If you where to try and explain the Fediverse to someone, how would you explain it with it’s different instances? As well as explain why it is better in some ways for the future of the Internet?

    • MudMan@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      Seriously, though? Everybody goes to the email analogy. The email analogy really doesn’t work.

      Not only does it raise more questions than it answers, but it is also not a way people conceptualize social media and it generates the false assumption that the posts themselves exist as the component units of the entire thing as opposed to being tied to the format of the instance.

      The thing is you don’t even need to bring up interoperability for somebody curious about a specific federated app. In practice, most of the experience doesn’t require wrapping your head around that part and somebody can explain the details the first time you get a weirdly formatted posts in your streams.

      • Arthur_Leywin@lemmy.ml
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        1 year ago

        It worked for me. Also since you’re so critical about the email analogy, what’s your solution?

        • MudMan@kbin.social
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          1 year ago

          Literally saying nothing.

          The wonders of interoperability are a small anecdotal thing for techheads. You don’t need to think about that at all, barring some edge cases or being lightly confused by somebody posting more than 500 characters on Mastodon.

          You just… tell people Mastodon is like Twitter or Kbin is like Reddit and let them have at it. A million federation evangelists will answer their questions in three months when they ask how come they got a notification from being quoted on a different platform or something.

          • Arthur_Leywin@lemmy.ml
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            1 year ago

            How should those federation evangelists explain it? You’ve basically just passed the job to someone else lol

            • MudMan@kbin.social
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              1 year ago

              Yes, but crucially I’ve passed the job to someone else who is a) already doing that full time in excruciating, obnoxious detail, and b) who is behind the massive barrier to entry that is making an account and starting to use the service.

              By that point the people asking the question already know the basics and are engaged. At that point the problem is stopping people from scaring them away by overexlpaining federation, not getting them to understand how it works. It’s not the same.

              • Arthur_Leywin@lemmy.ml
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                1 year ago

                already doing that full time in excruciating, obnoxious detail

                How would this person describe The Fediverse?

                • MudMan@kbin.social
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                  1 year ago

                  Constantly, through obtuse similes that only make sense if you already understand what is being explained to you and mostly to each other, rather than to anybody who wouldn’t know.

                  But still, by that point you have an account, so you’re already set.

                  • anarchost@lemm.ee
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                    1 year ago

                    skeletons all looking at you

                    Imagine being on the Fediverse and not wanting to explain to everybody how it’s the best thing since sliced bread

              • slacktoid@lemmy.ml
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                1 year ago

                That weirdly makes sense. I hate it. But kinda makes sense with some people.

      • Valmond@lemmy.mindoki.com
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        1 year ago

        Yeah my emails are not posts everyone can see.

        It’s okay for tech savvy people but I’d go with something seriously less techy.

        Like it’s social media (Reddit, twitter, but not FB I guess) it’s just that it’s not controlled by one company. It’s an enthusiast thing.

    • SamXavia@kbin.runOP
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      1 year ago

      Yeah I thought about that method but it seems to just make it more complex

        • SamXavia@kbin.runOP
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          1 year ago

          I know it’s more complex, just if you are trying to explain what the Fediverse is to someone who’s older or someone who just thinks it’s another social media instead of a whole new way of looking at the internet it’s hard to explain to that person who isn’t really looking actively for an ‘alternative’ for ‘x’ platform.

      • SamXavia@kbin.runOP
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        1 year ago

        Especially when trying to explain that Mastodon and Lemmy can’t talk together but you can still follow / subscribe to people