Not really, you probably can already see the posts on your frontpage feed (which is exclusive for your subscribed communities) and it also already should appear on your subscribed list.
And as the other user said, it is a bug that it appears as pending. At least on desktop when it days that I reload the page and press the subscribe button twice and it fixes, alternatively on the app "connect for lemmy" I have never seen the issue. But regardless it's not really a problem
Op, try presding this teo communities and subscribe just to check it's working properly
After you verify they are working feel free to unsubscribe of course.
Edit: after reading it again I'm a bit confused to what your problem is, so here is a quick run down of jow things should work.
From your own account, use the search bar to search for a community in another instance, there try to see button for about community (it might be different on each app) and lastly press subscribe. From yhere, all your subscriptions should appear the same regardless of where they come from.
You are doing it right, even on desktop it's the same thing. All one needs to do is search for a community from other instance in your own indtance and subscribe, you can even subscribe for communities outside of lemmy like kbin and beehaw
I'm a bit sad when it comes to smaller communities that have been struggling with content, problem is that for some of those hobbies it took a lot of time to reach a user base in reddit where there were discussions and interesting posts every day, here while I see a lot of committed users trying their bests some communities are simply unable to reach that level yet.
I am hopeful for the future, but in my case it's about people just learning how to use it which is something I kind of saw in Mastodon this past year. The way for content to remain high quality is through moderation and setting the example, not simply by being difficult for casual users since in my eyes they are needed in this kind of forums.
While there is less reddit content I do feel this past week it just got replaced with meta/threats, and personally it has been kind of even more tiring than reddit content as it has tended to feel like an echo chamber where everyone read the same post and spread a lot of negativity about how Lemmy won't survive Meta if we don't block instances that don't block threats and the like and also the idea going around that if someone wants to federate he is either ignorant or stupid, and talking about that, the elitism on this threats treating everyone on insta and threats as stupid people and saying they don't sant any of those people here because it dumbs down the content... This last week has been really toxic on the larger communities.
Sorry for that little rant, I had to get that out of my system jeje.
For me while scrolling through a threat I upvote those that I agree with and leave alone those that I disagree, unless it's done in an asshole kind of way which I kind of despise.
But if I make a post I do tend to upvote everyone which I kind of justify as "rewarding" people for interacting with me.
Be the change you want to see in the world!
Also sub to smaller and more contrnt specific instances? Personally I have been having fun interacting with communities from my hobbies (most specifically manga) and at the end of the day that's what matters most.
I don't mind reading about reddit on the reddit community, but the fact people can't shut up in non related communities annoys me to no end, the circlejerking is insane.
It's like, people go to asklemmy and ask "don't you feel this is so MUCH better than reddit, people are way nicer and have higher IQ", like dude come on.
Also another one is people bashing reddit for no reason, like a post that said that reddit doesn't respect free speech and showed a threat lf deleted comments with no context, as if that was a bad act in itself some people talk about moderation as if it was a bad thing done over in the bad reddit
When you say that there is no technical way, you sre referring to users not being able to block instances right?
If it's that I don't think it is that difficult to implement, Mastodon already allows for that. And also the app "connect for lemmy" in its last update has given the option to block instances user level, I don't really know yet if it blocks all users from that indtance from appearing or only communities as I haven't tested it yet.
Regardless to say, if we can get the appropriate tools this definitely could be a decision for users to take, if we make it so that they can completely block any and all content coming from a big instance.
No no, socialims is when I have two cows and the government eats one of them (or something like that, I didn't advance much in my theory)
Did it do something?
Jaja I understand the need for time, we will see how things develop.
Just as an aside note, the idea of "at least my racist uncle won't join" is lowkey funny to me. It shouldn't matter if he joins, we have tools for banning and most people should already shun that behavior. After all, it's not like racism is safeguarded against because we keep normies out, at least two huge instances on the fediverse currently (or forks from it) are alt right cesspools. And I have seen a few andrew tate fans and also some racist pricks both over at madtodon and here, it's not like only kind people join this kind of places, but as long as we moderate properly it shouldn't be much of a problem.