I introduced kbin to someone today who asked what the fediverse was. I answered for them of course, but it made me realize that the concept is still technobabble for most people. The average joe probably doesn’t care or notice that server A is really talking to server B. Just have them find out on their own and if a mass migration does need to happen from A to B, just make a standard announcement.
Here’s what would I say when introducing Kbin to someone:
“…So Kbin is a lot like Reddit; you can pretty much upvote and downvote stuff, you can post stuff that you wanna post, you can follow people, you can save posts by simply ‘boosting’. But here’s the deal: you can also access posts from other sites like Kbin, and you can write microblogs! With what’s going in Reddit, I think it’s safe to say that Kbin is here to stay.”
I don’t really agree with this because the fediverse is not only interconnected by a technology (ActivityPub) but also by some shared values, like inclusivity and kindness to each other.
so for me it’s important to agree to embrace those values if you want to be part of it. it’s not just a replacement for other platforms. users that experienced the twitter migration know what I’m talking about.
if an instance becomes toxic, il will simply be de-federated and continue to live on its on , on a secular island (a good example of this is thruth.social, who is not accessible from mastodon.social for obvious reasons). I really don’t want this to happen to here.
so please let’s keep what was on reddit on reddit and build something new here.
While I agree that it’s important for people to have an understanding of the values that the fediverse are founded upon, as well as associated etiquette, I still don’t think that the fediverse itself needs that much of an explanation for people to reach that understanding. Though platforms may provide tools that can be used for malice, a tool is only ever as good or bad as the intent of the person using them. I don’t think someone necessarily has to understand the technical aspects of the fediverse to know how to treat others. Maybe to put things in better perspective, like how much of a communal aspect there is to the efforts that maintain this network, but I think most people will get to that understanding on their own regardless if it’s truly in their intent. Inclusivity and kindness aren’t concepts that are unique to the fediverse, but human concepts that people learn, and unfortunately unlearn over entire lifetimes. And above all, I believe the best way to teach and convey values to one another will also always be the most intuitive: by example.
I think that it’s important for users to know where they are.
and I think that it’s critical to fight technological illiteracy, raise awareness about how it works, who’s developing it, who’s paying for it. it doesn’t need to be complex, but the main concept need to be explained, and thus let users be actors of their digital life.
in my opinion it’s important to take any opportunity to do so.
the online courses from the totem project about digital security and privacy are very well done and easy to follow, if anyone is interested:
https://totem-project.org
I don’t agree. The term “Fediverse” must be mentioned at the very beginning of the introduction - the decentralized network must be understood as the basis of the whole. People have made the mistake for too long of selling Mastodon to people as the Fediverse - that’s just wrong.
and the fediverse is also about value of inclusivity. it goes beyond a technological ideal.
I initially downvoted you because I disagree, but then changed my mind because it’s still a valid opinion. Personally, I agree with OP. People are being scared off by confusion in trying to understand what the fediverse is. While I agree it’s good to mention the fediverse and the distributed nature, it’s often coming across as the main thing and I think it’s counter-productive. People will come to understand it just fine if they can just be left to dive in without befuddling them. I think getting them on board is more important than it being in the fediverse.
I think what scares people off is looking for an explanation and seeing 15 page documents or 30 minute videos explaining it.
“Fediverse lets different sites talk to each other. It’s like if Facebook could follow people on Twitter and subscribe to subreddits so now your Facebook page has Facebook posts, reddit Twitter posts, and reddit posts all in one, if you want. If you join a site on the fediverse, you can communicate with any other site on the fediverse easily.” 3 sentences gets the job done for what’s needed.
One they’re in kbin or whatever, they can learn the site. “oh a magazine is like a subreddit or like channels in a discord server” or whatever they’re used to.
I wish that’s how it was explained to me. I’m not massively into technology but it interests me casually so I was able to put up with the long explanations because it felt interesting to me. But it really could be boiled down so much more for newbies.
I agree it’s not important to introduce and/or explain the Fediverse at length, but the concept probably cannot be ignored completely either.
People migrating from Reddit are faced with the choice between Lemmy and kbin, and a bunch of different servers. Telling them that “which one you choose doesn’t matter that much, as they will all talk to each other anyway” is probably of some relevance.
The differences among instances really do matter.
If Stormfront opens an instance tomorrow, would you say it makes no difference because they will all talk to each other anyway? You shouldn’t. The example of Mastodon shows they won’t all talk to each other, often for very good reasons. Like “that instance is literally Stormfront.” You can expect that instance to have Nazi moderation policies, to normalize Nazism and to engage in Nazi brigading.
Imagine an average Redditor lands on one of the main Lemmy instances, where everyone (on penalty of excommunication) holds that Stalin Did Nothing Wrong, that Ukrainian culture and language should be exterminated and submerged in the Russian Empire, and so on. If that Redditor doesn’t really understand that the instances are different in viewpoint and policy, they can reasonably conclude that the Fediverse is dominated by tankies. Meanwhile, despite their faults, Twitter and Reddit still exist and are not so clearly dominated by people who like to promote genocide. What does the average user think?
