Fediverse

We have to stop sending end users to software solutions for web admins. We don't send them yo "nginx" or "apache", after all.

Someone throw up a website using this software and give the site a sensible name, and then direct users to that website.

It's not that bad. It's just German for flea market. And English speakers shouldn't have an issue with at least "Markt". Not far from a cognate.

Definitely better names but I think the bigger hurdle is getting the critical mass to get something like marketplace to work in the fediverse even with the perfect name.

Does it? If you set up an instance for your local community/city/whatever, and name it something that makes sense for your intended userbase, I think it would be fine.

It goes from "I sold my couch on FlohMarkt" to "I sold my couch on Local Ottawa Marketplace" for the 'normies' out there. They're not going to care about the underlying software so long as their couch gets sold.

Do recommend a DIY local advertising strategy if trying to get something like this running, though - posters at IRL flea markets, adverts in small community papers for antiques and collectibles, crossposts/links to postings on stuff like MaxSold/Kijiji/Craigslist/GumTree/FB Marketplace/[insert online marketplace operating in your area] by first adopters, that kind of thing.

Focus on the current primary use case of centralized marketplace services (buying shit from your neighbours), then introduce the "Oh yeah, we've also set it up so you can see postings on Local Toronto Marketplace, Local Kingston Marketplace, Marché Local de Montréal" etc. from there.

I really, really think talking to people in terms of specific instances over the overarching platform/protocol is a way around 'normie' confusion about the Fediverse when first trying it, then getting exposure to how it works in practice will help them understand the nitty gritty stuff better. Is this problematic in some cases, like with Lemmy? A little bit, yeah. For something like FlohMarkt? I think less so.

('normie' in quotes 'cause I'm not the biggest fan of the term, but it's a useful shorthand)

"Facebook" is an equally alienating name if you don't know English. But I agree, German is difficult!

At least when I used Craigslist, there was no social network element to it, so it was difficult to determine the trustworthiness of any given poster.

For that reason, I don't want a Fediverse clone of Craigslist -- I want an existing Fediverse platform to add a marketplace. I will not use anonymous marketplaces.

I think an English localization as 'Flowmarkt' or 'Flowmarket' might be more catchy in English-speaking countries, since the intended pronunciation for 'Flohmarkt' isn't clear at a first glance.

just read it as 'flow market,' realized it was german, and looked up the word. it doesn't look weird at first glance.

I read it as being pronounced something like "flow-marked"

Non-German but I am in the EU. Didn't find it odd at all. Just assumed it was "flow market" in German.

Initial impressions of the name are not great.

Indonesian here.

Indonesian have highest trilingual population in the world, and our country regularly import foreign pop media, like from Japan, China, Turkiye, French, Argentine, and so on.

That name seems cool and we will never have problem with it.

In fact, a lot of FOSS software in Asia almost always use local language or pop culture reference for their project. Whether it's in Chinese, Persian, Hindi, Javanese, Japanese, and so on.

"flow market"

Definitely weird on first reading. New names often seem weird or dumb at first so maybe I'll just get used to it. Anglicizing it might make sense? Fleamarkt?

Swede here, see no issue with the name. I'll just ignore the h when pronouncing though.

Feel free to host an US instance :)

Maybe you can request your instance to be added here: https://codeberg.org/flohmarkt/flohmarkt/wiki/flohmarkt-instances

They need to use an easier name, like Kleinanzeigen or something

It's German