(Reminder: if you have shared the original version in a public post with an old version up, replacing it with this one might be more helpful.)
I want to preface, if you see a mistake in the image or have something helpful to add, go right ahead! I still have the layered files for this, so edits can be made very quickly. I chose to handwrite the text to avoid font copyright infringement.
Feel free to share this poster as you wish, especially on Reddit. All I ask is that you respect the license and don’t remove my socials at the bottom. If anyone’s addition is included, I’ll credit them, and if this gets added onto (or translated) by someone else later, they can add their info as well.
I hope someone can find it useful with the subreddit blackouts right around the corner.
I want to thank the Beehaw admins so much for their amazing work!
(Poster edited; I spotted a duplicated word, [email protected] noted the lack of whitespace; current version is slightly larger and has been spaced out. You can still request the 800x2000 size, but know it is a little squished.)
(Edit 2: Removed defederation part as it’s not really required. The email analogy [email protected] suggested has been added, thanks!)
(Edit 3: Here’s another version making the interconnectivity a bit clearer and mentioning some cool-looking reader apps that have been suggested! Also made the image slightly longer for ease of viewing. I might do some small cosmetic changes tomorrow)
(Edit 4 is here with the date updated towards the bottom. This version contains a reminder to verify your email, lets people know why mlem isn’t showing up on App Store searches, and added fedia.io to Kbin instances. Some colors have been changed slightly to be more mobile friendly, as this is written and edited from a phone tablet. If you have a hard time reading this because of the changes, please let me know. Thank you all for the help and tips!)
As others have said, I would not talk about de-federation, and try to keep text as concise as possible. I believe we need a super easy, short and visual guide (this one is definitely on the right track).
I think the core concepts that should be illustrated are:
I believe these two are the most important bits of information (and what puzzles people the most)
I don't agree with the "it doesn't matter which one you join" part because each instance offers a different user experience, even though technically they are interconnected, and depending on mostly the size of the instance someone chooses, their experience can make or break the usability of the fediverse in their eyes.
I think people should be directed to instances with already vibrant communities and then when they learn the ropes, they'll find their best fit anyway.
I totally see your point here (and @[email protected]'s). Yet, I still believe this is one of the most puzzling things for new people. People are just used to sign up and go, the fact they have to choose where can be pretty baffling imo, and maybe push them to desist.
This is just my opinion, but I think we should think about making the transition as smooth as possible (little by little, people will understand how this works and get used to it). Talking about my personal experience, I signed up on feddit.it, but I always look at the
allfeed (so I'm actually mostly hanging in beehaw or lemmy.ml communities). Again, I totally get your point of view here, and you're totally correct. I'm just saying that my impression is people are super puzzled by the sign-up mechanism, which can be a pretty huge barrier preventing people from actually joining lemmy.This is kind of what I was thinking; it does matter which instance you joint in the sense that different servers have different goals, rules, and moderation, and saying it doesn’t matter isn’t quite right. It is true that you’ll see a lot of the same things across instances, though, and I’ll revise to add that in the next few hours.
I'd suggest adding something like "even though you can access the content on other instances, the user experience will differ depending on which instance you sign up for".
A good analogy would be using Facebook vs Twitter but being able to follow and post content cross platform from either of them.
One will not look and feel like the other, but they will let you read and reply to content from the other one.
For good measure add in reddit, hacker news, and discord in there too to help people visualize.
It's also important to give people a few clear instance examples to check out, but you already did enough of that I think.
Could you elaborate on why it doesn't matter which instance you join? Because I've tried accessing communities from other instances using my Beehaw account, and I'm unable to comment without registering under that instance first
You need to access them through Beehaw, not directly. This can be done through the Communities menu at the top, or the search function (put in the !community@place or the full direct url to the community).
For example, if I wanted to access technology on lemmy.ml, it is https://beehaw.org/c/[email protected].
Yes, seeing other instances communities from your own instance can be painful, and this is (as far as I understand) something the devs are working on. The way I do this is by simply setting the feed to
all, so that you can see communities from all instances. If you need to look for a specific community from another instance see here.Yep, definitely the second one. The join-lemmy was pretty confusing about it.