Hashtags do not replace groups.
No one moderates them. They’re easy to hijack and spam. And there’s simply no permanence to them.
Which is why, if you actually want to discuss something, it’s better to tag a group. For example, if you want to be part of an actual PC gaming community on the Fediverse, it’s better to tag @pcgaming@lemmy.ca than #pcgaming.
This needs to be common knowledge because people new to the Fediverse do not know about groups. Hell, I’d say people who have had Mastodon accounts for years still don’t know. And that’s a shame.
@fediverse@lemmy.world
@atomicpoet @fediverse TBH I think a lot of people (including me) have a very sketchy idea of how the different bits of the Fediverse link together… I’m still a bit vague about how my #Mastodon and #Pixelfed accounts could work better together.
There’s a lot of *assumed knowledge* about the #Fediverse … and people don’t want to ask ‘stupid’ questions because they don’t want to ‘look stupid’. There needs to be easily accessible and explicit step by step instructions *to get people started*.
Where could I find a group about #ux or #humancentredesign for example? Or #photography ?
@Coolmccool@mastodon.au @fediverse@lemmy.world The best way to explain #Pixelfed is that it’s an Instagram-like front-end for the Fediverse. But practically speaking, it’s Mastodon if pictures were a requirement on Mastodon. You interact with a Pixelfed account from Mastodon in much the same way you interact with another Mastodon account, or how you’re interacting with my Akkoma account right now. It really is just like email.
Regarding group topics, the best way to find them is to do a search on a place like lemmy.world or lemmy.ca. For example,
uiux@programming.devis one. And you can find the URL here:https://programming.dev/c/uiux
@atomicpoet @fediverse @Coolmccool I think you’re missing the point - it’s not “what is PF/Masto/whatever”, it’s “how do they relate to each other, exactly, in a way I can understand & benefit from?” I’ve been in fedi for a few years & have, in fact, been asking the stupid questions, but I still don’t quite understand either…
@jwcph @fediverse @Coolmccool The best way to understand the Fediverse is not as a collection of servers but instead as actors that implement activities.
You are an actor. A Lemmy community is an actor. A bot is an actor. An app is an actor.
All these things do certain activities. One activity is to like a post. Another activity is to repost.
And all these apps like Mastodon are just presenting these actors/activities in a certain format.
Hope that explains things.
@atomicpoet @fediverse @Coolmccool It doesn’t, not even close. It’s way too abstract, even for me - I absoutely guarantee you, nobody looking for an alternative to keeping up with friends on Insta or Facebook will be able to connect what you just said to that need / desire, let alone make a decision based on it.
@jwcph @fediverse @Coolmccool No, those concepts aren’t for everyday users. It’s for developers. For the same reason a homeowner doesn’t need to know the ins and out of architecture, an everyday user does need to know about the architecture of the Fediverse.
Nevertheless, it’s how ActivityPub works—and I will go more in depth in a future thread for those who want to know.
@atomicpoet @fediverse @Coolmccool That’s what I mean - I think you’re missing the point. I don’t think anyone is expecting every developer to also be able to explain the usefulness of the fediverse to casual users, but some of us do feel, I think, that there’s a lack of fundamental recognition that developer explanations are beside the point as far as most regular people are concerned, which can cause the unwelcoming impression for non-devs that we hear people talk about fairly regularly.
I have literally zero interest in cross pollination between social media types.
They each have their own interfaces that work best for their communities and content types. You’re always missing something trying to access one from another.
If you have zero interest in the fundamental architecture of the fediverse, why are you in this community? You’re probably interacting with “cross pollination” way more than you realize.
I follow topics and have discussions on Lemmy, keep up with individuals and announcements on Mastodon, and look at cool photos on Pixelfed.
None of my accounts are following anything on other systems.
The reason I’m in this community is for discussions like this. We disagree on the nature of using he fundamental architecture of the Fediverse.
I think using Mastodon to engage in Lemmy discussions is extremely awkward without the threading to keep it all organized. Equally, Lemmy is designed specifically around following communities. Following individuals on Mastodon breaks the pattern of the feed. And good luck following either Mastodon accounts or Lemmy groups in Pixelfed.
However, having multiple decentralized servers within each system, is plenty of reason for the Fediverse to be better than a centralized platform. They don’t Need to interoperate with each other.
For real. He replied to my Akkoma post, which tagged this Lemmy group. 😆
Which I would never respond to on Mastodon, as it’s terrible for discussions.
Mastodon is terrible for topical discussions because people don’t use groups. But they can if they knew how to use them.
You may say the system was not designed for cross-pollination, but the fundamental system is not Mastodon, and it’s not Lemmy: it’s ActivityPub.
Now do all these apps implement ActivityPub imperfectly? Yes. But eventually, some app will get it right—ideally one that will let you choose your preferred UI/UX on the fly.
That would be cool. Might be useful. Not sure it’s really possible.
Not only is it possible, there’s lots of Fediverse software that’s just designed to be a “dumb server” akin to Nginx. For example, appy:
https://appy.cat/
Now the reason this stuff hasn’t caught fire yet is because we’re just now moving away from “Fediverse = Mastodon”. So the idea of federation itself isn’t just a paradigm shift, it’s a complete system shock that disrupts our mental models for how social media is supposed to work.
That’s entirely dependent on the interface switching, or some kind of universal interface. That’s the part I have serous doubts about. Keep in mind you have to make a single interface that work better than all the others on their respective native systems. I’m not sure that’s possible.