They are not shown when your reply is directly following the post you are replying to.
The point of having them is so that you can see that it is not a direct reply to the previous post, but one further ahead.
Example:
Post 1
Post 2 → replies to Post 1 => no reply indicator, since it directly follows the post it is referring to
Post 3
Post 1
Post 2
Post 3 → replies to Post 1 => reply indicator to make it clear it is not a reply to the previous post (i.e. Post 2), but one further ahead (i.e. Post 1)
Never tried that, fullquotes are kinda disgusting anyway
Another thing about reply markers: On the original Post being replied to (Post 1 in my examples) there will be an “X replies” button at the bottom left, but that only shows up for posts with 2 or more direct replies.
Yeah, took me a while to figure that out. Unfortunately the consequence is that instead it becomes ambiguous whether someone is directly replying to the person above them, or in a more general sense to the thread topic. This can and has fucked with my conversation comprehension.
I appreciate all the explicit social cues I can get.
It would be good to have either “reply to post x” or nothing when replying to thread. Not this “makes sense in context”, which actually does not make sense in context…