Notification type: "someone replied" (even if you were not mentioned)

[trwnh]

Disjoint with #5797

Since it is possible to set inReplyTo without explicitly addressing to/cc someone or adding a Mention, some users have expressed concerns that they are unaware when someone might chain a reply to one of their posts with undesirable content, perhaps a long time after the original post (and therefore unlikely to ever be stumbled upon).

Rather than preventing this behavior entirely (which really seems more related to #8565 in logic), instead allow users to receive notifications of this event, perhaps lumped in with mentions, or perhaps creating a separate "replies" category that is separate from mere mentions (that do not have inReplyTo set to one of your posts).

[Cassolotl]

It could say "so-and-so has commented on your post". 🤔

[stale[bot]]

This issue has been automatically marked as stale because it has not had recent activity. It will be closed if no further activity occurs. Thank you for your contributions.

[trwnh]

would still like to see this, as it is possible to reply without a mention

[trwnh]

(note: i am of the opinion that Mastodon should add reply notifications, as both replies and mentions have their uses -- consider Reddit as prior art.)

https://github.com/tootsuite/mastodon/issues/12908#issuecomment-576365109

[trwnh]

Pixelfed is planning to differentiate between comments and mentions at some future point when custom audiences are supported:

• Comment = inReplyTo
• Mention = included in tag
• Audience = included in to/cc

Currently because of #8950 anything with to/cc but no tag is treated as a aspect/circle post, and because no notification is generated by a reply, the post will go unseen entirely unless the user is following the commenter and happens to find it in their Home feed.

With Pixelfed's upcoming Audience feature (previously known as Circles), we're taking guidance from #8950's specification that the lack of a Mention in tag is what should determine whether a post has direct or limited visibility. It would be best to generate reply notifications so that we don't have to lie about Mentions when a comment doesn't actually have a mention -- comments can either have no mentions (in which case the OP should be notified) or they can have mentions (in which case OP and anyone mentioned should be notified about that comment only).

[trwnh]

worth revisiting this again, as i've noticed that (for example) Bridgy attaches inReplyTo but no mention. as many indieweb sites use Bridgy (and indeed, do not require a hard-coded mention in order to reply to something), it would be worth notifying mastodon users when their posts are replied to but not mentioned

[trwnh]

tangential: #11640

[nilesjohnson]

I found this issue because I'm looking for one about being able to "follow" specific posts (be notified for replies to them, even if the replies don't mention me). Frequently I make some replies, but then in a different part of the thread some other people make other replies, and I miss them. Usually this isn't a big deal, but sometimes I really regret it.

This issue seems like a special case of what I'm looking for, where the post author automatically should "follow" their own posts.

[trwnh]

@nilesjohnson you're probably looking for #8153

[nilesjohnson]

ah, yes thank you

[Monikae]

Please don't. When I delete the name of the OP from the reply toot of course I don't want them to see it (of course it's unavoidable that they might notice it if they follow me or click on their toot and scroll through the replies).

I use this especially when adding alt text in replies to toots with images without alt text or with alt text that is not an image description (e.g. some kind of additional joke) when I don't want to get into an argument about alt text with them or know they don't have the spoons / ability to write alt text and don't want to be reminded of that.

Replying without mentioning is also great for adding comments to boosts that are intended for my followers and not for the OP. Not disparaging, just not relevant for them.

[scy]

I use this especially when adding alt text in replies to toots with images without alt text or with alt text that is not an image description (e.g. some kind of additional joke) when I don't want to get into an argument about alt text with them or know they don't have the spoons / ability to write alt text and don't want to be reminded of that.

While I understand your reasons and think they’re legitimate use cases, I think we have a classic conflict of interests here. Because sure, “I don’t want to bother the OP” is a good attitude. On the other hand, I’ve been the OP of a controversial post today, and there were some pretty problematic replies. However, since I hadn’t been mentioned in some of those replies, I wasn’t notified of them, and only noticed them hours later when scrolling through my own thread. That whole time, a lot of other people will have seen these problematic replies that I would’ve loved to moderate (or respond to), but didn’t know about.

Replying without mentioning is also great for adding comments to boosts that are intended for my followers and not for the OP. Not disparaging, just not relevant for them.

This sounds like it can be solved by simply setting the visibility of your reply to “followers only”.