My nontechnical hobby circle is all about the insta, sadly. Facebook, too. It’s an uphill battle full of people that expect you have them: They look at you funny if you don’t have one. It’s as if you said you don’t have email.
Just remember, people will be more open to trying the stuff you’re into if you’re compassionate about the things they’re frustrated with!
(This is intended for anyone who wants friends or acquaintances to try the fediverse platforms. For those who don’t or don’t care that’s perfectly valid too :)
Most of the big ones at least have some kind of coherence behind their naming scheme.
The open source stuff is like: prehistoric hairy elephant, misspelled name of animal used as a metaphorical comparison for people doing dumb shit in a mob which seems to be insulting it’s users, and then some random words slapped onto the word fed - none of which sound good.
I thought Diaspora was a decent sounding name. If it had more traction and actually pulled a sizeable diaspora away from Facebook it would have fit better than Facebook, Twitter/X, or Instagram’s names.
It’s like Lemmy but with consolidated comments, flairs, spoilers, polls, topics, feeds (like multireddits), proper blocks, hashtags, piped video integration, disclaimer messages, better mod and reporting tools.
Is it like, a whole other network with different people or is it like a different front-end to the lemmyverse ? This is kind of confusing ? And what about that “kbin” I keep hearing about, is that the same deal ?
Lemmy is a software that people can host on their computer, and many people doing that form what is essentially a bunch of mini-reddits that can talk to each other to create one big platform.
Piefed is trying to fulfill the same goals as Lemmy, and is even fully compatible with Lemmy, so someone hosting a piefed server on their computer can join in with all the Lemmy servers, and to the Lemmy people, it appears to them like any other Lemmy server.
But underneath everything, the code base is entirely different. The commonality they share, along with mastodon, is they all use ActivityPub, which is the standard that allows them to all communicate and be compatible with each other, just like there’s an email standard.
Kbin (now Mbin) is yet another Lemmy compatible software that you can host on your computer, but it also tried to implement features that make it more like mastodon (twitter-like), so it can act both like reddit, with threads and comments and communities around single subjects, or be like mastodon and work with hashtags and following individuals instead of communities, like a microblogging website.
They also use different interfaces, but it’s only visible to people who directly use that server; to others who access it from their home server, it’ll adopt the look of the software their home server is using.
So as an example, you are using Lemmy since your home server is Lemmy.ml. if you visit a community hosted on a piefed server from within your Lemmy, like !fullmoviesonyoutube@piefed.social, it’ll look like any other Lemmy community.
But if you directly go to that piefed server by going to https://piefed.social/c/fullmoviesonyoutube you’ll see it from the piefed interface, since you’re accessing that piefed server directly.
All of three of the different federated Reddit-like softwares are intercompatible, so they all make up one big network.
I would suggest that it is as complex as you wish to know.
My explanation above is not truly required to effectively use a federated platform, in the same way that most email users don’t actually know how precisely email works, and would find an in-depth explanation of it very complex.
All someone needs to know about email is that they must login to their email host provider, and that every user they might send email to has a unique name, and possibly a different host name after the @ symbol.
In the same way, the only thing someone needs to know about this platform, is they must login to the same place they signed up to (their host provider). They can then use it in a similar way to reddit. They might wonder why usernames or communities have different names after the @, but it doesn’t actually impede using the platform to not understand.
If anything, that might make it easier to use than email.
One thing I don’t understand, the clients (and servers) have different features ? So how are they compatible with each other ? I understand the activitypub allows interoperatibility, but if piefed for crosspost agglomeration but lemmy doesn’t, how is that mismatch handled ?
Are they extensions that are just not supported like on XMPP ?
I think I’d want to run each of the 3 webui locally, to figure out which I actually like, but does that mean I should runt he 3 backends as well so that all the features work ?
Is there one backend that basically does it all and I should only run that one ? I do have plenty over ram with many HP G8 DL380 and 256gb ram each so … it’s mostly a matter of “crossing the desert” and configuring each one, which I suspect will be pretty similar but each with their own little gotcha (speaking as a self-hosting veteran, there’s always something)
It’s a different frontend with different features. You could be reading this very post on a Piefed instance instead of a Lemmy instance. Ditto for kbin.
Me literally every time my friends start bitching about Instagram.
I’m always like “who the fuck uses Instagram?” I guess I’m living in a different world entirely.
My nontechnical hobby circle is all about the insta, sadly. Facebook, too. It’s an uphill battle full of people that expect you have them: They look at you funny if you don’t have one. It’s as if you said you don’t have email.
One of my DnD groups only share IG memes so I never see them because I don’t have IG.
My negative outlook on life pushes friends away so I don’t have that problem.
You’re playing D&D with losers
You should have a better DnD group
Primarily 20s-30s something women. If you’re not that demographic, you might not be keen on is usage.
Don’t forget 20-30 dudes who don’t know how to wash or talk to women desperately trying to chase those women.
Just remember, people will be more open to trying the stuff you’re into if you’re compassionate about the things they’re frustrated with!
(This is intended for anyone who wants friends or acquaintances to try the fediverse platforms. For those who don’t or don’t care that’s perfectly valid too :)
What’s the second logo?
First picture I found on Google for each because I’m lazy but there they are with pictures attached.
Piefed
Lemmy
Mastodon
Pixelfed
Most of these names are absolutely atrocious.
To be fair, are there any social media platforms that don’t have a kind of stupid name?
Most of the big ones at least have some kind of coherence behind their naming scheme.
The open source stuff is like: prehistoric hairy elephant, misspelled name of animal used as a metaphorical comparison for people doing dumb shit in a mob which seems to be insulting it’s users, and then some random words slapped onto the word fed - none of which sound good.
Its one of the two hard problems of computer science after all
I thought Diaspora was a decent sounding name. If it had more traction and actually pulled a sizeable diaspora away from Facebook it would have fit better than Facebook, Twitter/X, or Instagram’s names.
The outer right one? This is lemmy. A link aggregator like reddit
Right. But what’s the one on the left?
Pixelfed
Piefed?
It’s like Lemmy but with consolidated comments, flairs, spoilers, polls, topics, feeds (like multireddits), proper blocks, hashtags, piped video integration, disclaimer messages, better mod and reporting tools.
https://join.piefed.social/features/
A very concise description, wonderful! 👍
Is it like, a whole other network with different people or is it like a different front-end to the lemmyverse ? This is kind of confusing ? And what about that “kbin” I keep hearing about, is that the same deal ?
Lemmy is a software that people can host on their computer, and many people doing that form what is essentially a bunch of mini-reddits that can talk to each other to create one big platform.
Piefed is trying to fulfill the same goals as Lemmy, and is even fully compatible with Lemmy, so someone hosting a piefed server on their computer can join in with all the Lemmy servers, and to the Lemmy people, it appears to them like any other Lemmy server.
But underneath everything, the code base is entirely different. The commonality they share, along with mastodon, is they all use ActivityPub, which is the standard that allows them to all communicate and be compatible with each other, just like there’s an email standard.
Kbin (now Mbin) is yet another Lemmy compatible software that you can host on your computer, but it also tried to implement features that make it more like mastodon (twitter-like), so it can act both like reddit, with threads and comments and communities around single subjects, or be like mastodon and work with hashtags and following individuals instead of communities, like a microblogging website.
They also use different interfaces, but it’s only visible to people who directly use that server; to others who access it from their home server, it’ll adopt the look of the software their home server is using.
So as an example, you are using Lemmy since your home server is Lemmy.ml. if you visit a community hosted on a piefed server from within your Lemmy, like !fullmoviesonyoutube@piefed.social, it’ll look like any other Lemmy community.
But if you directly go to that piefed server by going to https://piefed.social/c/fullmoviesonyoutube you’ll see it from the piefed interface, since you’re accessing that piefed server directly.
All of three of the different federated Reddit-like softwares are intercompatible, so they all make up one big network.
Iv said it once and I’ll say it again.
This shit is needlessly complex.
I would suggest that it is as complex as you wish to know.
My explanation above is not truly required to effectively use a federated platform, in the same way that most email users don’t actually know how precisely email works, and would find an in-depth explanation of it very complex.
All someone needs to know about email is that they must login to their email host provider, and that every user they might send email to has a unique name, and possibly a different host name after the @ symbol.
In the same way, the only thing someone needs to know about this platform, is they must login to the same place they signed up to (their host provider). They can then use it in a similar way to reddit. They might wonder why usernames or communities have different names after the @, but it doesn’t actually impede using the platform to not understand.
If anything, that might make it easier to use than email.
Remember this big discussion? https://lemmy.ml/post/36058152
PieFed has had that feature for a long time, and many more besides. https://join.piefed.social/features/
Is there a piefed/mbin backend server or is it just an alternative webui client ?
I’m thinking of switching to a self-hosted single user lemmy instance and run all 3 self-hosted clients to my self-hosted server, is that practical ?
Yes, backend server.
https://codeberg.org/rimu/pyfedi/src/branch/main/INSTALL.md
You could run all 3 but it would be redundant as they all have the same content and people :D
One thing I don’t understand, the clients (and servers) have different features ? So how are they compatible with each other ? I understand the activitypub allows interoperatibility, but if piefed for crosspost agglomeration but lemmy doesn’t, how is that mismatch handled ?
Are they extensions that are just not supported like on XMPP ?
I think I’d want to run each of the 3 webui locally, to figure out which I actually like, but does that mean I should runt he 3 backends as well so that all the features work ?
Is there one backend that basically does it all and I should only run that one ? I do have plenty over ram with many HP G8 DL380 and 256gb ram each so … it’s mostly a matter of “crossing the desert” and configuring each one, which I suspect will be pretty similar but each with their own little gotcha (speaking as a self-hosting veteran, there’s always something)
Neither. It’s fully compatible with Lemmy but different on both the front and backends.
Summoning @rimu@piefed.social
No, piefed is just another front-end to the fediverse.
It’s a different frontend with different features. You could be reading this very post on a Piefed instance instead of a Lemmy instance. Ditto for kbin.
piefed; https://piefed.world/post/474293