Guys. Don't block the follow bots.
I know on bird site we block the follow bots, but on Mastodon, follow bots are our friends.
They come to your instance and follow you, and by doing so, they bring your posts into the federated timeline on their instance.
This is how federation works; the follow bots are to help us connect.
It's a quick workaround being used by admins, particularly of newer/smaller instances, to help populate their federated timelines so their users have more exposure to the fediverse.
I don't think it's intended to be a long term thing. I think the bots will probably retire after the users start meeting people and making their own connections.
Thanks. Interesting. I assumed that the federated timeline was supposed to be global. (Which made me wonder about capacity, but wonders never cease.)
So is the federated timeline on my instance just the union of all the follows of my fellow instance-dwellers (and their bots)? Or something else?
@pzriddle your federated timeline is all the people on your instance, plus all the people they follow.
Thanks for the explanation.
@pzriddle no problem :)
@pzriddle @frankiesaxx Federation is only supposed to happen *willingly*. Meaning, instance A will only show up on instance B's timeline, if someone from B has made a connection (replied, followed, boosted..) with someone from A.
The followbots circumvent that, and go trying to force the connection by default, everywhere, with everyone.
While I get that some instances want, by design, to connect as much as possible, that's not OK for everybody, and it clogs fast.
@frankiesaxx
I don't understand. Why does federation depend on weird granular followbots that are exposed to users in a confusing way? If they are integral to federation, why don't they happen on another layer out of sight?
Or is making them visible as followbots somehow a feature? "Hey, everybody in mastodon.coke, let's declare war on mastodon.pepsi by blocking their followbots!"