I'm often seeing links to posts on Mastodon and, when I click on them, they open in a Mastodon instance different from mine (I mean from the one where I have my account). This means that I cannot reply, boost, etc, that post.
The very roundaboundaboundabout way to solve this is to go to your instance and search/"explore" for that post.
Is there a smoother way to address this problem?
I found 1001 "beginner's guides for Mastodon" online and after reading 3 without finding any solution, I decided to ask here.
A similar problem existed with communities (and still exists with posts) in different Lemmy instances, but luckily tools like the Lemmy Instance Assistant solve this rather smoothly with a click.
PS: sorry if this sounds like a rant – it isn't. Just asking for info. I'm sure problems like this will eventually be solved in the Fediverse :)
I haven't had this problem. Are people pasting links to someone else's post into their post or is this from boosts? Is it quotes? I don't think Mastodon has quote posts, but Firefish and potentially other Misskey variants do. Do you have an example? I primarily use Firefish instead of Mastodon so I am admittedly not the most experienced Mastodon user, but even when I scroll through my Mastodon account, posts and boosts open in my own server when I click them and I can star or bookmark or boost them myself from that page.
I am curious about what's happening exactly so I can understand it better, I hope my questions don't come off as hostile.
Not hostile at all, thank you :) Indeed I asked this question because I suspected I was misunderstanding how to use the site. Here's an example. A comment in this post:
https://lemmy.world/comment/960056
gives a link to a Mastodon post. The link I see is https://mastodon.world/@mwadmin/110654590632768079
If I click that link, I do see the Mastodon post, but it's on a Mastodon instance different from mine (https://c.im/). If I wanted to boost, favour, or reply, I have to open another tab/window, go to my Mastodon account on my instance, search for that post, and then I can boost etc. Let me know if this is unclear.
Maybe it's just because I use Mastodon via browser and not a 3rd-party app, as some comments here have suggested.