The linked post shows how most non-tech people’s understanding of email is very very different from most of the people here.
If you want to get non-techy users, then there is absolutely no need to even use the word fediverse or to try to explain what any of this means. If you want to help a friend get onboard, just send them a link to sign up on the same server that you use, or a nice general purpose server. That’s it. They sign up, they use it, and THEN they can start to learn about fediverse shit if they care to.
Yes. You can use it without understanding how it works behind the scenes. At some point, they’ll run into a situation where it is helpful to learn some part of how the fediverse works and then they can ask about it, generating more content and interaction along the way
"you know how you can’t talk to someone on Twitter.com from facebook.com? But you can email from your @gmail.com to someone with an @yahoo.com address?
That’s the difference, federated social media is like email in this way."
I’m mostly sure even my elderly parents understood it when I said it…
till they throw you the curveball that they can indeed talk to someone on twitter from facebook.
And you know how, when you subscribe to a mailing list, you will only receive new mail sent to the list if your server happens to “federate” with the sender’s server?
Oh wait, that’s not how e-mail works.
I don’t think it matters. the specific ways in which email services work or are used are not what the analogy is supposed to explain.
it’s supposed to explain how two people who log in to different lemmy instances is different from logging into Facebook and MySpace, or Twitter and Threads.
"how does it work? aren’t they different sites?’
“you know how you can have a gmail and someone else can use an outlook email but you can still send emails to each other”
done. even 70 year olds would get it. problem solved. easy, approachable analogy.
I now after many years of living understand most people don’t care or even want to understand how anything works. It completely baffles me.
Everyone I know says I’m smart but nah, I was literally in special Ed classes in school. I’m proven slower than the rest, but I am just curious and want to understand how things work which no one else does. It blows my mind how uninterested people are in the things they use everyday
I am just curious and want to understand how things work which no one else does.
It depends on how interested you are in a subject. Everything is interesting, but you may not find everything equally interesting, nor do you have time to know everything there is to know about everything.
For instance, if I fly somewhere, I have a general idea of how wings create lift. But if you try to explain it to me in detail, I’ll tell you to piss off because all I really want to do is travel from A to B.
But I know plenty about other subjects that I’m really into, that I could bore you to tears with and you’d end up punching me in the face if I tried to explain them to you.
It’s not okay to not know anything about something. But it’s okay to know enough.
That’s fine but when people use technology every day, their phones, computers, ect… and not know what a web browser is that’s a whole different level of ignorance. Not just computing tho also cars. I barely know much about cars but I understand the idea of an engine, like you said it’s okay to know enough. If something breaks on my car I look it up on YouTube and learn a little more slowly. Some people tho will drive a car everyday for their entire life and not understand what a piston even is.
I’m really disappointed with Lemmy’s idea of federation: all it is is a bunch of servers mirroring one another, but the user accounts are server-bound. No jumping instance and taking your identity seamlessly with you.
This is exactly like email though.
You have a gmail account that is tied to google. You have to login to gmail to access your email but you can email anyone in the world. Some people use different providers so they have different email addresses.
If you want to change providers there is no easy way to do it. You can use imapsync or export to pst and import to new provider and so on, or maybe your new provider gives you tools for importing mail from your old mailbox but it’s not a feature of email protocol(s) to do this.
Don’t explain anything, there’s literally no point. Why are nerds so insistent that people understand technology?
Just tell people to make an account on any instance, whichever one you like best, and let them experience federation. Even if they never really understand what is happening they can still use the service. It’s not like any of them understand how email works, and yet they all use email. Understanding is worthless. Stop being nerds.
People have been using email since they were five and all modern lives depend on it. If they don’t understand federation they will just be confused why they can’t see the content and leave. “I didn’t understand it and it didn’t work” is one of the more commons reasons I’ve seen on Reddit for failing lemmy
Doesn’t it default to All? Or at least Local? Shouldn’t they just see a feed of everything if they go to the main page?
The experience is almost exactly the same as Reddit if you don’t worry about federation or technicalities.
I think admins choose, but tbh reddit is also pretty algorithmic these days
But they should still see content, even if they don’t understand anything.
The only way they won’t is if the admins decided users shouldn’t see anything without first subscribing to something, which is a terrible way to ease people in to the service. There needs to be a default feed so normies can use it too!
I think one of the main reasons why the fediverse didn’t blow up much bigger than it did over the past couple of years is because of the weird and insistent need to explain how it works from every possible angle with seemingly every possible analogy. It’s information overload and it only confuses the shit out of people who do not care in the slightest how it works.
Hmm… maybe if we tell the nerds that they need to add an “abstraction layer” to their explanations that might motivate them to simplify?
Strong agree. Just tell people to go to feddit.org and call it a day
This is how you get people whining about there being 8 different “Politics” groups, and insisting they should be allowed to erase the identity of the hosting website.
The patchwork nature of the fediverse is baked into the technology. If people don’t at least have a basic model for how it behaves, then they’re just going to get pissed off at it and leave.
Ypu don’t need to know how an internal combustion engine works to drive, but you have to understand how driving works, both from the perspective of operating a car, and from that of the conventions of the road.
“Just find a pretty car and hop behind the wheel” is bad advice for everyone.
as soon as you say “make an account” their eyes will glaze over. if not, as soon as they hear “instance” their eyes glaze over. if not, as soon as they hear “whichever one you like best” their eyes will glaze over.
Sorry, you misread what I said 😅
You, the recommender, are the one picking the instance. Whichever one you like best! Don’t bother telling them anything about instances, that’s a waste of time. Just say “go to lemmy.world and post” and don’t bother explaining anything else.
Oh, gotcha, that would be more successful for sure.
So Cars are designed & built by nerds, so are you gonna stop driving cars ? Imagine telling people that you shouldn’t bother trying to learn
I’m telling people that it’s okay to be a normie.
And it is.
Car nerds can be car nerds to support the normies who can only drive.
Don’t explain anything, there’s literally no point. Why are nerds so insistent that people understand technology?
All people understand Ohm’s law now. It took only 150 years of explaining.
I promise you that if you collect 10 random people and ask them what Ohms law is, at most you get 5 that knows it’s something about electricity. You are lucky if you have one that knows it.
It’s taught in every school… At least in Europe.
Great. So is history, trigonometry and literature.
It doesn’t mean adults know it. Most of what you learn in school will be forgotten unless you have a reason to keep using it.
They all complain about “Muh Open source UI bad” Ok then what is considered a good UI/UX according to you lot (Not you lot in particular I’m not trying to start any beef here)
& how does one decide that particular UI is User-Friendly ?
One button to expand pictures similar to RES would be a big improvement
Built-in keyword filters are another one
And of course, multi-communities
Those are cool ideas honestly
a user friendly user interface is one that the user is already familiar with. It is subjective, determined by the user, and will vary from user to user.
Think about the placement of face buttons for an xbox controller vs a ninttendo switch controller, specifically A and B. The function of menu accept is always on a, and menu back is always on b, but the physical placement of those buttons are opposite on the competing platform. Now think about a playstation controller, and where it puts menu accept and menu back. The glyphs are different, but a nintendo player will find it intuitive while the xbox player will be confused.
Juat copy what is most used so people dont have to learn anything new ever again
I know how email works but it sure didn’t help me understand the fediverse.
It’s just one thing in email servers functioning that is similar in the fediverse, everything else is not similar. It is just confusing to compare the two to anyone not yet knowing how the fediverse works IMO.
“It’s like the postal service!”
“It’s like the internet!”
Just say it’s like reddit (or a social media) but free and open and anyone can have/make one, or use an existing one. For free.
/Rant off
Same. I don’t know why people keep trying to use the email example, personally I found it too much of an abstract concept that doesn’t necessarily work for Lemmy.
If I knew someone used Reddit then I’d just say it’s like Reddit but instead of a single authority in charge of Reddit, anyone can take the Reddit software and host it themselves, and if you create an account on one site you can still subscribe to subreddits on other sites and vote and comment on posts.
I didn’t pick my email my employer did. Other then work ionly use email for account verification, password reset and trqcking shipping. No really i have only sent a dozen or so emails not related to work.
One way to help the feediverse is to drop federation. No one uses that word no one knows what it emans. At best they will be “so its like Star trek”.
