Federation is not automatic. You can't make a new instance and automatically "see" all of the Fediverse from it; you need to create connections with it.

This is primarily done by following accounts from other instances. You'll see their toots and boosts, which will help you "see" more of the Fediverse.

Larger instances, like .ART or .social, see a lot of the Fediverse because they have thousands of users following tens of thousands of others, creating lots of inter-instance connections. 2/7

If you're on such a large instance you benefit from the connections other users on your instance have made; you "see" the connections made by others in your Local/Home/Federated timelines, in conversations, in profiles, etc.

But with small instances this is trickier… we don't have thousands of users making tens of thousands of connections with other instances. That's why we, with only 25 users (as of this post), are only currently "connected" to 2728 of .social's 289,603 accounts. 3/7

This is why you might click on a person's profile and see *nothing*; because our instance didn't *know* about that account until you clicked it, and won't start feeding us that person's toots until you or someone else on our instance follows them, forcing us to federate with that account.

Thankfully, there are things we can do! On my end as admin, I can join what are called Relays, which will federate us with other instances, sending our toots to each other automatically. 4/7

On your end you can follow lots of people from lots of different instances. This might be tricky if ComicsCamp.Club is your only instance, but keep an eye out and follow more people and you'll be exposed to more of the Fediverse with time.

If you do come across a blank profile, or a conversation that is missing toots, you can right-click on the time-stamp of the parent toot and open in a new tab, outside of the web portal. This will load the whole conversation. Same with profiles! 5/7

If you want to boost or follow someone you can't "see" through ComicsCamp.Club's web portal because we aren't federated with it yet, copy and the toot's URL and paste it in the Search Bar above the compose toot box. This will force ComicsCamp.Club to "connect" with that toot, allowing you to boost/fav it.

Same with profiles; type someone's full username (@user@instance.name) in the search bar to force ComicsCamp.Club to connect to it, then you can follow it as you please. 6/7

None of this is perfect, but the more people we follow/follow us, the more good relays I can find to join, and the more we interact with people all over the Fediverse the more of it we'll "see".

Let me know if you have any more questions/concerns! As your friendly Camp Counselor I'm here for anything you need. ☺️ 💚 ⛺7/7