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Let's go in the opposite direction for a second. I set up my shiny new Mastodon server. Do I instantly get the feed from all other instances? Or do I have to go

• kstrauser 9y ago
  You don't really connect to other instances so much as other users. To further the email analogy, if you stand up your own mailserver, you can start sending email to someone at Gmail without deliberately configuring either of those servers to talk to each other. A good way to discover new users is to visit a popular instance - say, https://mastodon.social/about https://mastodon.social/about - and look at its "A look inside..." pane (which is that instance's "federated timeline"). Find a user who said something interesting and click on their post to go to their profile. Click "Remote follow" to follow them on your own instance, and voila! You have a new friend. You could also visit the Mastodon instance list (https://joinmastodon.org https://joinmastodon.org) which maps the current state of the network (aka the "fediverse") and search around to find themed instances that appeal to you. Want to follow a bunch of furries? Find an instance that caters to them, then start following all the interesting users you find there.