How do you determine who to follow on Mastodon?
For me, if they post or boost posts on topics I'm interested in, I'll generally follow them, just in case.
I can always filter the list later if it turns out I want to narrow down my focus to, or away from, certain topics.
Of course, I also followed some people without posts, but whose interests overlap.
And yes, I also followed a few people who just had cool artwork in their profile.
@ninovandermark currently using the same system. What I am struggling with now is more like, what if I want to follow content from another server dedicated to something else (say European Politics).
The only choice I have is to create an account over there right?
@heritage The solution that I see is to follow people from other instances who post about those topics you're interested in. You will get their posts and everything they boost, which should hopefully line up with your interest in EU politics.
In the end a lot of it comes down to who you follow, not an opaque algorithm.
It should also make it clear how important it is to "boost" (or "reblog") posts you find interesting, to spread that content to your followers and theirs.
@ninovandermark Hmmm I understand. Your are probably right, I would still think it would be cool if I could see the the local timelines of other instances, even on a separate tab on the app or something.
I know I could just create another account, but does not seem to be a nice solution for me
Also I can't subscribe to hastags on Tusky yet it seems
@heritage On fosstodon.org there is a Federated button, that shows posts within the instance, but also from other instances.
I'm not sure what mechanism decides which instances to include, but that would be another way to see what people on the Fediverse are talking about.
@ninovandermark I see ... So on that list I see all the local feeds of all the instances that are federated with fosstodon. So for example, I was reading about #hachyderm and deciding whether I should migrate my account there or not. But that is unnecessary, because since #fosstodon is federate with #hachyderm , I can see all their local posts on the federate tab of #fosstodon
I thought I only saw the posts of the people I follow there, but I realize now there is other tab for that. Thanks 🙏
@heritage @ninovandermark yeah, the big question around "where to call home" is trust in the admin team and its policies. Federation takes care of getting other users' posts to you.
But on Fosstodon's federate tab, you only see the posts from hachyderm that Fosstodon saw for some other reason (usually someone on fosstodon following that person), not the entire hachyderm feed. But you can always go to https://hachyderm.io/public to get the hachyderm "local".
Nino van der Mark
Michael Eaton
heritage 
Rich Lafferty 🐀
Joe Reinhart