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.

  • Xiphorang@kbin.social
    63·
    1 year ago

    While you’re correct, it’s just a clunky term. I think some other way to refer to the whole thing will probably come along soon, and in a few years, people will regard saying fediverse the same way we look back on people talking about “surfing the information superhighway” or whatever.

    • sab@kbin.social
      9·
      1 year ago

      I would love it if we just went all early 1990s and started saying “hello Internet!” or something beautifully corny like that.

      In the end activitypub is a standard recognized by the W3C, so it would be kind of accurate.

    • Cat@kbin.socialOP
      7·
      1 year ago

      Definitely a clunky term. It will be interesting to see what the feds come up with. Lets see if that catches on :-D

      Seriously, I’m sure something good will emerge.

      • Kichae@kbin.social
        3·
        1 year ago

        I’m not convinced that something good will emerge.

        Keep in mind we still use “internet”.

        • Xiphorang@kbin.social
          2·
          1 year ago

          Yeah, but we used to call it the information superhighway and the worldwide web. Internet IS the good term. It may well be that fediverse sticks around so long that we all get used to it, but at the moment, eh. I think if someone somewhere suggests a good alternative, we’ll all likely jump on it.

        • Boz (he/him)@lemmy.one
          1·
          1 year ago

          “Internet” is closer to a lot of existing English words than “fediverse,” though. “Fediverse” might get familiar over time, and it might make more sense to non-English-speakers, but I think it’s a more exotic construction than “internet.”

    • bvanevery@kbin.social
      2·
      1 year ago

      Dang I totally forgot all about that term. Been awhile. Well it eventually reduced to “surfing the net”.

      The thing about the internet, is it was the thing to make it only one net. Previously there were weird systems like bitnet, VMSnet, where you had to juggle email address encoding standards to get balkanized college campus networks to talk back and forth to each other.

      “The web” became the subset of the net, that worked with web browsers. Only one thing.

      Was there a “The Facebook” period? Or was that just a movie name?

      So then we passed through a period of brands. Reddit is a brand. It is not altogether surprising that people would refer to the fediverse in terms of brands. Lemmy, kbin, beehaw, whatever.

      Email and the web had/have specific protocols associated with them. The fediverse has multiple protocols. We’re using ActivityPub, which seems to have won as a standard. It isn’t exactly catchy or smooth flowing off the tongue.

      Ok, if we try to brain crunch all these previous trends, here’s what it’s going to be called, if it hasn’t been already:

      THE VERSE

      The difference between the fediverse and the universe will be forgotten. Linguistically, people will not keep up with that detail. Only old timers / early adopters will notice that linguistic change.

      Possibly, ‘verse’ will come to be seen as short for multiverse.