Is it bad Lemmy etiquette to “pollute” the All feed of a niche instance? - eviltoast

I heard that the All feed aggregates content from all communities that instance members have subscribed to, meaning if I subscribe to a new community, it’ll start showing up in everyone else’s All feed.

Let’s suppose I have an account on an instance with a particular thematic focus. Should I avoid subscribing to communities outside of that theme, in order to preserve the purity of their All feed?

  • VanillaDrink@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    The All Feed shows you all communities from all instances. Whether you are subscribed to them or not.

    The Local Feed shows you all communities from your instance. Whether you are subscribed to them or not.

    The Home Feed shows you only communities you are subscribed to. This includes any communities you follow that are located in other instances.

    • kiwifoxtrot@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Not quite, the All feed shows you all posts from all communities subscribed to on your instance. If there isn’t a user subscribed, it isn’t pushed to that instance.

      • Anomander@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

        So that one subscription is effectively how ‘my’ instance becomes aware any specific community off-instance, in order to check for posts there?

        That both makes sense and is rather counterintuitive at the same time.

        • Kichae@kbin.social
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          1 year ago

          I think it becomes pretty intuitive if you can hold in your mind the model of each instance as a totally separate, independent website with no inherent ties to any other.

          The problem is, everything here kind of vaguely looks like a place we’re used to being a single website, and each instance looks more or less like each other, so that sense of independence and difference is lost. But if you think of it like, I don’t know, Facebook or something like that having the possibility of communicating with mydumbwebsite.com, it becomes a lot clearer that that communication needs to be initiated somehow.

        • tj@fedia.io
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          1 year ago

          It is indeed. Main consequence of this is that if you join a new or small instance, you will see less of the fediverse without actively seeking it

      • yancy@lemmy.fmhy.ml
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        1 year ago

        How can I see all feeds on all instances while not being subscribed?

        EDIT: pleas disregard. I read the sticky. You must manually search for unknown communities.

  • Wolf Link 🐺@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Personally I think it’s even the opposite. What Lemmy needs is more interesting content and interaction, whether it’s “niche” or not, and making content more visible to others spreads awareness so to speak. Deliberately holding back your own interests just because it could inconvenience someone else on the internet IF they sort their feed in a specific way … that’s counter-productive both for the site as a whole and your own spare time / interests in particular. Just subscribe to whatever community you want.

    Especially if it’s something niche that would not get much traffic otherwise.

    • Lith@lemmy.sdf.org
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      1 year ago

      Agreed - I want to come across as many communities as possible while I build my subscription list. I’d prefer if I could see all communities everywhere, but with the system the way it is, the next best thing is for everyone to subscribe to as many communities as possible. Please subscribe to anything you want!

  • RotaryKeyboard@lemmy.ninja
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    1 year ago

    If you did this, you would prevent your fellow instance users from subscribing to content they are interested in. That wouldn’t be very neighborly.

  • CountVon@sh.itjust.works
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    1 year ago

    If an instance allows anyone to sign up then I think they need to tolerate those users having different tastes and interests, within reason. Most instances have policies against illegal content, and many don’t allow porn. Defederation is the tool instance admins can use to prevent subscriptions to content they don’t want to host. Other than that, if other users don’t want to see certain content, they can simply not subscribe to it and avoid the All feed. Personally I like browsing All precisely because it shows me things I didn’t know about, and might be interested in.

    Currently there’s no way for users or instance admins to block specific communities. I hope that will be made available at some point, so content blocking can be done at a more granular level and defederation can be reserved for more extreme cases. Instance admins would be free to curate their All feed if that’s what they want to do. Users would be free to pick an instance that suits them, possibly one with a heavily curated feed or instead choose one that hosts a broad array of content. A broad array of content is much less likely to be an issue if users can block at the community level so they don’t have to see it.

      • CountVon@sh.itjust.works
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        1 year ago

        Ahh I think you’re right, I got it mixed up. Users can block communities, it’s whole instances that they can’t block. Only instance admins can do that, via defederation.

  • LaurelRerun@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    I would say that it’s too early for anyone to know what a more solidified etiquette will be. So for now just do whatever you want so long as you pay attention to any changes in public opinion or rule changes.

  • static@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    If it’s a real instance? No problem, deal with it!

    In the futute I expect there would be spam instances with fake upvotes, yes those should be banned.

  • writeblankspace@geddit.social
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    1 year ago

    No. In fact, you’re helping your instance. If people don’t want to see your niche instance, they gotta get out of the All feed and go back to their Home.

    Just don’t follow any NSFW and people don’t be bothered.

  • Aviandelight @mander.xyz
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    1 year ago

    I think it’s a good idea to be cognizant about visiting other communities that are not in your home instance. Most people enjoy seeing new things and ideas within reason. I would say that as long as you aren’t embarrassed by announcing to the community your own personal interests then go for it. And if it is something you would be embarrassed to share then maybe make an alt account on that instance for your own personal use.