this post was submitted on 28 Mar 2025
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Fediverse

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A community to talk about the Fediverse and all it's related services using ActivityPub (Mastodon, Lemmy, KBin, etc).

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Learn more at these websites: Join The Fediverse Wiki, Fediverse.info, Wikipedia Page, The Federation Info (Stats), FediDB (Stats), Sub Rehab (Reddit Migration)

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What do you think about this graphic?

It should give an easy overview of the architecture of the Fediverse and what it differentiates from old social media.

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[–] PixelPilgrim@lemmings.world 2 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

It's actually a good graphic. I'd put a legend explaining some of the fediverse icons. And 2 sentences explaining that each fediverse icon communicated with other fediverse icons

[–] JustJack23@slrpnk.net 107 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Maybe remove the fediverse in the middle, if I knew nothing about the fediverse it will seem like it is centralized?

[–] DannyBoy@sh.itjust.works 78 points 5 days ago (2 children)

John Fediverse is in the middle, holding all the fediverse conmections together.

[–] lugal@lemmy.dbzer0.com 18 points 5 days ago

Is his first name John or Join?

[–] RainbowHedgehog@50501.chat 14 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)

This doesn’t explain things well. Lemmy is like a bunch of Reddits communicating with each other. The graphic makes it seem like there is just one Lemmy. Also, are Lemmy posts on Mastodon? Mastodon was largely empty last I checked.

Edit: I just now noticed the second Lemmy

[–] Coelacanth@feddit.nu 8 points 3 days ago (2 children)

Mastodon users can subscribe to Lemmy communities I think, but it doesn't really work very well. The Mastodon feed isn't really made to support threaded content so all the Lemmy comments will fill and mess up your feed.

[–] RainbowHedgehog@50501.chat 5 points 3 days ago

I think the ATProtocol is better when it comes to connecting between different social media types. But I think ActivityPub makes better use of different servers.

Though I think something like Lemmy is difficult for both because of how different it is from most other social media types.

[–] RainbowHedgehog@50501.chat 4 points 3 days ago

Also, I really like your username. I learned about that fish from Animal Crossing lol.

[–] ElderReflections@fedia.io 70 points 5 days ago (3 children)

I'd say these fall into the same trap that most fediverse explainers fall into — too focused on implementation details, not the experience. The average FB user thinks they're connecting to friends directly, not really considering the system architecture that powers it.

I'd like a graphic that shows how centralised media blocks connections to others outside thier walled garden.

[–] tfm 18 points 5 days ago (2 children)

Interesting. How would you put this into a picture?

My friend (the average social media user) also didn't seem too interested in it. I can imagine something interesting for the average user in a video but not in an image.

[–] JustAnotherKay@lemmy.world 5 points 4 days ago

I would add random instance names to the service icons, to show them that the websites are interconnected and not just the services

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[–] aeshna_cyanea@lemm.ee 4 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

The implementation details matter tho, your instance admin actively makes federation decisions that affect the content you see. I like to explain joining an instance as pledging yourself to a warlord in medieval Japan

[–] JubilantJaguar@lemmy.world 4 points 5 days ago

But surely the average Zuckerbook user is not so dumb as to miss what this graphic is describing - a crazy utopia where they could talk to people on TikTok and Xitter as well as Zuckerbook?

[–] carrion0409@lemm.ee 9 points 3 days ago (1 children)

I just got here but I've noticed this platform is much nicer compared to things like reddit. No bots, no ai softcore porn ads. I'll take the fediverse any day.

[–] tfm 5 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Nice to hear. :)

What convinced you to join?

[–] carrion0409@lemm.ee 5 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Some people in a left leaning subreddit told me it would be a good backup. Then just yesterday I got perma banned and the admins wouldn't tell me why. So now I'm here

[–] tfm 5 points 3 days ago (1 children)
[–] carrion0409@lemm.ee 5 points 3 days ago

Thanks ! They really were right when they said people here are much more pleasant than on reddit lol

[–] pinball_wizard@lemmy.zip 8 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

Needs more chains and walls between groups in the top picture. And maybe some ransom notes.

(This is more to try to make you laugh, than useful feedback, sorry. I don't have a very good idea how to actually include these concepts in a simple diagram.)

[–] Blaze@lemmy.dbzer0.com 29 points 5 days ago (1 children)
[–] tfm 24 points 5 days ago (1 children)

That's cool but I think that's too technical for the average social media user

[–] Blaze@lemmy.dbzer0.com 23 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (2 children)
[–] tfm 25 points 5 days ago (2 children)

That's cool too, but way too much text for it to be quickly consumed on a small display. This is more for the second stage when people are already curious and want to learn more, in my opinion.

[–] ApollosArrow@lemmy.world 15 points 5 days ago

I agree, yours is simpler and to the point. It gets the general idea across quicker. The links for blaze would be follow up things people would look into.

[–] vinyl@lemmy.world 7 points 5 days ago

Yea, too much yapping

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[–] melroy@kbin.melroy.org 20 points 5 days ago (2 children)
[–] Blaze@lemmy.dbzer0.com 17 points 5 days ago (1 children)
[–] tfm 9 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Here is the file link. Let's create multiple versions :D

https://www.canva.com/design/DAGjBaOKTmM/mVzeYlpGz2MwWMdMhFqQIg/edit

(Sorry for the proprietary service!)

[–] Blaze@lemmy.dbzer0.com 13 points 5 days ago (1 children)

(Sorry for the proprietary service!)

Ouch, brace yourselves, FOSS ninjas incoming 😄

[–] tfm 7 points 5 days ago

I'm not much of a designer 😅

[–] EarlGrey@discuss.tchncs.de 14 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

My criticism is that it largely ignores the primary advantage of Fediverse services (Decentralizing services that are designed to operate Centrally), while mostly explaining what I've always considered to be the most pointless feature (Cross Service posting).

It's a mildly neat feature if you want to centralize your entire social profile under one account (which is my security nightmare but you do you), but its not really fundamental to using federated services and its implementation can be inconsistent and confusing.

Maybe have a bunch of "Lemmy" (or whatever) nodes arranged in a circle, the same color, with the same icon, and connected to each other through the middle of the circle (not connecting to the "fediverse", although I guess you could have a transparent "Lemmy" super imposed over it) Then have the users connected to each node. Or something...I'm on a bench and just broadly visualizing it.

The next trick is explaining the fault of centralized services in a graph.

[–] Wanpieserino@lemm.ee 8 points 4 days ago (1 children)

There's no central authority here. But if it doesn't matter which instance you are on, then all the users on Lemmy are still just part of Lemmy.

On the graph I see other icons than Lemmy.

Are we able to see content from other social media? Or what is meant with that

[–] RvTV95XBeo@sh.itjust.works 14 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

Certain other content crosses boarders. Mastadon especially. Whenever you see people replying to messages and it starts with some sort of @user@lemmy.verse tagging, you're probably eavesdropping on a Mastadon thread and you don't even know it.

[–] therealjcdenton@lemmy.zip 7 points 4 days ago

GLOBALISTS ARE TAKING OVER

[–] Fediverse_Champion@lemm.ee 9 points 5 days ago (1 children)

For the top services, I’d make each of the blue background circles a different color to better denote that they’re proprietary and incompatible.

For the Fediverse section, you could add Tumblr, and other services who also federate via activity pub to show our interoperability and expansive reach.

[–] Blaze@lemmy.dbzer0.com 9 points 5 days ago

Tumblr

Is it already working?

[–] Snoopy@piefed.social 6 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (1 children)

Maybe you can show that, we don't alway federate with every instance, with several drawing of this cloud network.

That's also part of our freedom :)

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[–] es_eskaliert@feddit.org 5 points 5 days ago (2 children)

Okay maybe I don't get it but how can I access mastodon from my lemmy account?

[–] Coelacanth@feddit.nu 8 points 5 days ago (2 children)

Mastodon and Lemmy have only limited interoperability. You can't follow individual users on Lemmy, so most of it is one-way. Mastodon users can post to Lemmy communities by @-ing a specific community, and Lemmy users can then reply as normal and their replies will show up in the Mastodon users feed.

[–] Blaze@lemmy.dbzer0.com 15 points 5 days ago

That's why I'm always a bit reluctant to have an infographic with Mastodon and Lemmy fully connected. Sure, it's possible to interact, but it's not ideal.

Having another one with Lemmy, Mbin and Piefed servers could be better

[–] wise_pancake@lemmy.ca 7 points 5 days ago (8 children)

Subscribing to user posts on Lemmy would be a fantastic feature

[–] Blaze@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 points 5 days ago

Mbin has microblogging

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[–] tfm 7 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

Simply put your Mastodon profile URL into the search.

Eg. https://europe.pub/u/luislavena@mastodon.social

But it works better the other way around

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