[FEATURE] Follow public local timelines from other instances

Just what the title says.

Maybe implemented like the "show a toot from another instance"-feature: Copying the full URL of the instance into the search bar opens the local timeline of this other instance.

Which makes following interests easier, since a lot of instances are specialised on some specific interests, but a person does'nt follow only one. So to mix things a lot more up.

[Cassolotl]

Do you mean like, to make the local timeline of another instance a pin-able column? (This sounds awesome.)

Do you mean like, to make the local timeline of another instance a pin-able column? (This sounds awesome.)

Yes, that's exactly what I think of! Only shorter and to the point, thanks.

[Cassolotl]

Browse Other Instances' Public Timeline #1053 was closed without being implemented a few hours ago. That discussion was super messy and started a long time ago, before we had public timelines on /about pages, which partially solved the OP's needs.

This new issue is more specific and I think it should stay open.

[deutrino]

Duplicate of #979?

[Cassolotl]

Certainly could be included in #979! ("Configurable federated timelines aside from "local" and "federated"")

it would be more clever to allow users to configure additional timelines by specifying the servers they want to see toots from. The server would no longer need a whitelist (although they might have the possibility to configure a default curated whitelist timeline), but could show the whole federated timeline when the users wishes to do so.

[nightpool]

If we're going to continue this discussion here, which is fine, I'll repost my earlier comment, which I think is still releavent:

There are third-party website that will allow you to do this, but my opinion is that if you want to view the instance timeline of another instance as part of your day-to-day browsing of the service, you should sign up for an account on it. Otherwise you have this weird culture where a small number of users are "performing" for a much larger audience, and there's no way for the users viewing that timeline to "join in", and post things to that timeline. this leads to very awkward possible community issues.

[antoniotorresm]

@nightpool I agree with you, but I don't think having people to have multiple accounts is enough user friendly. Maybe some kind of subscription system? There are a lot of thematic instances and it's natural to want to participate in various ones without having a bunch of accounts.

[Cassolotl]

There are a lot of thematic instances and it's natural to want to participate in various ones without having a bunch of accounts.

Groups (#139) would probably resolve that issue - toots about a subject would end up in your timeline whether you follow the person posting or not.

[deutrino]

I think it would be cool to follow scholar.social but I'm not a scholar and don't want or need an account there.

Other people might want to follow the timeline from the recently created cars/racing instance.

Etc.

[SatanicMechanic]

I made a small donation on bountysource for this.