For those who dont know, the federated timeline displays all the activity from all the people on other instances who are followed by people on your instance.
--
It is therefore very good practice to follow as many interesting people from other instances as possible. We are the ropes binding this distributed system together.
@desk_of_jiksun I think you will find that a curated list of people you trust is a more than adequate substitute for the best algorithms.
@NthTensor perhaps, that's what I'm getting my head around (and finding very interesting), along with the other nuances of a distributed network. In contrast to Twitter, for example.
@NthTensor Good to know, I was discussing this with friends just yesterday.
@NthTensor thanks! Been wondering who exactly shows up on the federate side.
@NthTensor So does that mean every user on an instance can end up populating the federated timeline with different instances just from following people?
@NthTensor does this mean if i hosted my own instance and was the only one on it, my federated timeline and my home TL would essentially be the same (since both would only have people i, the only user, follow)? thanks :)
@NthTensor Thank you. Very helpful!
@NthTensor How to discover folks on other instances that aren't already followed by folks on your instance? Boosts from people who you :sparkle:do:sparkle: follow?
@benhamill @NthTensor yes, and perusing the federated timeline
@linguangst @NthTensor Following people that show up in the federated timeline won't diversify the federated timeline, though. Right?
I've been seeing who is cool that I follow on other instances and seeing who they're interacting with in their own local by looking at their profile an following people. I've consequently added a bunch of folks from witches.town, so...
@benhamill @NthTensor it will diversify the federated timelines of instances who follow you :]
and yes, witches.town remains the best. :sparkles:
@linguangst @NthTensor Wait. If I follow @someonecool@random.instance and then you follow me, someone cool's toots will show up on the federated timeline of witches.town?
In other news: What has this jargon done to English? 😝
@benhamill @NthTensor ugh let me think through this... *thinks for a second, gives up, calls @Gargron*
(i think i had it wrong—but it will definitely diversify the federated timeline of YOUR instance, and therefore yours)
@linguangst @NthTensor @gargron Only if I found them somewhere other than the federated feed, right? This makes a good case for prolific boosting, though. Because that :sparkles:will:sparkles: put their toot in the federated feeds of instances where someone follows me. I assume.
@NthTensor I thought it was just everyone ?
@NthTensor Readinv this I realise how much I gain from people I follow boosting others into my notifications. This, for example. Network is work, tiny weaving acts.
@NthTensor so say someone (might be a bot) takes the trouble of creating an account on all instances where each of those accounts follows all members of its instance plus all his own other avatars on all instances then the federated timeline becomes the everyone-on-earth-in-mastodon timeline isn't it? why would no genious geek do such a thing ie create this Super(ra) User who as a Mostodon "God" would unify all federated timelines into the "supra-federation"???
@NthTensor so I started following you. Hi!
@NthTensor trying to wrap my head around this new paradigm. The paradigm of not having an automated algorithm figure out content discovery for me.