The Public Timelines Show more
In addition to your Home timeline, there are two public timelines available. The Federated Timeline and the Local Timeline. These are both a good way to meet new people to follow or interact with.
The Local Timeline Show more
The Local Timeline only shows public posts made by users on your home instance. This can be useful if your instance has particular community norms that users on other instances may not have, such as particular topics that get put under content warnings; or particular in-jokes and shared interests.
To view the Local Timeline, click the "Local Timeline" in the Compose column or the respective button on the Getting Started panel.
The Federated Timeline Show more
The Federated Timeline shows all public posts from all users "known" to your instance. This means the user is either on the same instance as you, or somebody on your instance follows that user. The Federated Timeline is a great way to engage in the broad chatter of the world.
The Federated Timeline Show more
To view the federated timeline, click the "Federated Timeline" icon in your Compose column or the respective button on the Getting Started panel. To hide the federated timeline again, simply click the "Back" link at the top of the column while you're viewing it.
Generalistic and moderated instance.
The Federated Timeline Show more
Following users on remote instances who you meet on the Federated Timeline can lead to meeting more users on more instances and further connecting your instance to more and more of the entire Mastodon and OStatus network.