Like many others, I created accounts on a few different instances to try things out. Using apps like Liftoff and Jerboa make it very convenient to switch between accounts, but I’ve noticed that I get different posts showing up when browsing All, even with the same sort settings.
Can someone explain why that would be? I don’t think any of the instances I’m on are defederated, so shouldn’t I see the same posts across different instances?
part the difference is that instances only get posts for remote communities where they have at least one local subscriber
The All timeline shows posts from communities that have at least one user from that instance subscribed to them.
If no users from instance A are subscribed to community X, this community will never show up in that instance’s All timeline.
This is because otherwise instances have no idea what communities are out there. It isn’t until a user subscribes to a remote community that the instance starts receiving posts for that community and learns that it exists.
When a user subscribes to a remote commmunity, the remote instance starts sending updates for content that’s newly created for that community and the user’s instance knows it exists and is able to display that received content in the ALL timeline.
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All timeline is all post from subs/community that you and your instance-mates subscribe. Each instance has different users, and different user follow different communities. Hence All timeline can be different for each instances.
If a user follows something from Mastodon (for example) will that also begin to show up for the rest of their instance’s All timeline?
AFAIK, no. Lemmy only shows posts from group actor a.ka community. And only shows comment from normal user as child of posts.