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Reddit Migration @kbin.social Haunting_Tale_5150 @kbin.social

When introducing members to kbin/lemmy don't mention the fediverse!

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.

TLDR; most people's reactions to the word fediverse.

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  • 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.

    • 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 just wish we can keep the terminologies consistent, even calling magazines as subs/subreddits.
          people don't want to learn another set of terminology when all they want to just to refer to that thing they want to point to.
          i don't even like the word "boost". just give me up and down arrows and it'll be good enough.

        • This is a great analogy. I also like the comparison to emails - doesn’t matter if you’re on Yahoo or Gmail or AOL (we’re still out here!), you can communicate with each other seamlessly, though your user experiences (email features, layouts, etc) may differ.

      • 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?

          • Absolutely - I'm coming from the assumption that they are given a list of reasonable instances (for example from the kbin front page or from recommendations).

            Among a curated list of servers, it's probably best to join one without assigning too much importance to it, and rather change instance later should you be unhappy. But of course, some instances should not be considered, and some might prefer to join an instance with stricter/more lenient moderation right off the bat.

        • Which one you choose does matter though, at least for the immediate user experience.

          I don't think decoupling the content distribution system from the immediate interface works in the favor of large scale adoption of the whole system.

          We can be honest by saying something like "the particular site you sign up for will look and feel different, and the people you first encounter will have a slightly different culture, but ultimately all of these sites can and do interact with each other's users and content. It's like choosing one of twitter or facebook as your main interface but being able to read and post on either one. It's a lot more complicated to talk about than it is to use it, really. You'll see when you try it".

          Most importantly, people can start somewhere, and if they don't like the first site they choose, they can register with another. We should be finding ways to tell people this isn't the end of the world if they feel the need to go to another site to use the same overall ecosystem.

    • and the fediverse is also about value of inclusivity. it goes beyond a technological ideal.

    • The issue is that for your average Joe Schmoe, decentralization isn't really a selling point. For a lot of people, a computer is a magic box they use to visit websites, and how anything works under the hood is irrelevant. Whether it's one server or a federation of servers doesn't matter.

      I saw a lot of people bail on Mastodon before even signing up because this concept of "instances" confused them. What server do I join? Can I talk to X of I'm not on X's server? Do I need an account on each server I want to follow? This concept of multiple instances of a platform doesn't exist outside of the fediverse. Kbin just pointing you to the default instance is probably the best thing it could do for widespread adoption.

      I don't think it's fair to expect someone looking to join a new knitting community to learn about client/server relationships and federated social platforms. Point them to the main instance and give them a high level overview about the fediverse if they ask. The resources are here if they want to learn more.

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