I described it as “Mastodon’s Reddit”. Which is inaccurate, and I’m not happy with it. How would you phrase it?
Interconnected group of reddits. Any such reddit is called a ‘instance’.
Instead of having one instance, you have multiple independent instances that can see each other’s content and post on each.
That makes them federated. Some instances filter what their users can see, others don’t. They can be self-hosted.Unlike in the OG reddit, votes are transparent, and you can see if users got banned somewhere with the reasons why.
I’ld describe it more as “reddit, but without a single company owning all the login servers. Anyone (wirh money) can make their own server and make subs on there, even have their own rules, but you can still visit other servers all on one account, so nobody really has control over all the subs to make up stupid rules for them.”
It’s the dumbed down explanation, but it’s essentially the difference for non-nerds.
A non-Fediverse person wouldn’t know Mastodon, would they?
Usually I say it’s like a thousand different tiny Reddits that all subscribe to each other. No central owner, no central operator. If any one of them gets unruly, the others can just shun them.
THEN I sometimes say “do you remember Mastodon?” And half the time they are like “oh yeah! That Twitter alternative!” And I say yes like that but for Reddit.
Reddit for nerds and political extremists.
Reddit with a slightly more community centred ownership structure so it’s a bit harder to enforce unpopular decisions.
Decentralized and noncommercial reddit
First thing asked “Decentralized?”
And it’s one of those things where those who care already know, and those that don’t care won’t : “get it” by you explaining it.
“Decentralized?”
“Like email” is a quick way to explain that.
“Oh, I’m good. I don’t need another email. I don’t even use the one I have”.
Is how that explaination would go.
It really isn’t, I had no idea what people were on about when they said that and it sidetracked me from actually reaching a proper understanding. The analogy makes sense and seems apt, when you already understand the concept but not when you don’t.
I found it pretty easy by explaining that if reddit is a website, then Lemmy is a search engine that just has a similar feel to it.
It isn’t accurate, but gets the point across to those who don’t understand tech.
I call it “socialist Reddit” or “anti-social media”
Many parallel reddit-like services which can interact with each others’ content if they choose to allow it.
A bunch of smaller Reddits all combined together, without karma, and more tech-focused content.
If reddit had many servers not just one. Thats how I do it, since people dont understand mastadon either. And using the word instance is ludicrous. It confused me early on myself
I don’t think a non-Fediverse person would be very familiar with Mastodon. They’d be more likely to go “What, like elephants?”.
I would keep it really simple, and just go for “Reddit alternative”. The whole Federation and decentralised business is going to be a sledgehammer if you introduce it to someone who’s not familiar with the concept.
“Imagine a hydra with an infinite number of heads. Some of the heads are arguing, some have got their necks knotted, and some are french-kissing. One of them is wearing a pirate hat.”
Reddit in slow-motion.
Reddit.
Without the cunt on top who put it down.
And there won’t ever be one, because there’s no chair for him to sit in.
I’ve found comparing it to email works well. It’s about the only (mostly) decentralised service that most people have used.
“It’s like Reddit, but is decentralised, like email is.”, “This makes it far harder to manipulate to hide information.”
