Post #3715459

2026-07-10 10:34 UTC

#Mastodon's #ActivityPub inbox treats object types in tiers. Note and Question are supported directly. A second tier, Article, Page, Image, Audio, Video, and Event, gets converted to a title, a summary, and a link; content itself doesn't show. Anything outside both tiers is dropped on delivery, which is a large part of why so much of the fediverse federates as Note regardless of what the object actually is. mastodon/mastodon#24079 asks for content to show up whenever it's present and the mediaType is supported, independent of type. Open since 2023, and as far as the thread shows, no core team engagement beyond one offhand remark that they're not happy with the status quo either. Reading the issue text closely, it's a bit ambiguous whether it covers the drop tier or only the convert-to-title-and-link tier. I left a comment asking for clarification, since the fix looks very different depending on the answer. If you build on ActivityPub, a comment or a reaction there is worth more than another workaround. #fedidev #fediverse

Replies (1)

@smallcircles@social.coop 2026-07-10 11:15

@hongminhee@hollo.social > If you build on ActivityPub, a comment or a reaction there is worth more than another workaround. Which is, umm.. *far* from ideal. In my long screed about the state of the fediverse my main plea was for the ecosystem of fedi devs caring collectively about the open and grassroots standardization processes. That way, after some time you get a standardization process that can 'stand on its own' i.e. make decisions on the best direction for the future, instead of always relying on the elephant in the room for any progress. There would be an incentive to follow this standardization process, which will never arise otherwise, and things remain "everyone together, alone". https://coding.social/blog/grassroots-evolution/

Open ##3715458