If you where to try and explain the Fediverse to someone, how would you explain it with it’s different instances? As well as explain why it is better in some ways for the future of the Internet?

  • Arthur_Leywin@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    It worked for me. Also since you’re so critical about the email analogy, what’s your solution?

    • MudMan@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      Literally saying nothing.

      The wonders of interoperability are a small anecdotal thing for techheads. You don’t need to think about that at all, barring some edge cases or being lightly confused by somebody posting more than 500 characters on Mastodon.

      You just… tell people Mastodon is like Twitter or Kbin is like Reddit and let them have at it. A million federation evangelists will answer their questions in three months when they ask how come they got a notification from being quoted on a different platform or something.

      • Arthur_Leywin@lemmy.ml
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        1 year ago

        How should those federation evangelists explain it? You’ve basically just passed the job to someone else lol

        • MudMan@kbin.social
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          1 year ago

          Yes, but crucially I’ve passed the job to someone else who is a) already doing that full time in excruciating, obnoxious detail, and b) who is behind the massive barrier to entry that is making an account and starting to use the service.

          By that point the people asking the question already know the basics and are engaged. At that point the problem is stopping people from scaring them away by overexlpaining federation, not getting them to understand how it works. It’s not the same.

          • Arthur_Leywin@lemmy.ml
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            1 year ago

            already doing that full time in excruciating, obnoxious detail

            How would this person describe The Fediverse?

            • MudMan@kbin.social
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              1 year ago

              Constantly, through obtuse similes that only make sense if you already understand what is being explained to you and mostly to each other, rather than to anybody who wouldn’t know.

              But still, by that point you have an account, so you’re already set.

                • MudMan@kbin.social
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                  1 year ago

                  Okay, look, I’m being mildly facetious here, but the genuine, serious point is that the differences interoperability introduces aren’t that big of a deal in common use, they’re not a selling point to average users and there are plenty of readily available resources to catch up after the fact.

                  The selling points should be about the features and content. You seriously don’t need a tutorial on interoperability before making an account, just perhaps a suggestion of a good default instance to join on the service of your choice.

              • anarchost@lemm.ee
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                1 year ago

                skeletons all looking at you

                Imagine being on the Fediverse and not wanting to explain to everybody how it’s the best thing since sliced bread

          • slacktoid@lemmy.ml
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            1 year ago

            That weirdly makes sense. I hate it. But kinda makes sense with some people.