i think i'm going to have to run my own relay server to connect to a few other instances that seem cool
wait maybe i misunderstand how the federated timeline works. are you telling me that i can see things there from accounts i dont follow on instances, so long as i follow someone else on that instance...?
@exiliaex I think it's rather "so long as someone from your instance follows them". Or has searched that toot on your instance. Basically if your instance has had a reason to load the toot in its database.
@prepure_kaede oh that's even more interesting hmmm
@prepure_kaede @exiliaex
I just set up a mastodon instance and my federated timeline actually shows people which neither of the two users follow.
So I would think that the federated timeline just shows posts from instances of which someone on your instances follows a user from.
@fnin @exiliaex There was a chart someone posted a while ago; cannot know for sure if it's correct, but people who have been here for long seemed to agree so I trust it
https://mastodon.nz/@zyk/109313489289842471
@prepure_kaede @exiliaex
Ah, thank you. So the posts I was talking about were caused by boosts
In fact right now you should just auto connect to a lot of different instances, even those you don't follow, because so many people are active on fedi rn - - so you'll see more and more on your Federated Timeline
@exiliaex it shows posts from instances that have any connection to yours, so currently you will likely see a lot of toots from kolektiva.social
@exiliaex No. Posts in the federated TL are just incoming posts. You or someone else on your server has to follow a person for their posts and boosts to arrive. So if you follow someone you'll get all their content, their boosts etc, it will also be in the federated TL.
Imagine if I followed someone that is on a huge server. If all posts from that server would arrive at my small one, it would be too much. So it's on a kind of need-to-know basis...
It's complicated 🥲
because like, i thought that the only way it populated was either a relay which connected instances and published their collective stuff in the federated timeline, or like, if you follow someone that would show up on that timeline...