I made a flow chart of which Mastodon posts end up in which timelines!
So, you can see how each instance will have a different local timeline, and even a slightly different federated timeline - and you can see why the federated timeline moves so much faster than the local one, too.
Full disclosure, this diagram is not complete. For example:
- If someone followed by someone on your instance replies to a public toot, that public toot will end up in your federated timeline.
- If someone on your instance follows someone who boosted Foo's public toot, Foo's public toot will end up in your federated timeline.
... but I didn't want to make the diagram too 🙃 , you know?
@cassolotl yep, this is why I usually follow folks from both this account and @guinan to populate Ten Forward's federated timeline
@staticsafe @guinan That's a good idea! I also really like the idea of lots of instances having Ambassador bots that follow each other, that could be very helpful.
See also: this alternative diagram by @devurandom! https://i.imgur.com/WiEh1Cm.png
It also explains why smaller instances have quieter federated timelines.
People on smaller instances really benefit from the people they follow boosting good posts. It gets new people into their federated timeline, giving them more interesting folks to follow, which gets more people into the federated timeline... and so on!