Hey server admins!
Do you run a small server and you wish it had a wider view of the Fediverse, with more results from searches? You might want to try using relays:
If general relays take up too many resources, try using a more specific topic or instance relay feed from FediBuzz:
@feditips I've only had a negative experience with relays, when this instance first came about 6 months ago the relays that did exist only gave me headache with unmoderated content, or spotty uptime. Is there any real difference between engaging with posts manually to gain connections, vs using a relay? It's possible the available relays are more maintained but the general thoughts I've heard on them are 50/50 split on good vs bad. Interested to hear if you've got any info/perspective on this
Have you tried the more specific relays rather than general relays?
Also yes, as I mention in the article you do need to choose relays carefully.
Manual can work too, the main advantage of relays is speeding the process up.
@feditips I ended up not trying for specific relays then, as I couldn't really find any that were online, or accepting new servers. I just engaged naturally and slowly but surely as some new folks joined, the connections count grew and such. Certainly took time, but in some ways I think the natural growth helped more, it created a community, and a more "curated" federated feed for lack of a better term haha. If there are some specific relays I may take a look, just need to make sure I check out the participating servers first. Thanks for the info, seems a good bit has changed in the past several months as far as relays go!
@feditips note to self don't relay with use relay.fedi.buzz to relay with mastodon.social you will get way to many messages.