this post was submitted on 11 Mar 2025
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I've noticed that the "All" feed on Lemmy is pretty much the same across all instances, showing posts from every instance regardless of the specific focus or community vibe of the instance you're on. This seems like a missed opportunity to make the experience more tailored and engaging for each instance's unique audience.

For example, if there were an instance dedicated to literature lovers, wouldn't it make sense for the "All" feed on that instance to prioritize content that's more relevant to people who enjoy books, poetry, and writing? Instead of being a global feed that shows everything from memes to tech news, it could reflect the interests and values of the instance's community.

I feel like making the "All" feed more tailored to each instance would not only improve user experience but also strengthen the sense of community within each instance. What do you think? Would love to hear everyone's thoughts!

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[–] frosty99c@midwest.social 45 points 13 hours ago (2 children)

"All" is all content on the fediverse, across all instances with which your home instance is federated. It will be similar for all instances, because most are federated with the big instances and those tend to have more posts and interaction.

If you only want to see the feed of communities on your local instance, you can just browse your "Local" feed.

[–] PumpkinDrama@reddthat.com 0 points 13 hours ago (3 children)

I'm not referring to the amount of content but how it is curated. If it showed the content sorted by votes from the local instance instead of an aggregate of all instances the content would differ form instance to instance.

[–] A_Union_of_Kobolds@lemmy.world 23 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

But then you'd only be seeing your instance...?

Which is already a thing, browsing by local...?

[–] Rivalarrival@lemmy.today 17 points 13 hours ago* (last edited 13 hours ago) (1 children)

They are on reddthat.com. "Local" would show them posts from reddthat.com communities; it would not show them posts from lemmy.world communities.

Suppose a post on a lemmy.world community is downvoted by the fediverse in general. However, that same post is highly popular among reddthat.com users, for whatever reason.

This user would like that post to appear high in reddthat.com/all, even though it would not appear high on lemmy.world/all.

The idea is kinda interesting. "all" is not the right category for it, but the idea of instance-peer curation has merit.

[–] kate@lemmy.uhhoh.com 13 points 12 hours ago* (last edited 12 hours ago) (1 children)

to me this feels more like a sort option than entire feed, since it'll be the same content as the all feed. like the idea though

[–] johsny@lemmy.world 1 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

Voyager has a sort option in all that is called “scaled”, which I think does what the op wants?

[–] kate@lemmy.uhhoh.com 4 points 7 hours ago

no i think op is asking for a voting sort that's counting only votes from your own instance

[–] LibertyLizard@slrpnk.net 13 points 12 hours ago

All means all, it’s not meant to be curated.

That said, it sounds like you are suggesting more of another sorting algorithm. Could be a neat idea.

[–] kat@orbi.camp 8 points 13 hours ago

That would make it unusable for single user instances....

[–] Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world -2 points 11 hours ago

Sir, this a Wendys. Frostys are no longer 99 cents either. Unless you ean that teenie tiny trial size.

[–] Kolanaki@pawb.social 26 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

Because "All" is everything, from every instance? You can already do what you want with "Local."

[–] chaospatterns@lemmy.world 3 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

Its only everything from other instances and communities that the current instance subscribes to. It doesn't subscribe to the full pipe of everything.

What's likely happening is people in aggregate generally subscribe to the most popular communities and those communities have the most upvoted posts.

[–] poVoq@slrpnk.net 4 points 9 hours ago

Technically true, but since this tool got widely adopted it does mean pretty much a full pipe of everything: https://lemmy-federate.com/instances

[–] Coelacanth@feddit.nu 19 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

I don't think changing the default behaviour of the All feed is wise, but adding a sorting option like Hot(Local) or something to the All feed to see what is trending in terms of votes from your local instance could be interesting for medium sized instances. But for any small or tiny instance this would be essentially worthless so it would have to be optional.

[–] Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world 4 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

No need to add it. It exists. Just switch the view from "All" to "Local" and sort by "Hot".

[–] Coelacanth@feddit.nu 7 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

No, that would show posts made on your local instance sorted by Hot. Not global posts but sorted by what's voted Hot by your instance's users.

[–] Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world 0 points 10 hours ago (1 children)
[–] Microw@lemm.ee 3 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

No, they clarified that they want the All feed from across the fediverse to be able to be sorted/curated according to the local instances preferences

[–] Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world 0 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

That's what local is! Your instace's local feed. I feel like we're agreeing with each other, but there's some confusion.

[–] Microw@lemm.ee 6 points 7 hours ago

No, your local feed only shows posts from communities hosted on your instance.

The all feed shows posts from communities hosted anywhere in the Threadiverse. The OP wants this, content from anywhere, but sorted/tailored by interactions your local users made.

[–] southsamurai@sh.itjust.works 14 points 11 hours ago

Well it is a little different because it won't include instances your instance is defederated from.

But what you're wanting is essentially why subscriptions are there

That being said, an instance curated feed alongside the all feed and local would be a cool option.

Using your example, literature.cafe having an admin selected feed of communities relating to writing would be awesome.

But, there aren't actually many instances where that would be useful, since there aren't that many focused on specific subjects.

The all feed is there for everything federated, and that doesn't need to change. It's a big part of how and why the fediverse is so cool. So fucking with it is a bad idea. Adding in options is nice, but the lemmy development has a roadmap that's pretty focused on functionality and stability, so don't expect this kind of addition soon

[–] Steve@communick.news 14 points 13 hours ago

That's what the local feed is for.
I'm constantly surprised by people who don't seem to understand what ALL means.

[–] rglullis@communick.news 10 points 13 hours ago

Because then it wouldn't be "all" any more.

You could do something like that, where instance admins choose what they believe is more relevant, but then it would be better to call it "featured" or "curated"...

[–] coldsideofyourpillow@lemmy.cafe 9 points 5 hours ago* (last edited 5 hours ago)

All fetches content from every* instance that your instance knows about. In my opinion, making it different per instance is a horrible idea, because it would mean that some content may or may not be visible from a particuoar instance, and I'd have to keep checking different instances. Not to mention this would be confusing for people new to Lemmy (e.g. "why does this instance's All look different from that one's? I thought instances didn't matter?")

*except defederated instances, of course.


edit: So, thanks to this comment, I understood what you're requesting, and it does seem like an interesting idea. However, rather than a seperate feed, this should just be a sort option.

[–] Jake_Farm@sopuli.xyz 9 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

The all feed is all federated instances. If you want a different one you would have to find one federated to different instances. And if it was tailored, it wouldn't be "all" now would it.

[–] A_Union_of_Kobolds@lemmy.world 5 points 13 hours ago (2 children)
  • browse /all/new

  • block every instance/comm/poster I don't wanna see

It's that simple 🤷‍♂️ if I see something new I don't like, boom, list get bigger.

[–] Microw@lemm.ee 3 points 9 hours ago

That works if you never ever want to change your mind about not seeing stuff. Otherwise it sounds like a nightmare

[–] Jake_Farm@sopuli.xyz 2 points 12 hours ago

Oh I thought that was assumed.

[–] seeigel@feddit.org 7 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

There should be another feed, besides subscribed, local and all, that shows the channels that are relevant to the instance.

This idea relates to custom collections: https://lemmy.world/post/26654286

[–] catloaf@lemm.ee 2 points 9 hours ago (2 children)

How do you define "relevant to the instance"?

[–] Rivalarrival@lemmy.today 2 points 8 hours ago

Posted, commented, or voted on by members of your instance, without counting what the rest of the fediverse is doing with it.

[–] JayGray91@fedia.io 1 points 6 hours ago

Can only speak for myself, but anything the instance admin deems related. Or voted / suggested by their members.

[–] eatham@aussie.zone 4 points 1 hour ago

All is meant to be everything, local exists for what you are talking about.

[–] Blaze@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 13 hours ago

You are local for the Local feed. Example for literature.cafe: https://literature.cafe/

There is indeed some plan to tweak the All feed, but it's usually quite light: https://lemmy.zip/post/33065677

[–] poVoq@slrpnk.net 3 points 10 hours ago* (last edited 9 hours ago)

I agree, the all feed is commonly misunderstood to mean all of the Lemmyverse, but this is both a technical impossibility and also a false notion.

What the all feed actually means is all communities subscribed to by a member of your instance.

Especially on thematic, not too big, instances this can be quite interesting and definitely more useful that a bland feed of everything mixed together.

Obviously the bigger the instance, the more the all feed will tend to conform to a bland mix, and somewhat controversially a lot of instances are registered with a bot service that actively auto-subscribes each to other communities making the effect much worse.

[–] TachyonTele@lemm.ee 1 points 10 hours ago

How have you been here for a year and don't know you can sort your feed?