Explaining the fediverse is a hard problem.

Software NodeBB
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I had the opportunity to work with the team at OpenBeta on the re-launching of their community forums. They're one of our earliest v4 testers, since they've agreed to have ActivityPub enabled!

(Okay, more realistically I dragged them into it kicking and screaming, but they did provide the opportunity for the forum relaunch, so I'm taking the opportunities as they come!)

During the prep, I discussed some of the well-trodden concept of the fediverse to my co-admin, Ben (@bean@community.openbeta.io and also @bean@uvix.cc)... stuff I'm sure you've come across:

  • Fragmented nature of conversations
  • The idea of an instance
  • Content discovery with respect to the follow-relationship model

... and wouldn't you know it, it's really hard to discuss these ideas, and Ben is actually fairly well-versed! He ran his own Iceshrimp instance, so all of this wasn't exactly new to him.

Part of it was that I had been steeped in the ActivityPub dev scene for almost a year, so it's hard to step back and explain to mere mortals laymen non-developers what exactly all this ActivityPub nonsense is.

All I know it gets me thinking that I need to work with @andypiper@macaw.social on documentation!

That new NodeBB instance, by the way, is https://community.openbeta.io šŸ™‚

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I like explaining it via analogy to email, since itā€™s something even laypeople are familiar with. I mean email is federated in a sense as well, or at least it uses an open standard.

People are used to the idea that one email might be at domainone.com while another email is at domaintwo.com, but these emails can still talk to one another. Just imagine that, but instead of email, itā€™s social media actions like posting, commenting, liking stuff and such. I feel like that gets the general idea across pretty well. It doesnā€™t explain a lot of the edge cases though.

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@julian

Documentation is absolutely an essential part of it, but I think it might be worth stepping back a bit more and acknowledging that "needs more documentation" is still a techie response to this challenge.

What the Fediverse needs is a good PR person lol. It needs communication, not documentation. Communication is relating ideas to laymen and showing them why Fedi is exciting for them, not just why it's technically cool or how it works.

One of the central concepts to the Fediverse is the abstraction between content and presentation. That's really what it's all about: my instance is responsible for presentation, but the content can be viewed anywhere. And the problem is that people don't get how a Facebook post could be a Tweet. And even if they can get that, it's more confusing how a Reddit post could be an Instagram post.

For this to work and to at least get users onboard in the first place -- and I think NodeBB does a great job of this overall -- Fedi platforms need to be transparent to users. NodeBB needs to just work as a forum for forum users, and any topics posted there need to just work as a post for Mastodon users, just work as a topic for Lemmy users, etc.

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Please tag me/msg me if you want a reviewer of a draft! I have been working a little on ā€œnormal-humanā€-facing docs this month, so itā€™s not entirely selfless of me to offer!

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@bean @julian

And the problem is that people don't get how a Facebook post could be a Tweet. And even if they can get that, it's more confusing how a Reddit post could be an Instagram post.
The thing that gets me is how people don't grok this. It's still weird to me that so much of the Internet has become closed off. Growing up with email, forums, and IRC, it seems only natural that the internet is modular and portable.

And the kicker is, even people on the Fediverse have this centralized model for how it works in their mind. People behave as if everything lives in some central place, and that their chosen instance is just some kind of dumb terminal with a window. You can see it when people talk about blocking users or even other instances at the server level -- people react as if they're being denied access to some part of this central repository, rather than a website owner or community refusing to host content from actors they don't want to platform.

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@bean @julian

And the problem is that people don't get how a Facebook post could be a Tweet. And even if they can get that, it's more confusing how a Reddit post could be an Instagram post.
The thing that gets me is how people don't grok this. It's still weird to me that so much of the Internet has become closed off. Growing up with email, forums, and IRC, it seems only natural that the internet is modular and portable.

And the kicker is, even people on the Fediverse have this centralized model for how it works in their mind. People behave as if everything lives in some central place, and that their chosen instance is just some kind of dumb terminal with a window. You can see it when people talk about blocking users or even other instances at the server level -- people react as if they're being denied access to some part of this central repository, rather than a website owner or community refusing to host content from actors they don't want to platform.

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Well yea, of course, if you grew up with decentralized social technology, then it seems natural to you. If youā€™re reading this, youā€™re probably in the top 1% of tech-literate people in the world (if not top 0.1%). Unfortunately, if you are reading this, youā€™ll probably also have a hard time understanding the struggle of the remaining 99%, because you will have a hard time putting yourself in their shoes.

Reacting with astonishment about how people are not as tech-literate as you would hope is not a good path for understanding those people.

This is essentially the Curse of Knowledge. For good examples, look at some of the tag lines that appear on some fediverse app websites:

  • Lemmy: ā€œA link aggregator for the fediverseā€
  • Misskey: ā€œInterplanetary microblogging platform.:rocket:Misskey is an open source, decentralized social media platform thatā€™s free forever!ā€
  • Mbin: ā€œA federated content aggregator, voting, discussion and microblogging platform.ā€

Normal people (the 99%) do not know any of these words:

  • Link/content aggregator?
  • ā€œFediverseā€?
  • Microblogging?
  • Open source?
  • Decentralized?
  • Federated?

(Iā€™m not especially bashing Lemmy, Misskey or Mbin here, it was just some examples I found; no offense meant, this is a hard problem, lots of fediverse apps do this)

Itā€™s no surprise that the fediverse is mostly dominated by technical people, because generally the fediverse platforms do not do an amazing job at introducing and teaching people the concept of the fediverse. You will not get a ā€œnormal personā€ (non-techie person) to sign up on a site that starts out with several technical terms that they donā€™t understand.

The approach taken by Mastodonā€™s intro site is much more friendly to newcomers and I wish more apps would do the same. Pixelfed is also close though it still mentions ā€œOpen source and decentralizedā€.

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Opened a PR on fediverse.party to start incrementally improving the various ā€œlanding pagesā€ of the Fediverseā€¦ feel free to pile on if you have input! Iā€™ll open other PRs on the explainer copy as well tomorrow.

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Finally the topic Iā€™ve been waiting for. Honestly.

Tbh. I have zoned out because of this and stuff. I havenā€™t had time to distill APub and often refer back to my own past concepts that seemed to resemble activitypub to get my noodle around it.

So while I kinda get it I havenā€™t actually gotten into it.

Discourse has had it for sometime too but APub is disorientating, bottom line itā€™s like where do I start and why do I even start. Why problem has it solved?

If you canā€™t explain it in 20/30 words it will never gain mass appeal or adoption.

Even the responses on this topic, while acknowledging issues dot explain it to me. The question is not exactly answered.

I had suggested early in some UI changes to help with my own gut reaction to its interplay on community,, but as time goes on and life, life the world outside but also the inner life is the undiscovered country.

What can it do to enhance that journey?

Or are you actually (is NodeBB) on the right journey?

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@sortekanin@socialhub.activitypub.rocks

Itā€™s the word ā€œfederatedā€, that has always gotten me.

Federation yes, but in common parlance I donā€™t think Iā€™d ever come across the word federated, and so it lacks an immediate referential model, it simply doesnā€™t click.

Whereas take email as the analogy to my federated word problem.

Everyone knew what mail was, this new one was simply electronic on or in the computer! Kinda magic. No paper. Beautiful. Wow attachments. Amazing. Solves so many material burdens. Awesome.

Very easy to get conceptually, i.e. instant!

Ugh but FEDERATED!

Wtaf is federated. See/search the definition.

It a medley of things about governments organisation etc. etc. most people donā€™t rightly know how their own govs truly work and most probably perceive it doesnā€™t work they know its probably big and bloated really wasteful full of unnecessary complexities. Sucks up your life via tax blah blah blahā€¦

ā€¦but email, ah email what an incredible innovation, even granny/grandma gets it!

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I do agree that the term ā€œfederationā€ and the use of the verb ā€œto federateā€ (with its even weirder bastard cousin ā€œdefederateā€, which is not even a real word) is very unfortunate. It would be great to have a shorter and more fitting term. Something normal people would connect with more easily.

I find it especially problematic because its a word that translates poorly, at least in Danish. The Danish word for ā€œfederationā€ can also be used to mean an organization or association, which leads to further confusion. And the verbs for ā€œto federateā€ and ā€œto defederateā€ are also justā€¦ awkward and really just translate to ā€œconnectā€ and ā€œstop connectionā€ or something. Itā€™s not great.

Not that I have any alternatives to suggest honestly. And letā€™s be real, even if I did, that ship has sailed, unless we can rally a big rebranding effort for the fediverse. Such a thing does not sound easy.

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Omega, your linguistic comment on federated vs federation, surely its just the past tense?
To use your email example, 'a document has been emailed', is legitimate language, and similar to the reflective past phrase 'a site has been federated'

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@eeeee

Hey, In reverse I do the replying

  1. There was no cognitive model for the word "federated" in my head. Nothing happens when I read it. Federation. Federal. No problem here.

I genuinely never encountered the "past tense" of the word until Activity Pub hit the scene and nothing happens, no connection. If I am the dull. So be it. You know. This is really the marketing point or the communication point.

Guess what, federated still doesn't click, it is a mental block, I haven't gotten to the bit where I have the physical analogue for federated. Say for example after we get over the amazeballs of email, then we come across the CC or BCC, wow a mass mail out, basically wow that's cool, oh what there is junk mail too? All these existing real world analoges perfect communicated in a few words or just word, the matching precedence and experience.

Federated. None. The email is example is used, I had to read it twice, I got ti the second time, but the engine still don't start. No fire lit. We're talking the light bulb moment 9and this is very different to the multitude of technical lightbulbs the tec/dev will encounter, the end user in the main, will not care to know as they will never have time to know, that's mass market)

  1. I'm just vining off the idea, how to explain it not the technical choices. However, we do live with it on community in the raw state, so there is that and I have reposeded to that. I suggested a filter or two types of modes iirc, I'll have to dig out that topic. Sunglasses or no sunglasses browsing.

What I need to do is set up activity pub technically on something somewhere to enjoy the whole, to take the next step whenever that happens.

I dunno yet if Activitypub is "wouldn't' it be cool if..." or "how did we do x to get to y before we had z, I'll never know!", the later is pending the former not unusual to be consigned to the due heap of thing time forgot.

Additionally, there are now people who have completed grown up in a dn live live to much in cyberspace and cyberspace is actually retarding real space IMHO, the problems of cyberspace do not necessarily solve the problem of living space as much as they use to (mail > email). I think we're at a point where the things we engage and do are consuming more than it is now returning, and Ai is a clear milestone on that front.

Broad points, but here is the challenge, explain Acitivyt Pub in 20 maybe 30 words, within or not a NodeBB context, or both.

How about that as a challenge?

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With research how bot this

I am in a field I shout @person who I know is in a field somewhere else. I can not see them but they hear me and can reply and I hear them, in a world of separated fields distance is zero using @person@field.com under activity pub

Does this work? I can't tell... you tell me.

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@kichae@catodon.social said in Explaining the fediverse is a hard problem.:

<p><span><a href="https://community.nodebb.org/user/bean%40uvix.cc">@<span>bean</span></a></span><span> </span><span><a href="//https://community.nodebb.org/user/julian">@<span>julian</span></a></span><span> </span></p><blockquote><span>And the problem is that people don't get how a Facebook post could be a Tweet. And even if they can get that, it's more confusing how a Reddit post could be an Instagram post. </span></blockquote><span>The thing that gets me is how people don't grok this. It's still weird to me that so much of the Internet has become closed off. Growing up with email, forums, and IRC, it seems only natural that the internet is modular and portable.<br /><br />And the kicker is, even people on the Fediverse have this centralized model for how it works in their mind. People behave as if everything lives in some central place, and that their chosen instance is just some kind of dumb terminal with a window. You can see it when people talk about blocking users or even other instances at the server level -- people react as if they're arbitrarily being denied access to some part of this central repository by some lording gatekeeper, rather than witnessing a website owner or community refusing to host content from actors they don't want to platform.</span><p></p>

I think the only problem here is you assume people should be able to "grok" it. Most people didn't actually grow up in those other "fields", forums IRC etc. etc.

In fact tech has moved so much that people need to think zero about how things work they just work - magic, you can thank Apple or not for that approach, this is where the tech is simply an appliance to the user, like a microwave, not hard to use, easy to understand without having a clue about magnetrons or the brith of radar, but we can tell each other the anecdote about the scientist whose mars bar melting in his pocket as the inspiration to use it to hear food (if that story is even true or a modern myth) it doesn't matter, we all stand back a fe feet form the bring microwaves until the dish is done! Just in case, we understand how the tech works better through the danger of it than anything else!

So really, I think it is actually perfectly normal for people not to get this. If we orientate around this truth then you can solve the problem you perceive.

The clue is in the title of the OP šŸ˜‰

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@bean@uvix.cc said in Explaining the fediverse is a hard problem.:

And the problem is that people don't get how a Facebook post could be a Tweet. And even if they can get that, it's more confusing how a Reddit post could be an Instagram post.

This is a good observation, but Do they have to get it?

They only have to get it if they want it, if they want to do it.

Why would they want to do this?

Perhaps you are encountering this unarticulated confusion they are experiencing as you try to explain it. In their mind they are thinking, but sure wy would i need this, I have insta, all my buds are there.

Habits are powerful and once people are locked into a platform they are sticky, they leave they are usually gone fro good. It's all or nothing most of the time.

Early adoption is invariably more miss than hit and is not the preserve of the masses.

I cite Apple again, they learned this, they wait till things mature and there is a decent enough desire. Now there headset is a good example. They might be pushing their wait envelope on this but they did wait. Whereas others were out of the gates years before, in fact the idea has been around for decades.

VR is one of the harder sells, and ActivityPub may be the VR of online content creation.

Does the ordinary person even think of themselves as a "content creator" they really don't, they think of themselves as themselves (if posting under their real name or at least photo) That's the majority of people. They want to express as s there want in the moment, they get the likes and insights, feedback and they feel a positive feedback and worth and value and move on - is amplifying that across disparate platforms something they really need?

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Omega, I get it that you dont like the word Federated. Are you in USA where this has more historical connotations?

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I already use Mastodon as apposed to Twitter so guess thats why Im onboard.
So my interested would be further federation, if I could forget Mastodon and use my community.nodebb login in a mastodon type app, that would be great.
With whats already implemented, how far off is the principle of using my Federation nodebb account outside of this websiye @julian ?

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@julian I wanted to message mastodon account and reply from there, as part of Omegas 20 word challenge.
I didnt get the message to my Mathstodon.xyz account, why might that be?

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@eeeee where's the response you're looking for?