Is the Fediverse too confusing for non-technical users?
1–10 of 18 posts
Re: Is the Fediverse too confusing for non-technical users?
#2"federation":network
"instance": server
federated feed":network feed.
"activitypub":magic glue that binds.
"mastodon":one of the backend operating systems.
other than that, what discord has done, "server" is not a weird term for those users so they understand if they join a "server" they can interact with a certain community, the same is the case here but instance is yet another terminology which takes time to understand.
Re: Is the Fediverse too confusing for non-technical users?
#3So why not use reuse pre-existing terminology? Server, is known to everyone who ever played a game.
Why throw away all the user work too learn strange cs-magic words?
At this point its almost pathologic with open source. Incapable to accept a user power assymetry. Everyone has to become an expert. Utopian visions, while leaving the users hanging out to dry in dystopian user experiences.
Year of the linux desktop 2012.
Year of the open source social network 2022.
Year of acceptance that grandma does not want to be a developer 2038.
Sorry for being bitter about this, but those who allow this to go on, are the very same are feeding the software megacorpos of this earth.
Re: Is the Fediverse too confusing for non-technical users?
#4It's just not the content they want if my 65 year old granny can figure out discord because her sewing community is there everyone else can figure out the "fediverse". There is just not enough good content for non-technical users on there. It's all a Kreiswichs as we would say in german.
Re: Is the Fediverse too confusing for non-technical users?
#5Imagine you want to make an email account. You get to choose between gmail, outlook or whatever. It doesn't matter. None of these providers are for specific communities, they're businesses, some funded by ads, some charge money. It doesn't say anything about you which provider you choose. You don't have to worry that you won't be considered a part of some community anymore and will lose your email address.
Re: Is the Fediverse too confusing for non-technical users?
#6"federation":network "instance": server federated feed":network feed. "activitypub":magic glue that binds. "mastodon":one of the backend operating systems. other than that, what discord has done, "server" is not a weird term for those users so they understand if they join a "server" they can interact with a certain community, the same is the case here but instance is yet another terminology which takes time to unders…
I think these are still technical. No social media company would pick these words, because they'd have branding. Twitter doesn't have posts, it has tweets, and retweets.
I think "federation" would be better as something like "community", and "instance" as "neighborhood" - which have real-life equivalents that someone who knows nothing about computers can understand, or at least maybe make a guess as to what they are.
Re: Is the Fediverse too confusing for non-technical users?
#7So why not use reuse pre-existing terminology? Server, is known to everyone who ever played a game. Why throw away all the user work too learn strange cs-magic words? At this point its almost pathologic with open source. Incapable to accept a user power assymetry. Everyone has to become an expert. Utopian visions, while leaving the users hanging out to dry in dystopian user experiences. Year of the linux desktop 2012…
This is a similar vibe I was getting too honestly. I checked out the git repo thinking about doing some contributions, but the more I use mastodon the less it feels like the user is being cared about at all. There's a load of cult of technology thinking going on, and choices to remove stuff users expect ('favourite' counts on the timeline) because of idealism ("it will give favouritism to posts with high counts).
Re: Is the Fediverse too confusing for non-technical users?
#8If yes then you should be glad for that. Keep the normies away. Gatekeeping is good.
Re: Is the Fediverse too confusing for non-technical users?
#9"federation":network "instance": server federated feed":network feed. "activitypub":magic glue that binds. "mastodon":one of the backend operating systems. other than that, what discord has done, "server" is not a weird term for those users so they understand if they join a "server" they can interact with a certain community, the same is the case here but instance is yet another terminology which takes time to unders…
I think these are still technical. No social media company would pick these words, because they'd have branding. Twitter doesn't have posts, it has tweets, and retweets. I think "federation" would be better as something like "community", and "instance" as "neighborhood" - which have real-life equivalents that someone who knows nothing about computers can understand, or at least maybe make a guess as to what they are.
how about a home/neighbourhood analogy then?
Re: Is the Fediverse too confusing for non-technical users?
#10"federation":network "instance": server federated feed":network feed. "activitypub":magic glue that binds. "mastodon":one of the backend operating systems. other than that, what discord has done, "server" is not a weird term for those users so they understand if they join a "server" they can interact with a certain community, the same is the case here but instance is yet another terminology which takes time to unders…
I think these are still technical. No social media company would pick these words, because they'd have branding. Twitter doesn't have posts, it has tweets, and retweets. I think "federation" would be better as something like "community", and "instance" as "neighborhood" - which have real-life equivalents that someone who knows nothing about computers can understand, or at least maybe make a guess as to what they are.
Discord uses server even for groupings that aren't associated with physical or even cloud servers.