It is an amazingly attractive quick introduction to the Fediverse and it guides people to open Fediverse alternatives for the closed platforms that they are currently used to.
@Stefan Bohacek Mobilizon is an event planner. But that's it. It will not cover the social networking and microblogging aspects of Facebook, and I'm not sure how well it does Facebook-style discussion groups.
@jupiter_rowland I really appreciate you taking the time to explain the differences, but I'm just going to defer to the wiki I'm linking to. It still sounds like this is something people who use Facebook might be interested in checking out as a replacement, and the wiki page explains better why it's considered an alternative.
At this point my suggestion would be to perhaps go ahead and update the wiki itself, if you think there's a better way to describe the service.
How many people remember the 90's? Back before corporate controll? I do and I remember being able connect a jabber server to a Yahoo chat service to a Google chat service to facebook chat to twitter ....
Every single service is a new and often weird word, so that’s not plain language.
Example: People care about their Twitter network, which of the five weird names should they choose to replicate Twitter? There’s no indication. Not to mention none are all that similar to Twitter user base, which leads to disappointment.
@atomicpoet@stefan@fediversenews So why is there a statement like if you like Twitter try one of these 5 random services. Like I said it’s setting up a new user for an expectation that is almost 100% going to end in disappointment.
@atomicpoet@stefan@fediversenews I don’t know if you’re arguing just to argue but I’m just at my patience limit.
This newbie explainer is implying EVERYONE is reachable on the fediverse, that it’s universal like email.
@atomicpoet@kynyc@stefan@fediversenews Comparing by function and comparing by community are both useful. Without explaining the distinction, the site as is may make more sense to a technical audience than a general audience.
@slowenough@kynyc@stefan@fediversenews It's impossible to say, "This is what this service's community is like" because the reality of federation is that each server hosts a different community.
Any intro to mastodon or fediverse which didn't communicate this would be incomplete, no? (Unless you, say, recommend and assume the community of mastodon.social and similarly-run big servers if you're talking about Mastodon.)
@atomicpoet@slowenough why are you even talking about mastodon? Other than being 1st why would a user of that page choose that over the the one that sounds like a spreadsheet or any other of 5.
You state:
in easy-to-understand words -- what the Fediverse is, how it works, and what to try.
All the names are gibberish and also there’s a ton of them. What to try, well sure there’s not differentiating between them and also what you try will not be similar in experience, but this is obscured.
@atomicpoet@stefan@fediversenews I have a fediverse account but for some reason, I can not reach anyone in the world, as claimed. Nor my friends or any celebrities not named mark ruffalo.
That's a fantastic site. I really like the presentation, and the info given is very helpful. Thank you for your work, Stefan, and thanks for sharing, Chris.
One slight suggestion because I'm a total #news hound. Maybe add "or news" to this sentence? :)
"And every major social media site has a great alternative in the fediverse, so it doesn't matter if you're into sharing images, videos, or short quips."
@potungthul@atomicpoet@stefan@fediversenews Bit off topic, and probably best in a language group (are there any? There should be), but it’s too late. It’s well established that all nouns can be verbed. And now prepositional adjective phrases can be nouned.
You will probably be unhappy if you learnt the etymology of many words that were imported, misheard, butchered, re-engineered with local grammar and set loose to breed more words.
@MetalSamurai
I am unhappy about the unnecessary ambiguity caused by ignoring grammar of the parts of speech. For example, the word hammer can be verb or noun, but if you take the verb, and convert that to a noun, you could mean the action of hammering, or the actual tool the hammer itself. In this case, "on board" as a verb may mean to be on board, or the action of becoming on board. Ambiguity, all because we were too lazy to say "bring on board".
@potungthul@atomicpoet@stefan@fediversenews Please do not check the definitions of cleave, sanction or bi-weekly. I have given up throwing my hands in the air when Americans say they want to “table something” at a meeting and promptly remove it from the agenda instead of correctly adding it.
Words are made of amorphous goo and fighting it will end in tears.
@MetalSamurai
You are absolutely right. I protest only because it is my nature to balk against creating even more ambiguity where previously language meant something.
Eventually language will degenerate into a single word that will mean anything of which we happen to be thinking at the moment:
"smurf!"
@potungthul@atomicpoet@stefan@fediversenews If you’re interested you could join the campaign against “I could care less”. Canute, Sisyphus and the little boy with his finger in the dyke have all said they’d lend a hand just as soon as they’ve finished the thing they’re in the middle of just now. With all this support, I’m confident about this one.
@MetalSamurai
I know it seems hopeless. Still, it's the principle of the thing, not to take the rest way out. That's why I am here and not on the bird site.
@atomicpoet@stefan@potungthul, @MetalSamurai, the increasing popularity of the ignorant leads to the death of the proper meaning of words. I love to verbinate words or add some silly adjectivication to them. I do so purely for the comedic affect, it's fun to play with words. Luckily I'm not admired by many and therefor have very little influence over the way people speak. 😁
Suffixes help label the part of speech of a word, so I have no problem with getting an invitation, just an invite.
There will always be lazy people in the world, and there will always be a place for those who show how it's supposed to be done.
@stefan Wow! Thanks! :) my main take so far is re:basic structure. I get that you’re looking at this as an on-boarding tool rather than a resource (and nice wiki btw!) but I feel like it needs a bit more ease of breakout for deeper dives along the way than a note at the beginning. Obviously you can’t restructure the whole thing, but maybe a “link to wiki” button on each page so they can jump out to there rather than trying to incorporate too much onto each step? YMMV ofc. 👍
@stefan Sorry , for clarification : meaning this is a “pause here and get more info before you progress” concept rather than “return to start”. I feel like it might make the process smoother for more cerebral types without losing the fwd momentum for jump-on-in types. 😀
@cautionwip Thank you, really appreciate you sharing this! Definitely going to give this some more thought.
And just FYI, if by wiki you are referring to https://joinfediverse.wiki, I did not make that one, only linking to it, and other great resources I've found.
Like you said, I just wanted to make a very basic intro that connects more in-depth sites and discovery tools.
@stefan My misread, I thought you were involved in it somehow, which on second thought, is rather obvious given the circumstances (ie, nobody can do everything and this isn’t a job). 😀
@stefan Lol. No worries, & thanks for the smile. :) I’m on strong painkillers of late, & it makes me a bit fuzzy. Not looking for sympathy, just sharing for context. 👍
@atomicpoet@stefan@fediversenews
Brilliant!
I love it. I'm not an expert and get lost at times. I wish that had been around when I was struggling to get my head around it.
Thank you. Recommended!
I am not sure this is something I know how, or even want to solve myself though.
I know Mastodon is making the sign up process easier by suggesting their main instance as the default one in their official app, but making it easy to pick something else.
For now I'd like to keep this site really simple and let each network work this out on their own.
@stefan@atomicpoet I think the best idea is to have a site that takes your location, and gives you 3 random instances. I always recommend mid tier personally. Then recommend you read their terms of service. If you don't like their terms or the names, you can re-roll for 3 new different ones. Too many choices can be a serious issue.
Also asking if they consider themselves free speech absolutists, shunt them over to pluroma.
@stefan@anubis2814@atomicpoet hmmm
one page…where do you want to go?
Are you interested in General Discussions? Insert rotating list 5 of top 20 biggest.
Are you looking Games? Insert rotating list of 5 Are you interested in the Queer Community **? Insert list of top 5…
Are you interested in Sports? Insert rotating list
Are you interested in joining a communities from specific regions: Insert…
Are you interested in something more adult:
Are you interested in the revolution:
Still don’t know? Try a general instance. You can always move if you don’t feel comfy there or if you find a community you want to be in more. It’s your choice.
** I don’t like this name but I couldn’t come up with a better one. I don’t find it inclusive enough. And I am sure there are other topics that might be more instinctively important (like Music) but I think it’s important to call out that we let everyone play here, as long as they play by the rules.
@LucyWildboots@atomicpoet@stefan I'm actually against specific instances for the average person personally. I think most people don't fit into one bucket and that adds extra complications. Specific instances are good for content creators or artists, they just add complications for the average nobody.
@anubis2814@atomicpoet@stefan Yea, no. Queers first want to know if/where the rest of the family is and will they be safe there. And at least once a week I see an ask for finding the black community. And I promise you the kink community (what there is) and the people who go to places like Kollectiva want to go to those communities. There are a lot of communities here going about there business and nobody knows they can joint them. I’d rather they get that chance to find home the first time.
Even Maslow's hierarchy of needs prioritizes physiological. Obviously that doesn't exist in the digital space, but it absolutely does matter where you 'call home'.
I feel comfortable exploring and standing in the Fediverse because my portal admin is engaged in protecting me from those who wish me harm.
@LucyWildboots@atomicpoet@stefan Ok then yeah I'd say asking if you have an identity or ideology might be a better option. joinmastodon lumps them all together as if they were an "interest". options for finding safe spaces are essential.
@atomicpoet@stefan@LucyWildboots though an easy fix if they are looking for specific communities is to just send them to the joinmastodon page that puts down theme based groups. Sadly there are no ways to detect and filter ideology and number of moderators on a large scale.
The preferred device and platform could be asked (Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS, stock Android, de-Googled Android...), then whether you need a dedicated app, or if you can/intend to use a browser. If you only ever use an iPhone, and you absolutely need a dedicated app, then everything is out that can't be used through an iOS app.
Text formatting?
( ) Yes → Mastodon is out
( ) No → only Mastodon + forks without Markdown
( ) Don't care → no influence
Similar with quotes. Similar with maximum length for your own posts.
Like Japanese culture/anime/manga?
( ) No → MissKey as a whole is out; same goes for instances with an otaku/weeaboo focus elsewhere
And so forth.
Maybe there could be a question if you may be interested in an instance for people in your town/city/area, but only if not all projects that have local/regional instances are already out. The questions where you live would only go on for as long as it still makes sense. If you've already ruled Mastodon out, and all local/regional instances on your continent are on Mastodon, then there won't be a question in which country you live, etc.
In fact, the first question should be what you want to replace in the first place. It isn't always Twitter, so the solution can't always be Mastodon.
@jupiter_rowland@atomicpoet@stefan@LucyWildboots I think mastodon is going to be the default, so people will only go with misskey if they are given a reason to. As a friendica user I forget there are a lot of app differences and formatting issues.
Either only Mastodon instances will be suggested because "Mastodon is the standard"/"Mastodon is the default"/"The Fediverse is Mastodon"/whatever, maybe actually because whoever designs something like this doesn't know that the Fediverse is more than Mastodon.
Or you get some more or less hidden setting that allows you to choose an instance of another project. If you don't, you only get Mastodon. Result: still 99.99% Mastodon instances being chosen.
What should actually happen is all projects being treated equally, at least all with the same purpose. If there's an Akkoma instance or a CalcKey instance that fits you, then it should be suggested. And if someone demands quotes or text formatting, then they shouldn't get Mastodon slammed into their faces over and over and over again as if there was nothing else.
Or if someone is looking for a replacement for Facebook or Instagram, they shouldn't only get Mastodon instances to pick. The Instagram replacement in the Fediverse is Pixelfed. And the number one Facebook replacement is Friendica, and it has been that since 2010.
Add comment