I don't like Fediverse explainers that show the logos of different Open Source software with networked edges between them.
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Evan Prodromoureplied to Evan Prodromou on last edited by
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.
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Robert W. Gehlreplied to Evan Prodromou on last edited by
@evan I agree -- every time I talk about the fedi, I find it hard to talk about the fact that it's a bunch of heterogeneous services that are self-hosted.
But I have to start somewhere, so I use similes and those simple pictures... and in the back of my mind I have the same critique you're making.
Any suggestions for a simple visual?
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Evan Prodromoureplied to Evan Prodromou on last edited by
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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Julian Fietkaureplied to Evan Prodromou on last edited by [email protected]
@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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Robert W. Gehlreplied to Evan Prodromou on last edited by
@evan This is one slide I've used before -- kind of what you're saying. But it's still Mastodon-centric
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Evan Prodromoureplied to Julian Fietkau on last edited by
@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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@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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@rattletat most servers do not communicate with a single instance of each software package, no.
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@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, ...)".
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@rattletat where did you get the 30 figure for network density, by the way? It's an interesting figure.