Even though federation has led to racists and/or NATO defenders showing up, I've also encountered a number if very cool people from other instances posting things like helpful advice on federation stuff, vivid descriptions of getting vored by a pack of anthro-hyenas, interesting insights and opinions on Star Trek lore, etc. I still haven't found much in the way of active hobby communities, but it's pretty cool to see more Star Trek and furry stuff in the timeline, and I feel it makes having to deal with the occasional deranged lib worth it.
Anyways, to all the genuinely cool people who wander into Hexbear threads, I'm very glad you've showed up to bless us with your wonderful posts and I hope you stick around.
The only way hobby communities will become active is through member contribution, just saying. I mod a couple, one that has 500+ subs yet I'm commonly the only one populating it. We need more nerds helping.
My hobby projects (mostly 3D printing and related) have been pretty slow since moving across the country for work, then getting laid off and having to move again, but I’ll hopefully be back at it soon enough.
Not sure if it counts but I’ve also been getting back into Blender/Unity for VRChat avatar stuff, which is fun. Maybe I should post about that when my avatar is decent enough to show off.
Do you know if everything from an instance is federated as soon as a single post or member of that instance interacts? Seems like it would be hard to find hobby stuff otherwise.
This I still haven't been able to wrap my head around, sorry. I've seen a couple threads explaining the nuances of federation propagation, but it's always just kind of flown over my head.
it's apparently as soon as someone subscribes. there's a script we can run to automatically populate comms.
I was aware of this, but am unsure of a really good way to search for that sort of thing. I’ve looked through the joinlemmy page and haven’t found much that really fits that, but it would be nice if there were someway to browse individual communities instead of just instances.
use the search to look for comms?
I'm trying by commenting on any niche community/post that pops up with constructive comments