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Interesting double posts from a reshare


!Friendica Support

Hi all,

I understand that Friendica gets to do some fun tricks when resharing certain types of content, but I'm wondering if a post that is reshared from a Friendica instance should show up at my node as two different posts, instead of being amalgamated in to one?

I've asked @Hypolite Petovan and he's given me permission to post this picture (open in a new tab or something... it looks lousy scaled down):

Image/photo

I've been seeing with several reshares from @Hypolite Petovan of Mastodon users. I don't recall seeing it from any other users to date.

Seems like it could be confusing to some users on which they should comment on or reply to?

This entry was edited (5 years ago)
This will more less stay this way until we split the "reshare" into a "commented reshare" and a "pure reshare". Currently our reshare mechanism is a big mess. It can only be improved by a native reshare mechanism that will then only be visible on the protocol of the original post (most likely only AP). But since people like to perform commented reshares as well, we would need two different options - and there had been resistance against an additional action under each post. So for now I have focused my work time on other stuff.
Fair enough, thanks, at least I understand it's currently by design for reasons, will be adjusted at some point in the future. Not a bug! πŸ˜‰

When you can come up with a nice interface design that isn't confusing nor space wasting, your help is highly appreciated.

Problem: On every public post we have got a reshare button and we can currently do some cross protocol reshares and we can comment on reshare. for AP (and possibly Twitter) we would need some "native reshare" mechanism that isn't a quote but an activity comparable to "like". For these two protocols we wouldn't create a new post (like we have to do for a Diaspora reshare or a commented reshare), but would only distribute the original post to our own followers.

How to do this in a non confusing way?

What’s wrong with:
- No additional text in share jot: native reshare
- Additional text: Quote-reshare which amount to adding the post link in the body in AP for Mastodon I suppose.
When "no additional text in share" would cause a native reshare, then you would lose the possibility to share content across the protocols. Additionally you couldn't revert that native reshare.
How couldn't you revert a native reshare?
A native reshare doesn't create a new post. So you cannot delete anything.
It is true of Mastodon as well? Can't you unboost something? If this is the case, I'm against native reshares in the first place. You should be able to undo a reshare no matter what. We are giving the opportunity to undo posts and reactions, we should also allow to undo a native reshare or not offer them at all in the first place.
No, it's the opposite. A native reshare that would act like the "like" button could simply be undone by pressing again on the "reshare" button. This is the regular behaviour.

I know it's the way Twitter does it, but it doesn't feel good to copy the mini dropdown menu offering "Reweet" or "Retweet with comment".

Or, if there's a native reshare of the post, having the "Share" button/link highlighted like the Like button and clicking on it would simply undo the native reshare. Clicking again once the post reload would bring up the share box as normal. A quote-reshare wouldn't highlight the "Share" button.

What would you do when you wanted to reshare an AP post and additonally you want to share that post with a comment to all other networks?

You would have to start with the quote-reshare, and then do the native reshare. But even if you started with the native reshare, it would just be a couple clicks to undo it and start over in the right order.

Not that I can imagine this behavior to be that frequent since the quote-reshare would also be sent to AP recipients with the shared post as a link.

I do see the problem that you would do a reshare without a comment, then you would chose some recipients from several networks (or connectors) in the ACL - and the system would literally say: "Thanks for your work, but I don't care, I'm sending this reshare to AP contacts only".

Also: Although the designer windows popped up, this wouldn't create a new post. I guess this will be confusing.

Does your reply implies you're against native reshares for the stated inconveniences? Or that you would be favoring a jotless reshare with no control over the distribution?
@Hypolite Petovan I would prefer the behaviour that a reshare is always public, since privately resharing a public entry is confusing.
So the latter, Twitter-style one-button reshare. I said what I had to say, I don't like this but I do not have a better idea.
I don't have either. So I hope that there will be some better idea in the void that combines both usability and cleanliness of the interface.
I mean, it should be two separate buttons/links, which is a design challenge in a crowded space.
@Adam Clark @Hypolite Petovan As i started my #fediverse career on #mastodon , i'm all for "native reshare" as in "activity for a post" - atleast for ActivityPub-posts. The current "commented share" splits conversations cause it generates a separated comment thread which seems unintuitive and clumsy.

Diaspora reshares are native as well, but they are working in a way that they generate a new post. Trying to combine this with Friendica and AP causes headaches.

Although we theoretically could do a Diaspora like reshare via the Diaspora protocol as well. But since this would create a new post, this post would be visible from AP system as well - which would lead to the problem from above.

So I would like to offer this new type of reshares only for AP (and possibly Twitter) while we could keep the other way for commenting (and for all networks).

Cross-protocol stuff is simply ugly ...

it had been a design decision by the original Diaspora developers.
we provide sharing in the original context as part of the standard commenting behaviour


This is an important point, I've been enjoying receiving threads my contacts have been commenting on even without explicitly resharing the original post. Are remote contacts also getting in on threads I'm commenting on without resharing the original post? I think I would be fine with this as "native reshare" mechanism, while we keep the current quote-reshare feature.

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