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   Evan Prodromou (evan@cosocial.ca)'s status on Thursday, 25-Jul-2024 23:56:03 JST Evan Prodromou

   I don't like Fediverse explainers that show the logos of different Open Source software with networked edges between them.

   Mastodon <-> Pixelfed <-> Lemmy <-> Peertube

   It perpetuates the idea that there is one service of each of those packages running, and the point of the Fediverse is to connect those services. And that each one is a substitute for a commercial service.

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     Evan Prodromou (evan@cosocial.ca)'s status on Thursday, 25-Jul-2024 23:57:26 JST Evan Prodromou

     in reply to

     There are 20,000+ Mastodon servers alone. Thousands of WordPress and Pixelfed servers.

     The idea that the Fediverse is about connecting 5-6 servers, one for each kind of data posted, is really misleading.

     clacke@libranet.de is my main likes this.
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     Evan Prodromou (evan@cosocial.ca)'s status on Friday, 26-Jul-2024 00:00:53 JST Evan Prodromou

     in reply to

     The Fediverse isn't about connecting software packages. It's about connecting communities and people.

     If you make a Fediverse explainer, try to show some real communities as the nodes in the network, rather than using software packages and their logos. Companies, local governments, universities, families, friend groups, individuals.

     You can explain what software makes those networks possible in your next slide.

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     Evan Prodromou (evan@cosocial.ca)'s status on Friday, 26-Jul-2024 00:31:05 JST Evan Prodromou

     in reply to

     • Julian Fietkau

     @julian yep, this is really good. I wonder if using domain names is the right way to label the bigger bubbles. So I can look and say, "Oh, acm.org, that's the ACM. stanford.edu, that's Stanford University. hci.social, that's a community of practice for HCI professionals. fietkau.social, that's a personal site for Julian. threads.net, that's a big commercial network." With the implementation software (Mastodon, Pleroma, etc.) as a secondary bit of metadata.

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     Julian Fietkau (julian@fietkau.social)'s status on Friday, 26-Jul-2024 00:31:06 JST Julian Fietkau

     in reply to

     @evan An added dimension is that there are some fediverse implementations that are indeed server monoliths, even though most are not.

     In a pitch presentation I've previously given, I tried to visualize the differences to closed social networks like this. A dot is supposed to represent one person, and Mastodon is more of a nebula than a single unit.

     I'd be open to suggestions for improvement. 🙂

     Edit: The next post in your thread has the improvement ideas. 😄 I'll take that on board, thanks!

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     Evan Prodromou (evan@cosocial.ca)'s status on Friday, 26-Jul-2024 19:56:18 JST Evan Prodromou

     in reply to

     • Micha

     @rattletat most servers do not communicate with a single instance of each software package, no.

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     Micha (rattletat@tum.social)'s status on Friday, 26-Jul-2024 19:56:19 JST Micha

     in reply to

     @evan Is it really misleading though? If you look at how servers communicate with each other, you will find that most servers only talk to 30 servers instead of 20,000+

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     Evan Prodromou (evan@cosocial.ca)'s status on Friday, 26-Jul-2024 20:17:40 JST Evan Prodromou

     in reply to

     • Micha

     @rattletat where did you get the 30 figure for network density, by the way? It's an interesting figure.

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     Micha (rattletat@tum.social)'s status on Friday, 26-Jul-2024 20:17:41 JST Micha

     in reply to

     @evan Ah I thought you were talking about instances, sorry. Yeah you are right, I think in general Fediverse explainers should not focus too much on software anyways. It's like trying to explain Email to a kid and starting with "There is Gmail, Outlook, ...)".