@CobaltVelvet @packetcharmer @Laurelai @cassolotl yes, we can check locally but the thread was originally about pulling statuses from remote instances...

@bea @CobaltVelvet @packetcharmer @cassolotl Like is it just not possible to have two instances talk to each other and be like "yes person x follows person y, show post"

@Laurelai @bea @CobaltVelvet @packetcharmer @cassolotl

If one person (A) from an instance (1) follows said person, that instance (1) could then fake that request from (A@1) for anyone else on instance (1)

@Laurelai @bea @packetcharmer @cassolotl having only access to posts you have been sent (mostly means "since you've been following") is also a good security feature

@CobaltVelvet @bea @packetcharmer @cassolotl Seems like security through obscurity i mean i could just take hours to scroll through the person in questions timeline for the post, but i dont want to do that. All im asking for is a faster way to see what im theoretically already allowed to see.

@Laurelai @CobaltVelvet @bea @packetcharmer "All im asking for is a faster way to see what im theoretically already allowed to see." - That's my feeling too! But it sounds like it can't be done in a way that wouldn't risk the security of someone's followers-only posts. :/

@cassolotl @CobaltVelvet @bea @packetcharmer If a human can do it manually by scrolling a computer should be able to automate it this makes no sense its just automating a repetitive task.

@Laurelai @CobaltVelvet @bea @packetcharmer I mean, yes, that does make sense, but I do not know the back-end stuff and I am bowing to the superior knowledge and experience of the other people in this thread!

@Laurelai @CobaltVelvet @packetcharmer @cassolotl if your instance does not have the toot you wanted to search you also would not see it if you scrolled back their feed

@bea @CobaltVelvet @packetcharmer @cassolotl So followers only posts are just for your followers on that local instance???

@Laurelai @CobaltVelvet @packetcharmer @cassolotl no, they are federated but if someone makes follower only posts before anyone on your instance is following them your instance won't have a copy

@bea @CobaltVelvet @packetcharmer @cassolotl So you dont get old follower only toots despite following them??

@Laurelai @CobaltVelvet @packetcharmer @cassolotl correct. i think thats how you ended up in this situation in the first place

@bea @CobaltVelvet @packetcharmer @cassolotl Thats a silly feature. Follower only should mean follower only no matter when you became a follower. If you want to limit who follows you theres already a way to do that.

@Laurelai @CobaltVelvet @packetcharmer @cassolotl it's not a feature

its a consequence of not sending follower only posts to instances where nobody is following that user

@bea @CobaltVelvet @packetcharmer @cassolotl Well then it should do a check every few days and see if there are new followers and send the posts. Clearly.

@Laurelai @bea @CobaltVelvet @packetcharmer @cassolotl

doing so is not really feasible

@Laurelai @bea @packetcharmer @cassolotl it's can be a sensible security feature and can be both great and awful for people

i think the greatest solution would be a new visibility level between unlisted and followers-only that lets you choose whether or not future followers can see it

if if it's too crowded, in the account options

@CobaltVelvet @bea @packetcharmer @cassolotl Or at least a button on a follower only post that says "push to new followers" or something.

@bea @Laurelai @CobaltVelvet @packetcharmer It makes sense that you should be able to find toots that your instance does know about and that you had seen before, though, I feel?

@Laurelai @bea @packetcharmer @cassolotl yeah i agree if that's the only problem, if your instance already has the toot it should be searchable. and that doesn't really require changing the protocol and is likely quite doable. (like maybe returning an indexed id with 404's, or storing the full URL somehow)

it becomes much more of an issue if you want to pull toots that you didn't already get in the first place, which probably won't ever be done but isn't impossible either.

@CobaltVelvet @Laurelai @bea @packetcharmer (Because of the toot I'm replying to, I made this Github issue: https://github.com/tootsuite/mastodon/issues/5818 No idea if it will go anywhere but it can't hurt.)