Hey all. Love federation, think it might play a big role in saving society (unless we destroy it by way of climate change).

2 question about the federation here

1: The fact that I only see a tiny fraction of the toots of people on other Mastodon instances is surely a bug that will be fixed soon, right? It's not meant to be this way?

2: It's possible to follow other social networks using GNU Social, not just Mastodon instances, right?

Thanks! :)

@forteller The way the federated timeline works is that it's essentially the combined Home timelines of everyone from your instance.

For example, the federated timeline on octodon.social is the combined Home timelines of everyone on octodon.social. Your Home timeline consists of people you follow, from both octodon.social and other instances.

And yes, it's possible to follow people from other, non-Mastodon instances.

@forteller In short, if you want to see more toots from people from other instances, follow people from other instances and then everyone from your instance will see them as well.