The current default “Homepage” value is “All”. That makes sense for users with zero subscribed magazines, so they see something.
But for users with one or more subscribed magazines, the default value for “Homepage” needs to be “Subscriptions”.
That’s partially just because subscriptions mean little if the default frontpage ignores them. But there’s a more important reason than that.
The current situation is that posts in m/Conservative are heavily downvoted, and barely upvoted. (Whatever your politics may be, consider if this was happening to you.) As more ex-redditors join, this problem is likely to worsen.
Eventually moderators need better controls, to say things like “Only members can vote”, etc.
But for now, a very easy fix is to change the default value of “Homepage” to be “Subscriptions”. Of course, “All” should still be a selectable option for those who prefer it.
Eeeh…
It seems to me like people have quickly identified the group you are attempting to get started (Or simply looked to see that you were), and it’s a group that is almost always involved in contention and drama at best, and actively causes problems in the community otherwise.
It’s the first thing I did, anyway. And I downvoted the OP, because it was clearly presenting the most optimistic version of the situation not the one that usually follows - and I don’t want to deal with it here. You still seem pretty… I duno. “Willfully ignorant” of the context around a lot of communities and media that identify as conservative. It’s baggage that really can’t be ignored, even if you should be allowed the opportunity to move past it occasionally - ignoring it seems disingenuous.
I’ve been ignoring that and attempting to focus on other things you’ve mentioned, eg the above scenario with search results and how federation works. Because regardless of my feelings about other things, we could still have a productive conversation about other issues.
I would not enjoy holding a “reasonable” conservative opinion (subjective, I’m not saying that as an insult) and be faced with the challenge of trying to establish a community for it on an instance like this or many others with a heavily progressive lean.
Which really does lead me to saying that starting your own instance really is in your best interest. If your instance behaves well, other instances won’t blacklist it, and it will be standing on its own feet and won’t have to deal with admins that would likely be personally difficult to deal due to that context.
It could even become a force for positive conservatives. That would be a good outcome for everyone - I would like to see divides healed.