As usual when a comment like yours comes up, the feature already exists. In this case, its available only to instance admins.

A better suggestion would be to setup one’s own instance, but that’s not dismissive enough, it seems.

An entirely acceptable answer to both my original question and my suggestion, although I had already attempted to address that. Every instance generating their own, seemingly non-random*, numbers for every post and comment was a big reason my mind skipped to “insanity” for my title - can we say “does not, SHOULD not, scale” any louder? Thanks again.

*

Thing is, I know enough to come in here and ask “why not UUIDs?”, but instead I asked, yes, not far from the way you said it, but “why is it this way? Am I the crazy one here?” (the implication of “I think this is crazy and no one else does”, as sanity is generally defined by society or group concensus)

Funny story, I’m not crazy in this respect, this time, and the fix is already in the lower-level codebase even though the webUI hasn’t yet implimented it, or so I’m told, something that was more-or-less apparent from seeing it working basically the same across multiple clients.

It’s a little hard to contribute code from inside a moving(LOUDLY) steel box miles away from civilization, and I would have done some more research were I in a place to do so(contribute code, I mean, you know, best practices and all), but the idea that I would use this handle on github for non-machining related code is laughable, although you are correct on the specific criteria that I have contributed no code there whatsoever. I am well aware that I am more valuable here(not there, for now) as a shit-stirrer with a wallet, and see no reason to come at others with bUt dO YoU CoDe!?

You assume I’m not contributing … based on what? I addressed participation in this thread first as that’s the most convenient for me to substantiate. I’ve bought many of the clients, before trying them and finding I preferred the webUI, but I went into this more in my conversation here with @[email protected] … Regardless, I’ve stuck to the topic, except for where called out for “hostility”, “entitlement”, or “not contributing”. You went there first, and seem to have benefitted from the fact that my reply ended up on the wrong one of your (dismissive and condescending from the start)comments.

I don’t need your patience. This is not your post. Should have left you blocked, but blocking you obscured @[email protected] 's far more valid, one word, contribution to the topic at hand.

What you’re proposing? I’m talking about the state of the issue on Lemmy, as mentioned in the post. As for your last paragraph, that’s exactly what I want, and more or less what I’ve proposed. Sounds like you’re invoking UUIDs as an even better solution, something I already acknowleged when @[email protected] brought it up.

Generally, you’re right, except that Lemmy is a new use-case. Its like if facebook made you login again because you follwed a facebook.com link from within facebook, all because the user who created the link is in a different time-zone. What’s not to understand about how broken that would be?

An user following an absolute link that doesn’t re-direct them back to their own instance is likely not going to be able to interact with the content there. As things stand, we then have to search up the content we want to interact with on our own instance.

Within the context of a Lemmy user following a link from a comment, at least, the relative link is more useful. For a non-user reading such commente the desired behavior would be to open such links absolutely, pointed to the post’s orinating instance, the commentor’s originating instance, or the instance which is actually serving them that content in the moment, but hey, that’s the behavior we ALL get already, and no-one is proposing breaking it for non-users.

Fact is, Lemmy is already capable of serving up a different parsed url for logged-in users and non-users, the webUI just hasn’t implimented the feature yet, and so here we are.

GOOD. Thanks for repeating what I thought I read you say the first time, only explicitly.

Much appreciated.

Read up. I stated I would be refraining from speaking to the difficulty of implimentation as I do not have my laptop with me.

I’ve written apps/extentions for personal use. I would rather contribute to an existing code-base like Lemmy, but I acknowleged the fact I am in little position to do so, for the next two weeks in fact.

Entitlement, really? How is your passing the buck to extention/app devs different from my requesting a feature be implimented in the single location where it will stay fixed, saving time and effort for the devs, including for app and extention devs, going forward?

Where is your suggested solution that could be implimented, beyond suggesting that apps and extentions have this solved for their users, and we should leave it at that?

I’ve bought multiple such apps, and found the webUI preferable, so I’mma throw my future suggestions, requests, and yes, financial contributions, as well as any code I write if that turns out to be necessary on my part, at the single project that is already doing so many other things I’ve come to enjoy.

“What.”, you say.

You unaware there have been share buttons on posts/comments on most websites for years and years now? You already have to follow some sort of permalink button to get to a url that lets you share anything more specific than a top-level post, and that was the case in forums dating back to the ninetees.

You’re invoking a use-case that never was so narrow, nor mainstream as you’ve claimed. If people were actually so used to copying and pasting urls from the address bar, google and others would not be holding onto market dominance after all the things they have done to make the address bar in their browsers a pain to use.

Last, its not combative to address your comment point-for-point. I have not demeaned you or your logic, just called out where it was partial and incomplete.

Am OP. Presented one solution and lauded another. Meanwhile, you’ve poo-poo-ed both of those and suggested only an app or extention will do, while highlighting that the existing apps both already have the problem solved and aren’t necessarilly feature-complete versus the severs.

Your inability to pick a narrative or achnowlege the statements of others reeks of insincerity, and now you’re claiming I am not contributing to this thread I’ve started. Get lost.

Why would they copy-past from the address bar when every post and comment already has a button that copies the url to their clipboard for them?

Also, nothing I’ve suggested breaks absolute links. Hell, I’ve even been pointing out that I would like existing links to keep working, both absolute and relative.

You literally dismiss the necessity for any effort in your first paragraph and claim extentions/apps are somehow preferable, then in your last two paragraphs call out that the function is already present on the servers and the servers more feature-complete than the apps.

Pick a narrative. Letting the apps represent the more useful/enjoyable experience is a big reason the eventual API rugpull on reddit was such a shit-show. If your lesson-learned was “more app, more gooder”/“everyone should constantly reinvent the wheel in pursuit of fun and profit, so long as no one asks anything of the original devs”, you haven’t been paying attention.

When devs can no longer be bothered to impliment obvious features, its time to fork, not present a new compatability layer that you control as the solution. Its both a shitty user-experience, and an almost impossible path to fun and profit for any dev who has no control over the original code. Then you get dozens of others having to reinvent the wheel every time the original dev DOES impliment anything that breaks compatability with their apps, all in pursuit of dimes they will likely never see.

I, and most users, are here to participate in discussions, not promote the LateStageCapitalism rate-race for the next disposable-and-planned-obselecence-baked-in-to-its-very-nature digital widget.

Why should I have to download an app to impliment an obvious feature that should just work in the web-UI? Lemmy is still in active developement, and there is no good reason to treat it like an immutable legacy code-base that should require external scripts and hacks in order to present and interact with properly.

My original version/thought?

If the comments/posts were just numbered relative to their communities instead of generated by each instance, there wouldn’t have to be this disconnect at all.
/c/piracy@lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/18177167
Would be THE instance-agnostic link for that post, and
/c/piracy@lemmy.dbzer0.com/comment/9620373
THE instance-agnostic link for that comment.

We’re already using the LINK button on whichever post/comment to copy this stuff to our clipboards, so its not like there should be some massive concern over making people type too much. Url-shortening is also an option, but half the shortenned url’s I deal with any more are dead links - the page/original url isn’t gone, but the shortened version has been expired.

We wouldn’t even have to redo how the instances generate content numbers for posts/comments generated locally, but set them to pull such numbers in for each post/comment mirrored from another instance. Not even slightly hard to come up with, though I don’t have my laptop with me so I’ll refrain from speaking on the difficulty of implimentation versus all the “legacy-numbered” content already out there.

… seems like it would be easier to impliment without breaking most existing links versus UUIDs, BUT UUIDs are more of a standard, and either method would probably be best implimented with a server-side(or page-embedded and executed client-side) method for translating legacy links to the new version.

I don’t use any client besides the web-ui. There is no reason for the webui to not impiment obvious features found in multiple client apps, but yes, you’ve hit the nail on the head as to a desirable version of this behavior.

I don’t care about getting sent to the original instance per se. Getting sent to a landing page on the local instance that says "Hey, we aren’t federated with that instance, and/or no one on our instance has subscribed to that community. Here’s an externalized(http/url) link to the content you’ve attempted to access, with no guarantee it will work.

Understand that you may have to make an account with that instance or an instance federated with them if you wish to actually interact with this content."

If the comments/posts were just numbered relative to their communities instead of generated by each instance, there wouldn’t have to be this disconnect at all.
/c/piracy@lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/18177167
Would be THE instance-agnostic link for that post, and
/c/piracy@lemmy.dbzer0.com/comment/9620373
THE instance-agnostic link for that comment.

Don’t even have to redo how the instances generate content numbers for posts/comments generated locally, but set them to pull such numbers in for each post/comment mirrored from another instance. Not even slightly hard to come up with, though I don’t have my laptop with me so I’ll refrain from speaking one the difficulty of implimentation versus all the “legacy-numbered” content already out there.

Yes, that is the expected behavior, and what I attempted the first time in the link comment. I was surprised it wasn’t working, even after a page refresh.

Not sure if this is still the case, but a lot of the instances had overcrowding issues. As long as two instances are federated, it makes the most sense to link to the instance that has more available capacity for new users.

That, and a lot of the stuff I follow is on servers that are likely to be de-federated(.ml) or defederate eachother(.ml vs anarchists or primitivists). I prefer to give potential new users the chance to fly under the radar, and only potentially end up banned from a given instance for their own actions. Sharing threads mirrored on more generic instances suits my purposes.

All that said, I’m leaving this thread open, because while I occassionally go to the instance that originated a given thread, scroll to it in their feed, and share the link I find there(there are some niche instances I believe are best for appealing to non-lemmy users who are avid about that niche), that’s a PITA non-solution.

I’m just back to using fark.com and tumblr as well … things my reddit addiction had not been leaving time for. Lemmy is much more my speed.