I don’t think many people understand that if they use Lemmy or kbin, they are posting to the fediverse. There are other platforms and will be more to come. Referring to a post on “Lemmy” or “kbin” is like saying you saw a post on your Windows or Mac computer.

We should be referring to it as…

  • I saw it on the fediverse.
  • Hey fediverse users …
  • A thread on the fediverse…

New terms may emerge but referring to the platform seems weird, almost ignorant.

edit: A better example is email. You wouldn’t assume everyone is on Hotmail because that is the email provider you use. You say I’m sendingan eamail, not I’m sending a Hotmail.

  • PupBiru
    16•1 year ago

    it’s more correct to say they’re on lemmy than kbin though… they are interacting through lemmy: kbin is literally irrelevant to them

    … and that’s kinda the point of the fediverse isn’t it? you shouldn’t care where something is stored, and if you don’t care where it’s stored then you have only 1 way to refer to the space: the client by which you’re viewing it

    people referring to it as “lemmy” or “kbin” or “mastodon” is the fediverse working as intended, and that’s good news!

    (it’s also much better marketing for us! people search fediverse and they get a bunch of random descriptions about what it is… people search lemmy/kbin and at least they have a join button)

    • Old School Dreamer
      4•1 year ago

      You’re absolutely right, presenting an awesome website first and allowing the true nature of the fediverse to sneak up on people is a great way to handle it. Even if someone learns about the fediverse as a whole first somehow, they’ll need to figure out what ‘portal’ into it makes the most sense anyway.

    • Silverseren
      2•1 year ago

      Mastodon is at least something of a more generalized term at least, because that’s referring to hundreds of instances. And it has a specific (Twitter-esque) format that unites them. But Lemmy and Kbin has the same formatting structure (Reddit-esque). Makes me wonder if we need a specific, but generalized term that unites everything in this format.

      • Old School Dreamer
        7•1 year ago

        Well, the Twitter-esque format also extends to Misskey and Pleroma, and there are tons of those accounts interacting seamlessly with Mastodon instances. So in a way those microblogging instances face the same issue you’re describing between Lemmy and Kbin. In any case, I’m a fan of ‘threadiverse’ as a term for the Reddit-like instances.