RafgasWasn't i supposed to be able to use _any_ mastodon logon to _any_ mastodon server/instance?
Gary@Rafgas no, you logon to the instance you create your account on, but you can interact with users on any other instance (so long as the admins of both instance haven't blocked federation), and you can move your account to another instance. There's no centralised AAA.
@Rafgas you can't tell, but as you're on one of the largest instances (mastodon.cloud) it's safe to assume that it's federated with many, many other instances. As soon as you (or any other user on the same instance as you) interacts with someone on another instance a federation link is created. This includes boosts, likes, follows, anything really. I was curious and looked into this earlier: https://mastodon.cloud/@WiteWulf/109393902816219633
Gary (@[email protected])
I found this, which explains #federation pretty well: https://mastodon.help/#HowFederationWorksTheory tl;dr a new instance has no federation, and the federated feed will be empty, but as users follow, boost and interact with users on /other/ instances, federated links are built up automatically. Admins can subsequently block those federated links if they want. This is why I keep seeing posts from admins of new instances asking for boosts: it builds federations to their instance