For items that might need sorting by name or date - like file names, or spreadsheet or database entries - I entirely agree.

But my question was not, "What is a sensible date format?"

It was, "How can I get Mbin to show dates in a monotonic format."

Most forum software lets users choose locale, which takes care of this. Mbin doesn't, AFAICT.

YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS.MS

Because it’s fucking sortable. Milliseconds optional.

This is the only timestamp you should ever use and you should make choices based on them being better or more efficient not just being from a place you want to dislike at the moment.

sure thing :)

Many thanks for this clarification - and for hosting The Brain Bin!

The field is for hashtags. If you're fine with them appearing in the text you can also ignore the field and just add the hashtags in your text

if you follow a user their future posts will be sent to your server. We were talking about implementing a backfill option, but there is no eta yet

Thank you for explaining. That must indeed be the reason I couldn't see those toots on Mbin.

so no guarantee it will be implemented at all. But since it is an annoying problem, maybe it will

Backfill would be great! Server capacity concerns notwithstanding.

In the meantime, clearer wording for the info banner would be an easy, helpful UX improvement:

• Before subscribing: "This Fediverse profile is hosted on a different server than yours. If you, or another user on your server, were to subscribe to this profile, the profile's subsequent posts would be displayed here. The profile's older posts can be viewed on their server"

• After subscribing: "This Fediverse profile is hosted on a different server than yours. Now that you have subscribed, the profile's future posts will be displayed here. The profile's older posts can be viewed on their server"

Though about the instance itself doing backfilling by an automated worker, it could be pretty taxing on both the requesting and requested instances, so I worry communications may get timed-out or the requesting instance may inflate to the point storage becomes a big concern.

About backfilling, if @modem_down@thebrainbin.org come across any yet unfederated links in the wild, maybe worth mentioning search links are standardized and hard-coded, making even redirect scripts efficient. Like e.g. https://thebrainbin.org/search?search[q]=https://mastodon.social/@artologica@chaos.social/116986639666818550 yielding https://thebrainbin.org/m/random/p/829840 (and using a remote link from a third instance to further make my point hehe).

You could type in the url of the post in the search bar, but if you follow a user their future posts will be sent to your server. We were talking about implementing a backfill option, but there is no eta yet, so no guarantee it will be implemented at all. But since it is an annoying problem, maybe it will

Thanks for your reply. I should have been clearer!

It's not the banner that bothers me, it's the fact that that microblog's posts (toots) aren't being displayed when viewed from Mbin!

Is there anything I can do in order to get those posts to propagate through to Mbin? Would I have to contact the admin for the Mbin instance hosting my account? Something else?

A lot in Mbin can be improved with Ublock Origin's custom filters, by the way. Like auto-hiding posts you like/dislike, or hiding from the main feed and magazine feeds replies appearing as posts.

But I'd suggest not using the infinite scrolling option if using custom filters as that's a massive load on the server and Ublock Origin after enough matches in a single page are done starts misbehaving.

Not an issue but a standard warning. Fediverse instances don't auto-populate, and the author of the original project¹ must have thought it was a good idea to raise awares of that by putting this warning.

But if it bothers you and you use Ublock Origin, though no native option to dismiss it are availabe, you can put this in a new line of Ublock Origin's custom filters tab:

thebrainbin.org##.alert__info.alert

¹Mbin's a fork, and the original software's no longer worked on

@Pamasich@kbin.earth Thanks for following up with the detailed explanation. Makes sense now!

@Auster@thebrainbin.org

one thing you can do is to browse the subscribed microblog feed, https://thebrainbin.org/sub/microblog

Thanks, this is the kind of thing I hoped for!

you can also go to the general settings, https://thebrainbin.org/settings/general, and set "Homepage" as "Subscriptions", and "Front page default view" as "Microblog", so https://thebrainbin.org/ becomes a mirror of https://thebrainbin.org/sub/microblog

Excellent tip, thank you!

@modem_down@thebrainbin.org So, let me reexplain, since there's also some inaccuracy in what I said in the last message.

When you go to the frontpage of your instance, https://thebrainbin.org/, it lists all the posts your instance is aware of. You can switch between microblog posts, Lemmy threads, and a combined view in the top bar.

Above the list of posts, but below the top bar, there should be another bar with a few dropdown options. I can see it when I visit that URL on your instance.

From left to right, those options are:

• the list's sorting method (default depends on the instance I assume, you can set your own in the settings)
• how old listed posts are allowed to be (defaults to no limit)
• What kind of posts you want to see (links vs text vs images vs videos, defaults to all)
• The list type of you want to see (this is the one you want)
• The federation option, which lets you choose to see federated content from other instances or only content from your own instance

The one we want is the fourth dropdown, and it's only visible when logged in. The dropdown lets you choose between viewing all the posts on the instance (that fit the other filters), only posts from communities or users you're subscribed to / following, only posts from communities you're a moderator of, or only posts you upvoted.

Contrary to what I said earlier, it seems that while the dropdown does exist in magazines, there's no subscribed option there, only all and upvotes.

Those options exist on all of the threads, microblog, and combined views. Except for the post type filter, that one isn't available for microblogs.

If you want a direct link, this should get you to the subscribed list: https://thebrainbin.org/sub It's what selecting the option in the dropdown loads up.

You can change some of the defaults in the settings. Like what sort to use and whether the frontpage should load up all posts or just subscribed ones by default without the /sub attached.

This used to be simpler in my opinion. Back on /kbin (but I forgot if it was /kbin later on or Mbin that changed this), Mbin was forked from /kbin, this dropdown was actually placed next to the search button in the top bar, and visible anywhere on the site. Acting as a shortcut to those lists. I'm not sure why they changed its location.

To see only followed people's posts, without seeing subscribed communities' posts, I don't think there's much of a way.

However, since microblog posts on communities are still rare, one thing you can do is to browse the subscribed microblog feed, https://thebrainbin.org/sub/microblog, as then mostly the people you follow should appear on, and rarely posts to communities.

In that line, you can also go to the general settings, https://thebrainbin.org/settings/general, and set "Homepage" as "Subscriptions", and "Front page default view" as "Microblog", so https://thebrainbin.org/ becomes a mirror of https://thebrainbin.org/sub/microblog.

@Pamasich@kbin.earth thanks. Unforunately, I can't see a globe icon or the word "All".

Here's a screenshot showing Edward Betts's Mastodon profile as viewed from Mbin. As you can see, I follow his Mastodon account from my Mbin account.

I can see his posts on that page. But what I can't figure out is how to see his posts, and posts from other Mastodon accounts I follow, in a single page or feed on Mbin.

@modem_down@thebrainbin.org On any feed, there's a list of options at the top. Above the posts, below the top bar. They are each an icon + text. One of them is probably a globe icon + "All" for you. Click on that and you can select "Subscribed" instead.

yes

ok, thanks.

That is not possible, yet. We track the progress of that here

no worries. thank you for all your hard work :)

We usually try to do it towards the end of the month, but this one will take a couple of weeks longer I think. There are a couple of very big improvements on its way and it takes a bit of time.

thanks. Do you know when it might be released? are we talking a couple days? a month?

Yeah it is a bug in lemmy. We put the image first in the attachements and lemmy only uses the first attachement. A fix is on its way with the next release :)