Post A3npYbtQhOuGSFubyq by stitchandsew@weirder.earth
 (DIR) More posts by stitchandsew@weirder.earth
 (DIR) Post #A3npYZfWy6bHYZOU2S by ghost_bird@mythago.space
       2021-01-30T18:11:17Z
       
       0 likes, 0 repeats
       
       I think, ironically enough, I’m going to try drastically reducing my instance blocklist. I realised a little while ago that my federated timeline was only full of nazis because I was subscribed to an All Nazis, All The Time federation relay... and there was an easy fix for that.
       
 (DIR) Post #A3npYa6TLw9Qu80024 by ghost_bird@mythago.space
       2021-01-30T18:16:09Z
       
       0 likes, 0 repeats
       
       My working theory at this point is that, without relays, the amount of instance blocking you actually need should start quite small and scale with instance size. But I’ve been wrong before - I don’t have very good intuition about how federation works - and it’ll be interesting to see how it is in practice.
       
 (DIR) Post #A3npYaY7h8GkHsw58C by ghost_bird@mythago.space
       2021-01-30T20:52:19Z
       
       0 likes, 0 repeats
       
       Okay... I've pared down my instance-level blocks and mutes to less than a dozen and turned off all the instance mutes I brought with this account when I moved. Let's see how my federated timeline looks over the next few days.
       
 (DIR) Post #A3npYb1Xvjnxl8hZzc by ghost_bird@mythago.space
       2021-01-30T20:53:32Z
       
       0 likes, 0 repeats
       
       (I still have a lot of user-level blocks and mutes carried over from old accounts, but this will do for now.)
       
 (DIR) Post #A3npYbTCGvvH8tdf5k by ghost_bird@mythago.space
       2021-01-31T10:42:47Z
       
       0 likes, 0 repeats
       
       So... with minimal instance blocking and no relays, my federated timeline looks much the same as before. Maybe a little more leakage from the techbro side and one post from a channers-and-loli instance so far. Now I need to go back to the spec and see if I can get the definitive version of what shows on the federated timeline.
       
 (DIR) Post #A3npYbtQhOuGSFubyq by stitchandsew@weirder.earth
       2021-01-31T10:56:58Z
       
       0 likes, 0 repeats
       
       @ghost_bird might be because your instance already knows about them? I have an instance that I didn’t join a relay on and it only knows about my account here so far. Federated timeline is just me lol
       
 (DIR) Post #A3npYcJJ9BbfkW1HJg by ghost_bird@mythago.space
       2021-01-31T10:58:46Z
       
       0 likes, 0 repeats
       
       @stitchandsew Might be? My first guess was some kind of second-order follower-of-a-follower thing.
       
 (DIR) Post #A3npYckFX19p64cnJI by IngaLovinde@embracing.space
       2021-01-31T16:54:53Z
       
       0 likes, 1 repeats
       
       @ghost_bird @stitchandsew AFAIK federated timeline is all public posts that have reached your instance, roughly speaking. (It might not be exactly that, but it is certainly no more than that)And posts reach your inst. when someone (from non-blocked inst.) mentions or replies to some user on your inst., or when they should appear on home timeline of some user on your inst. (that is, were posted by someone from non-blocked inst. followed by someone from your inst.)Plus maybe parent posts.
       
 (DIR) Post #A3npZBqr0SEjygz3xo by ghost_bird@mythago.space
       2021-01-31T12:26:14Z
       
       0 likes, 0 repeats
       
       ...there is no definitive account of what shows on the federated timeline, apparently. The closest anyone will get is “mostly content from people with followers on your instance”, which is not the entire truth. I could probably figure it out if I had back-end access to my server, but that’s not part of my hosting deal.
       
 (DIR) Post #A3npZTYjAaQstgdqD2 by ghost_bird@mythago.space
       2021-01-31T12:38:04Z
       
       0 likes, 0 repeats
       
       This, I’m tempted to say, is what happens when programmers write documentation. Endless specs for API calls and protocol standards, but the server itself is a black box.