Can anyone explain what an "instance" is? Is Mastodon an instance?
@Blueteach Imagine if there were 100 different Twitters. Each of those is an instance. Local timeline is the one you signed up on, but you can choose to read the federated timeline, I.e. combination of all instances.
@Borogove not a full union though -- federated timeline is all messages from people you follow, on any instance, any reply to those messages, and any message the mentions you, sent from any instance.
@evilchili @Borogove not quite—the federated timeline is toots from any user anyone in your instance follows. your "home" feed is toots from anyone you follow. you can also switch the righthand stream to your local timeline, which is all toots from your instance (regardless of who within your instance you actually follow)
@Borogove @linguangst gah. foegot the second order follows. sheesh.