So far, the clunkiness of following a user on a different server is the most annoying thing about Mastodon. Does anyone have an easier way?
I’ve been confused as to why follow seems easy for some people/cases, and clunky for others. After some experimenting, here’s what I’ve been able to figure out…
If you click through to view the profile on its home server, it looks different. I think this is what happens when @jroper right clicks. The good news is that you can see more followers. However…
Clicking the follow button brings up this screen. Here you have to copy and paste the URL to search from your home server, and then follow. This is do-able, but kind of a pain.
To the best I can tell, if someone else on my server already follows a profile, I can view that profile from my home server. If no one on my server follows a profile, then my server knows nothing about that profile, and the only option is to view it on its original server. This seems reasonable from the perspective of running a server, but as a user it means the experience is better from a bigger server.
There might be some server settings or add-ons that matter here too. For example, when I view @tgent_fens, it appears to implement something called remote follow, which makes it easier to follow profiles on their server.
@gregerhardt I've not experienced any issues with this, but maybe I'm on an 'big server'? Mostly I use Tusky app, though when I use the desktop I don't think it's any different?
@tgent_fens Yeah, that's what's thrown me off. For many people it seems to be no issue at all. There is not Tusky for IOS, but it's basically the same on the web and on Toot for me.
If I view a profile (@lisas) from my own server, following is easy-peasy. Note the web address below. However, it does not display follows from other servers, making it harder to browse for other people to follow.