Kbin and Lemmy should come to a consensus on how to name stuff

Is there really a reason, for example, for there to be the distinction of "magazine" and "community"? When you're federating, the same features should be called the same, if close enough. That way everyone can talk with everyone about stuff and we all immediately understand each other.

Would also alleviate confusion for any new adopters.

^I'm pretty sure this is going to be impossible though, since each sides egos will likely get in the way :D^

Gordon_Freeman,
Gordon_Freeman avatar

That's like saying Facebook and Twitter should come to a concensus on how to name stuff

Lemmy and Kbin are different platforms that are compatible with activitypub (just like other platforms in the fediverse, like peertube, friendica, pleroma or mastodon, among others)

tikitaki,
tikitaki avatar

facebook and twitter are not federated

i don't see why creating standards for less confusion would hurt anyone. i think ultimately the standards should be optional - but standards exist for a reason

Gordon_Freeman,
Gordon_Freeman avatar

But Kbin is a platform and Lemmy is a different platform, just like Twitter and Facebook are different platforms. It's just that Lemmy and Kbin use a common protocol, ActivityPub that allows interaction between different platforms. But that does not means both platforms are (or should be) the same

rodhlann,
rodhlann avatar

I feel like it's going to take awhile for people used to Facebook / Twitter / Reddit / Etc to get used to having multiple platforms that cater to the exact same audience. Lemmy / Kbin basically do the same thing, with slightly different minor features. Most people aren't used to having options.

That said I feel like having some standardized naming across the fediverse wouldn't hurt with things that are synonymous, if that's not already happening. There's a valid argument for magazines and communities not being the same thing

bionicjoey,

I think there's a case to be made that some common nomenclature should be applied to activitypub implementations. For the same reason everyone can agree that an email has a "CC" line. Even though nobody knows what "carbon copying" is anymore. It's just a standard term so everyone is speaking the same language.

Kierunkowy74,
Kierunkowy74 avatar

some common nomenclature

It already exists. The terminology is coherent, but unintuitive - any interaction is Activity, any user, erm... magazine or group is Actor, and any interaction is Activity.

Gordon_Freeman,
Gordon_Freeman avatar

I think there's a case to be made that some common nomenclature should be applied to activitypub implementations

But there's no standard when platforms on activitypub are so vastly different

peertube are is the equivalent of or youtube
lemmy is almost like reddit
Mastodon is twitter-like
Kbin is a mix between twitter and reddit
friendica is facebook
etc.

I think is ok for every platform being different, left the autors express however they want. Maybe if you are a boomer who never touched a computer or a smarthphone ever these things may be confusing, but for digital natives? really? Can't you catch this stuff on the fly? It must be true what they say, the younger the dumber, to the point kids today don't know the difference between a file and a folder

jalda,
jalda avatar

That's like saying Facebook and Twitter should come to a concensus on how to name stuff

Twitter changed Favs to Likes to copy Facebook

Azzu,

I don't think it's even close to the same. It's more like forum software everywhere calls a post a "post" and a reply a "reply" and not something else.

Both sites are link aggregators, both sites have sub groups that are meant for a specific topic that links can be posted to, this concept should have a name.

Gordon_Freeman,
Gordon_Freeman avatar

So should all news aggregators copy 2004's Digg?

FaceDeer,
FaceDeer avatar

When terminology has become a standard, who cares what specific source you're "copying" from? Use the standard words that everyone already knows the meaning of.

ikantolol,
ikantolol avatar

Would also alleviate confusion for any new adopters.

there's no need really, for new adopters or if you're planning to bring someone to the fediverse, simply do not mention anything about it being federated and just direct them to your preferred instances (in this case, kbin). Let them just learn kbin for a while before introducing the interconnected instances.

Flax_vert,

Problem is you can easily click your way into another instance, seems to be a bit more of a problem on Lemmy though rather than Kbin

AbouBenAdhem,

We could adopt the naming used by the underlying ActivityPub protocol, which for magazines/communities would be (if I’m interpreting the documentation correctly) “Shares Collections”.

Kara,
Kara avatar

Tbh "Join the Technology Shares Collection on Kbin" doesn't roll off the tongue very well, community is just the most straightforward option

Gecko,
@Gecko@lemmy.world avatar

Yeah, kbin calling "subreddits" "magazines" is one of the reasons I went for lemmy (despite the main devs questionable ideologies). For someone migrating from reddit the community == subreddit analogy makes more sense than magazine.

chamim,
chamim avatar

While I see what you mean about the names causing confusion, as I was confused myself at first, it took me very little time to adapt. Don't underestimate the users, most won't care too much about what 'subreddits' are called on each platform.

Azzu,

It's not really about the confusion, it's just unnecessary complexity. Magazines and communities for example are completely equal concepts, the only difference is the name for some reason, probably marketing or some such.

Mr_Jabroni,
Mr_Jabroni avatar

But they are not completely equal. Yes, kbin Magazines display threads just as Lemmy communities do, however Magazines have the Microblog tab where they display posts across the Fediverse that include the tags associated with them. That is extra functionality which Lemmy does not have.

tunetardis,

When I first arrived here, I assumed magazines = communities and made some flippant comment to that effect, only to be set straight by someone more knowledgeable. They essentially argued that magazines > communities on account of the fact that a hashtag within a magazine post is meaningful to kbin but not lemmy. So the different naming underscores that they are not, in fact, identical. Though to be fair, I haven’t seen a lot of posts with hashtags to date.

aroom, (edited )
aroom avatar

if you setup tags for a magazine on kbin, posts being published in the fediverse with those tags end up in the Microblog section. just check it.

Kara,
Kara avatar

I believe this only works on Kbin though, not Lemmy

aroom,
aroom avatar

Yes I’ll correct my post

planetaryprotection,

Yeah, a magazine is more like a "topic" but that's too broad of a term I think.

My understanding of the term "magazine" is that it's supposed to denote that a magazine is composed of different kinds of content that fall under the same general topic, just like a real paper magazine is a mix of content (i.e. long form articles, short essays, q&a sections, photos, the fancy CD in the back, etc.) So a kbin magazine can encompass text posts, photos, videos, microblogs, etc.

ulu_mulu,
@ulu_mulu@lemmy.world avatar

Why? This is like going to a foreign country and demand they change their laws because you don't like them.

It's fine as they are, it doesn't take much to understand how they work, a few days of confusion won't kill anyone, having everything spoonfed to you all the time is detrimental to the mind.

Kara,
Kara avatar

Agreed, it really isn't even too confusing to explain either, Kbin uses magazines, Lemmy uses communities, but they are basically the same thing. Kbin and Lemmy are separate platforms, and shouldn't be forced to use the same terminology just because they're compatible with each other.

Usernameblankface,
Usernameblankface avatar

This is very much what this is like. Kbin and Lemmy do not have to confirm to reddit's norms. I'm glad it's different here.

minorsecond,
minorsecond avatar

I just hope we don't end up calling them "sublemmys" and whatnot, like what I keep seeing suggested. Let's just make a clean break with reddit and start something new and better.

Usernameblankface,
Usernameblankface avatar

Yes, a clean break is what I'm going for.

GunnarRunnar,

I don't understand why you'd be glad the same stuff has different name depending where you are accessing it from.

And it's kinda whatever, not that hard to grasp concept of magazine=community but it's a hindrance especially to newcomers. Maybe just call them magazine-community or something to avoid confusion.

0x1C3B00DA,
0x1C3B00DA avatar

This is how language works. People will call them whatever they want and eventually everyone will learn these things are synonyms. There are even people calling them sublemmys even though that's nowhere in the UI of lemmy. Newcomers will be a little confused and then they'll learn and it won't matter.

GunnarRunnar,

That's not because of language evolving with the need for same thing from different places or nickname that's grown out of a subgroup. It's by design, kbin (afaik) is a fork of Lemmy and decided they want to use a different name - maybe because they wanted to differentiate themselves from Lemmy, I'm not sure actually why. Certainly they didn't take into account both Lemmy and kbin growing side by side both profiting from other's success. Either way, it's a failure of design for the fediverse, time will tell if it actually matters though.

(You can sure argue language works by assigning word to describe thing but usually it's meant that meanings can grow and change with time with the population.)

And I'd argue sublemmy thing is a thing at all because community-magazine thing isn't that obvious. You never heard anyone in Reddit call them anything else than subreddits or subs.

0x1C3B00DA,
0x1C3B00DA avatar

Language change doesn't have to result from a "need" for a new word. It can happen just because ppl choose to use a different word. And the developer of kbin is a Polish speaker. Maybe he chose "magazine" because the Polish word makes more sense to him than "community" (I know about the rifle pun. Wordplay works even better when there are multiple meanings)

Either way, my point is we currently have at least 4 words to describe these things (group, community, magazine, sublemmy). Users will coalesce on one or learn that they're all synonymous and won't even notice when someone uses a different term than they use

GunnarRunnar,

Yeah, language can be changed by a (conscious?) design decision. But whether that change is necessary is up to debate and just because you could doesn't mean you should.

Some users will learn the terms and some won't but what I mean is that it's a hindrance either way. And defense isn't "that's language" the defense is "that's my design vision".

cutitdown,

Saying they should do something isn't a demand. To me, it'd be more akin to the EU sharing currency, various regulations, etc. It just makes things easier for those within it and tends to be mutually beneficial, but it does take same to find agreements that every member is cool with.

Mintyytea,

I feel like it’s not that bad to be uniform in some ways though. There’s lots of different email sites, but the way they’re organized/labelled is very similar.

I feel like if you want that kind of beautiful system where everything’s decentralized yet still able to talk to each other, then it’s better if some things are standard.

Even the general strategy kbin,lemmy, mastodon use have similarities to be able to talk to each other. They’re all on the fediverse.observer where we can see all their stats in one place. There was uniformity in a good balance. All three of these use activity pub, which I hear is a good thing. If not, I think there would be less synchronization? And then people might say, hey, we should let everyone develop the way they like, and it’s true, but there’s a good benefit in making some stuff the same

guilherme,

@Azzu I was so confused about kbin using "magazines"...

cutitdown,

I think this could all be solved easily with some quick onboarding explaining terms when a user signs up.

JonEFive,

I think that's the issue. People really need to remember just how early Kbin is in it's development. Ernest is working on the main features and keeping the insurance alive (and doing a fantastic job of it). Tutorials usually come much later in the development cycle one the product is ready for the masses.

Kbin got super accelerated adoption because of the reddit drama. It's missing a lot of polish and even some core features. It is also a different platform from reddit with different goals and design concepts.

People coming here expecting a 1:1 replacement for reddit are frankly in the wrong place. There are plenty of reddit alternatives out there that are much more complete and are much closer to the reddit experience. If people are here, they need to be okay with using a different platform that is in active development and doesn't have all the kinks worked out yet.

HubertManne,
HubertManne avatar

oh man I wonder how often I can use this today https://xkcd.com/927/

andyburke,
andyburke avatar

Don't even need to click the link to know what you're sharing.

swnt,

Haha, exactly my thoughts as I saw that link

planetaryprotection,

Every now and then I think "Why isn't X thing standardized?! Why hasn't somebody sane come along to save us form this mess!" And then I think of that strip and realize why lol

danc4498,

If we're taking a vote, I think "Magazine" is a dumb name. I saw that and had no idea what it was supposed to be.

Honestly, this specific post is the first I am realizing that "Magazine" is the equivalent of a subreddit.

Edit: if I'm being honest, I thought Community was a dumb name too.

Azzu,

There should be no vote, it should just be decided between the lead devs. Users will follow and largely not care.

Cloudless,
Cloudless avatar

I nearly gave up trying kbin because of the confusing use of terms. I still dislike the term magazine, and I still don't understand the difference between threads and articles. I just want to read/write posts.

minnieo,
minnieo avatar

article = thread

FaceDeer,
FaceDeer avatar

Well, both of them are much more sensical at a glance than "subreddit." Subreddit only makes sense because of how long we've been using the term, if you came to it without prior knowledge it'd be hard to figure out the meaning.

I do agree that "magazine" is pretty terrible, though. There's no meaningful analogy between what we're doing here (threaded conversations on a particular topic) and what's in a magazine. "Community" isn't terrible, IMO, if it comes down to it I'd much prefer that one.

ekjp,

If I remember correctly subreddits actually used to be just "reddits".

JohnEdwa,
JohnEdwa avatar

Yup. When Reddit launched it was just front page, now known as the (closed down) r/reddit.com. The second they opened was nsfw, third was politics.
Subreddits were launched three years later when they allowed users to start creating their own reddits on reddit - aka sub-reddits.

cargo,

Magazine makes sense in the bigger picture when you think about. Let's break it down.

Microblog -> post. Makes sense you are posting a micro blog.
Lemmy has no concept of microblogging. So is fine using community and post naming.

Now why magazine? If you can't use post then you need an alternative and that's where article comes in. You submit an article of 4 types but what should these be in. You probably could get away with collections but something that also has articles, a magazine.

Qed magazines name (note all of this is completely made up and my justification for magazine)

agressivelyPassive,

Channels would be a way better analogy, I think.

Magazine would make sense, if the aggregated content would be more prominent. Think Google News with comment threads bolted to each entry.

ekjp,

Yeah. Every once in a while I am clicking Microblog. Is it just random comments from people? Then I am going back to the Threads. Still can't really use it properly but it happens. I don't need a replica of reddit. Once this thing settles I will figure out how to use it. Honestly though, this will turn into the same thing in a few years tops, so I am remaining much more casual now.

RoboRay,
RoboRay avatar

What you are seeing under Microblogs are mostly Mastodon posts that are flagged with the same tags as Kbin Magazines.

boothin,

microblog is the equivalent of twitter. Mastodon is the main way people engage in the microblog part of the fediverse, but kbin also has features that allow reading/commenting on/creating microblog posts

Bipta,

I prefer "bins" over "magazines" but if we wanted to sync linguistically with Lemmy it wouldn't make much sense.

Ragnell,
Ragnell avatar

So the problem with this idea is we're gonna get into a big argument about whether to keep magazines or communities and honestly just screw that. A magazine is a community, a cat is a kitty. We can have two words for things.

Edit: If we do get into it I vote for "magazine" because I went there for the topic primarily.

Flax_vert,

"Community magazines" there perfect alternative

RagnvaldG,

And we can call them ”Comzines”

sdcSpade,

Why not Magaunities? Wait, no, I see it now...

LollerCorleone,
LollerCorleone avatar

Yeah no. Both are different softwares and can perfectly coexist with their own naming conventions. There is no need to make them both exact clones of each other.

WytchStar,
WytchStar avatar

Create your own instance and name them whatever you want.

FR tho, think about what you're suggesting. Take all this decentralized content and homogenize it? Hard pass. BTDT.

FlowVoid,

That's like saying Microsoft and Sony need to settle on either "Gamertag" or "PSNID", because otherwise Call of Duty players trying to find their friends online will be confused.

I think users can figure things out.

Ni,
Ni avatar

I've found myself saying magazine/group/community to cover my bases, so having a common name might be nice.

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