Would love a #mastodon pro to explain to me how to use the #federatedtimeline because I just don't get it. I open that thing and it's like super speedy scrolling and so much stuff is kinda not my thing like a bunch of young anime girls?
i just keep that timeline closed but surely it must be intended for some particular use....
@offby1 hmm thanks for the advice - sounds like it's working as intended and I'm not missing something, and perhaps just need to adjust my expectations.
@logan_life In the end it's whatever you want; there's no need to pay attention to the federated timeline if you don't find it useful.
@logan_life To me it is like being invited to a party and I show up at a crowded space where I don't know anybody but that's okay.
I grab a beer and practice some social skills like fav'ing toots and randomly taking part in conversations whether I have been asked for it or not (it's my party, too...or...isn't it?).
Often I don't understand what's going on or I'm not interested then I leave and return later to find people I can stalk...ehhm...follow.
@logan_life
I mute liberally on it to avoid that
@dumpling @logan_life Also depends on your instance. Mine is very small and we block more instances, so it scrolls by about 1 post every 30 sec. Places like M.S aren't really usable because they are federating with most of entire fediverse. 😄
@GinnyMcQueen @dumpling @logan_life Which means Ginny gets all my hot takes on the federated timeline
@GinnyMcQueen @dumpling @Laurelai
okay so if I may ask - I'd love it if my federated timeline was like, a little bit slower, and was filled with stuff that is more relevant to my interest areas, e.g. books, dragons, queer stuff, comp sci stuff, etc so that I could use it to find cool new folks to follow. Also would love less like, weird (to me) quasi-porny anime stuff.
do I need to start my own instance to do that, ya think?
@logan_life @GinnyMcQueen @dumpling I personally like a busy federated timeline because im used to a large infostream
@logan_life @dumpling @Laurelai Definitely a smaller/more specific instance might do the trick. I think I saw groups being worked on, which also might help with curating.
@logan_life @GinnyMcQueen @dumpling @Laurelai not necessarily start your own, but definitely move somewhere smaller - the shops federated timeline is p decent in terms of quality tho ive had to mute a fair number of accts that dont CW politics
The federated timeline is the amalgamated timeline of all the federated servers all together.
Hint 1:
Go into the settings and leave only those languages unchecked that you want to read; this should significantly reduce the number of toots you see.
Hint 2:
Mute the authors that you don't want to read. You just hit the "..." under one of their toots and then select the mute option. This is especially nice to deal with news bots.
Now the federal timeline should already be much more readable.
@FoloGnorri very helpful, thank you!!!
You are most welcome.
@logan_life Mute any instance or user that doesn't appeal to you. Keep doing that and the timeline will slow dramatically.
@LeftCoast wait, i can mute entire instances?
@logan_life Oh yeah! Open a user's profile, then click on the pancake stack. The bottom option is to mute that user's entire instance.
So, if I'm from silly.teenage.party and that's not something you want to see, just mute the instance. It's a beautiful feature!
@LeftCoast Amazing! I had no idea! Thanks so much. =)
@logan_life You're very welcome. Without that feature I would have given up on Mastodon long ago!
@logan_life I scroll down a little and the autoscroll stops. Muting the pornbots helps clean the feed a bit. (Not a pro.) The federated timeline is definitely a killer feature.
@logan_life I occasionally see things go by that are interesting, and speed click them. This toot, for example :)
It is super fast, though, and it can be a firehose. But it's a neat way to see the tenor of the whole fediverse.