is to mastodon.social
Chris Trottier
@dangillmor Yeah, the link -- as it displays in the message -- should take you to venera.social. But instead it takes you to mastodon.social.
Black Aziz Anansi :vm:
@atomicpoet It took me to Venera.social.
Chris Trottier
@BlackAzizAnansi Okay, you're on mas.to. Good to know.
Alexander K.
@atomicpoet I got this: https://mastodon.social/@fediversenews@venera.social
Dan Gillmor
@atomicpoet Oh, you mean the link in the post you linked to. Yes, clicking on that, it just shows a username/account info.
Juan C. Torres
@atomicpoet This what I see when I tap the post
Chris Trottier
@orthoheterodox What happens when you click this link: https://venera.social/profile/fediversenews
Chris Trottier
@dangillmor Yeah, it should be going to Friendica, not Mastodon. That's a problem.
Jeroen
@atomicpoet
Fediverse News Group
@fediversenews
Chris Trottier
@yuroon Are you Mastodon's website or Venera's website?
Chris Trottier
@oblomov What do you think of that?
Oblomov
@atomicpoet OK, same thing happens on the PWA. If I open the link to your post within my instance, the link to the group is opened within the context of my instance. If I open the link to your post normally (thus visiting your instance to read your post) the link goes to your instance's view of the group profile. So it seems it always gets opened locally.
Jeroen
@atomicpoet Just followed. https://mastodon.social/@fediversenews@venera.social
Chris Trottier
@CliffWade @lewriley I don't like that it redirects people to mastodon.social.
Pussista
@atomicpoet Using #MonaApp here, it opens the venera.social site for me.
Cliff
@lewriley @atomicpoet It's certainly confusing to a lot of people.
And sadly, this is how a lot of people fall for phishing scams and the likes, is by something like this and not understanding what the domain is or isn't.
And before anyone asks, NO, this is not an attempt to phish or scam anyone. Hopefully that doesn't add to the confusion.
But that's another entire subject and post all together.
Lew Riley
@CliffWade @atomicpoet You're right, Cliff. https://mastodon.social/@fediversenews@venera.social
Lew Riley
@atomicpoet Goes to venera.social.
Cliff
@lewriley @atomicpoet You probably should post the full URL that it takes you to.
I believe you're seeing the venera.social at the end, but you're not putting the @ before it that it actually displays, which means that's a username, not a domain name.
https://mastodon.social/@fediversenews@venera.social
Above is the URL it takes you to. The domain name is mastodon.social, not venera.social
Chris Trottier
@venite Got it, you're on Mastodon.
Anna
Chris Trottier
Okay, people are reporting two wildly different behaviours:
1. Some report that the URL take them to venera.social -- as I intended it to
2. Others report that it takes them to a profile on mastodon.social
This divergence in the destination of the URL is *not* ideal.
accretionist
@atomicpoet @dangillmor i thought this was just how the software works
links are always within the domain of the server you're navigating from. and if you want to see more of a discussion that originated in another server, you need to manually mangle the url
i don't like it, but it seems to be a design decision, which i can speculate a reason why it might have been rationalized. but indeed, it's subpar in terms of user experience
Chris Trottier
@accretionist @dangillmor The problem is that too much context gets lost if users are not going to the originating server.
@fediversenews is a group. But even if I post the URL of the profile, people see a Mastodon profile -- not a Friendica group.
So from a Mastodon user's perspective, what they're seeing is a boost bot, not a group.
Chris Trottier
Basically, mastodon.social is hiding the originating URL by redirecting it back to the profile on mastodon.social.
Thus making it *seem* like it's Mastodon account when it is not.
Chris Trottier
Basically, mastodon.social is hiding the originating URL by redirecting it back to the profile on mastodon.social:
https://venera.social/profile/fediversenews
Thus making it *seem* like it's a Mastodon account when it is not.
Xantulon :mastodon: :pixelfed:
@atomicpoet web client takes me to the mastodon-like profile. Click on the 3 dots and select view original page to open the venera.social page
Dr Pen
@atomicpoet it goes here.
Chris Trottier
@shiruken Nope, not always.
Colin Sullender
@atomicpoet Aren't profile links always rendered in the user's instance?
Chris Trottier
@steve Explain a little bit more, because I want to understand: Why would a URL of a remote server redirect to a profile view on mastodon.social?
If I wanted people to see a profile, I'd tag them. If I want people to visit a URL, I'd post the URL.
Steve Dinn 🇨🇦
@atomicpoet Doesn't each Mastodon server have a cached version of every profile it has seen? In @elk at least, there are two options: "Copy link to this post" and "Copy original link to this post".
Chris Trottier
@Sbectol Yeah, but that URL explicitly takes you to fosstodon.org.
If a link displays one domain but takes you to another, that's a problem.
Sbectol
@atomicpoet@mastodon.social weirdly similar things happen with this.. what happens when you try looking at my calckey from fosstodon with this link? http://fosstodon.org/@sbectol@calckey.social
Robert George 𓇳𓃀𓁹𓏏𓇥𓆓𓀀
@atomicpoet actually, on this post, it doesn’t direct to the local cache, only on the original post in question. I’m curious what you did differently for this one.
Robert George 𓇳𓃀𓁹𓏏𓇥𓆓𓀀
@atomicpoet it renders the local cache of the profile to make it so you can interact with it. Under normal circumstances this is the desired outcome. However, it would be nice to somehow manually indicate a link *should not* be directed to the local cache for edge cases like this.
Chris Trottier
Okay, apparently when I posted the link in the previous post, it took me to venera.social.
Why did the URL take me to mastodon.social the first time, but venera.social now?
I don't know what's going on!
Chris Trottier
@kkarhan All right, but now I'm wondering if this is a bug because I posted the URL again to mastodon.social and now it is taking me to venera.social.
I'm so confused.
Kevin Karhan :verified:
@atomicpoet That's kinda an asshole move and I think that's inherently bad!
Chris Trottier
@youronlyone It's not even consistent. When I posted the URL again over here, it took me to venera.social:
♾️ Yuki (스노 雪亮) 🐬 🧮🗝️
@atomicpoet@mastodon.social
I. Opens a local profile
#Mastodon
II. Opens the URL
* #Calckey
* #Rebased
* #Pixelfed
* #Bookwyrm
* #Hubzilla
I think it's safe to say that only Mastodon opens uses its local cache to open a remote profile. Other software, regardless if they have a local cache, opens the URL since it starts with https: and not a webfinger.
Chris Trottier
Testing one more time. Will this link take me to mastodon.social or venera.social?
Why does it redirect me to a profile on mastodon.social sometimes and venera.social other times?
Chris Trottier
Yep, worked that time.
On another note, I think we've pretty much hugged venera.social to death.
shearsjt
@atomicpoet it doesn’t load at all for me.
Chris Trottier
@kainoa I didn't think about that! I'm going to test this with @IceCubesApp
Kainoa
@atomicpoet@mastodon.social I saw the first post was made with IceCubes, versus this comment being made with the web client. Maybe it's an IceCubes problem?
Chris Trottier
Testing this with @IceCubesApp.
Where will this URL resolve to?
John Francis
@atomicpoet landed on mastodon.social, via the web ui.
I think that's expected. If I click on a recognized fediverse profile, my own instance usually presents it. If I paste a handle URL, I end up on the profile's page at the profile's instance, which isn't as useful, if I want to take any action, like a follow.
Chris Trottier
Okay, @IceCubesApp displays the URL as it should. Not their problem.
John Francis
@atomicpoet @IceCubesApp from web ui that one popped a new window to a very slow loading venera.social group page
Chris Trottier
Trying one more test. Tagging @fediversenews.
Let’s try this one more time and see if the tagging is responsible for the bug:
John Francis
@atomicpoet @fediversenews profile view via my own instance. It doesn't show it as a mastodon.social profile.
Alexander K.
@atomicpoet @fediversenews https://venera.social/profile/fediversenews is what I got this time.
Chris Trottier
I found the source of the bug!
If you tag a profile in Mastodon (ex: @fediversenews, then include the URL to that profile, Mastodon redirects the URL to the profile.
This is why this URL will go to mastodon.social instead of venera.social:
https://venera.social/profile/fediversenews
I'll file the bug report after I have my lunch!
John Francis
Chris Trottier
@johnefrancis Yep, the problem is the tag.
John Francis
@atomicpoet eh.. there's 2 formats for fediverse handles... the @ one and the url one. If your posting an url format handle, it's probably correct to rewrite it.
Chris Trottier
@unattributed Without the tag, it goes to venera.social. With the tag, it goes to mastodon.social.
I don't see how that couldn't be a bug.
Unatributed 👤 ☑
@atomicpoet@mastodon.social @fediversenews@venera.social this is not a bug, is intended behavior. You are supposed to be able to look up profile, messages, and other things that Activity Pub understands, and display them without leaving your instance. See the attached screenshots. The bug, if any, is being re-directed to Friendica instead.
Éric Freyssinet
@atomicpoet @fediversenews This is not a bug, it makes it much easier to follow a specific account, and it does show on the page that it is on venera.social
Chris Trottier
@ericfreyss The tag should bring you to mastodon.social. The URL should bring you to venera.social.
Chris Trottier
@ericfreyss The tag should bring you to mastodon.social. The URL should bring you to venera.social.
And usually the URL works as it should unless there's a tag elsewhere in the post.
Chris Trottier
@dgold @fediversenews Shift clicking does not open the link in a new tab for me.
same as it ever was
this is not a bug.
if you shift-click to open the link in a new tab, it loads up venera just fine.
if you just click the link, it shows that profile within the mastodon.social framework. that's all
Chris Trottier
@dgold The new tab takes me to mastodon.social.
Again, the URL doesn't behave this way unless the username is tagged in the post.
Without the username being tagged, it behaves as I would expect.
same as it ever was
@atomicpoet whatever causes new tab opening for you, then.
Chris Trottier
@chris Yeah, I've been hugging that server to death.
Chris Alemany🇺🇦🇨🇦🇪🇸
@atomicpoet It took a minute but eventually brought me to venera.social
Chris Trottier
@breadbin @fediversenews I think this bug depends on the server you're using. I'm on mastodon.social.
Gen X-Wing
@atomicpoet @fediversenews It still takes me to venera.
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