From https://blog.joinmastodon.org/2018/08/mastodon-quick-start-guide/
- Home you will see posts (I refuse to say toots) of the people you’re following.
- Federated all the public posts your servers knows about from across the whole network (including local ones). The most common reason that something appears in the federated timeline is that someone from your server follows the author of that toot. This column moves fast, and can often be pretty wild. I enjoy setting that column to show only toots with media, hiding boosts, then seeing a constant stream of daft selfies, hot memes, and funky art. You may find other tech minded people here and learn of other tech type servers if you keep an eye out.
- Local is the live feed of all the posts of people on your server. For me Local is usually best.
favourite is like a like, I also read its like a bookmark however there is already a bookmark
Boost is a synonym of “reblog” or “retweet
I realized I had to unfollow someone I followed because they boost a lot of political stuff that ends up on my Home timeline