I’ve set up a couple of single-user instances of fediverse apps (Mastodon, Lemmy). With Lemmy, I can post/comment to any community/thread I want that is federated, but I can’t seem to do that with Mastodon.

With that being the case, how does the content I post on Mastodon get shown to people on other instances (I know replying works differently). I feel like any top-level post I make on my instance is basically like shouting into the void, correct?

Also, if I were to set up a Pixelfed instance, would I have the same problem where my content doesn’t get shown to anyone (except those that follow me?)

  • sexy_peach@feddit.de
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    1 year ago

    Also, most fediverse software isn’t designed to be used by a single person. If you had a couple more users there then everything would be way more populated!

    • jax@lemmy.cloudhub.socialOP
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      1 year ago

      Ah okay, so the 2 people and one bot that follow me would be seeing my posts. That seems pretty underwhelming, but makes sense lol

      Yeah, I’m going to see if some of my IRL friends are interested, but I’m not sure how many of them use Twitter/Reddit/etc currently.

      • sexy_peach@feddit.de
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        1 year ago

        It’s hard to be on a mastodon server alone, if you don’t have an established follower base. Keep interacting people and follow plenty, some will like you as well and follow back :)

    • Thoralf Will@feddit.de
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      1 year ago

      Actually, that’s not true.

      I run a single user Calckey instance (@thoralf@ck.umrath.net, moved from a single user Mastodon instance) and it works just fine. The only difference: The local timeline is just me.

      But other than that, it works perfectly fine.

      • sexy_peach@feddit.de
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        1 year ago

        I don’t think that this contradicts my statement.

        Many people end up on tiny servers or spin up their own server and wonder why there is nothing or only a tiny amount of content in the federated timeline. If you already expected this, good.

        • Thoralf Will@feddit.de
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          1 year ago

          The content is also no problem:

          1. follow people
          2. add relays

          Both will fill the global timeline quite nicely.